Chapter 18 #2
Eiko stared in his direction. “How do you know I’m not sleeping in my bed?”
He scoffed. “You’re not the only one with a habit of reading all night.”
“You—” she began, but then stopped. He wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about the man whose office was right beside the library.
The only man who would have any idea that she wasn’t leaving the hall at night. The man who shouldn’t have known that, unless he paid close attention. The man who was utterly determined to haunt her dark-damned existence.
Cairn didn’t give her space to think any further. “Am I understood?”
She opened her mouth to retort, to insist that Cairn himself had been the one to show her to the library and instruct her to learn Chasin’s language, but he cut in again, his voice turning rougher.
“I don’t train corpses,” he said. “And I don’t train little blind girls determined to disappear inside their uniforms. You want to survive this?
You build muscle. You build strength. You might think you’re honing this …
skill … of yours, but you’re not. It’s eating you for fuel, and it’ll keep going until there’s nothing left of you. ”
Eiko swallowed. She hated that he made sense. She hated even more that the hunger inside her perked up at the word eating, like a dog hearing its leash unclip.
Eiko’s throat tightened. “Fine,” she whispered.
For a moment, Cairn didn’t speak. Then he said, “If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me.”
Right, because she was going to run to Chasin’s right-hand man and spill all her secrets. Did she really look that stupid?
“I’m fine,” she snarked, injecting a little more strength behind the declaration. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Cairn was scowling. She could feel it. “Whatever it is,” he growled, “stop letting ‘it’ happen. Do something about ‘it.’”
Eiko’s fingers curled around her staff. “Did you tell him?” she asked tightly. “You promised that my secret was safe with you. Why are you talking to him about me spending all night in the library?”
“I told him your monster was reading the books to you.”
Oh. Why hadn’t she thought of that lie?
“Now,” he added, and his voice went sharp again, “get up.”
She got up, and she went right back to being knocked down.
Again.
And again.
That night, she decided to take dinner in the mess hall instead of the library. She couldn’t possibly say that she was fluent in Chasin’s language, but she had now possibly memorised just enough to get by. She wove through the tables in the hall until she came to the one they always sat at.
“Eiko?” Kaito jumped up, surprised. “Are you okay?” He grabbed her face, tilting it up. Searching for tears of blood, she realised.
It was … understandable, considering that was how she had been ending her nights for weeks on end.
“I’m fine.” She brushed him off. “I just thought I’d skip studying tonight.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” Ren asked curiously.
She shrugged. “Actually, I think that’s what the commander ordered.”
“I’ll get you some food.” Ky jumped up, hurrying off before she could stop him and insist on grabbing her own tray.
It was like all of Eiko’s friends expected the worst to happen to her overnight.
They were all far too relieved to see her—tired and stumbling—every morning.
She had assumed it was a breakfast thing.
An overnight thing. But dinner seemed no different.
So maybe they were just surprised that she was still alive after she had been let out of their sight for any extended period of time.
Mildly insulting, but okay.
She sat down beside Rion. Her friend had become quieter in a way that scared Eiko. They hadn’t spoken in depth about their impending threat of marriage. Rion had become very close-lipped about her situation, though Eiko had noted her voice began to soften when she talked about Corvan.
Eiko had thought that maybe it was just their breakfasts that had grown heavy and silent, but apparently, they were spending their dinners in much the same way. In heaviness and awkward silence.
Attempting to lighten the mood, Eiko nervously cleared her throat. “So … I’ve been on this diet—don’t want to look all pudgy in my wedding gown, you know—”
“Eiko,” Kaito hissed. “That is not funny.”
But Rion choked on her water and then started laughing. She laughed until it sounded like she was tearing up, and then she dropped her head onto Eiko’s shoulder. “Love you.”
“Love you.” Eiko stabbed blindly at Rion’s plate while the other woman was distracted with silly sentimentality, until she managed to spear one of the potatoes she could smell.
“You guys need to lighten up. The princes aren’t all that bad.
And lords and ladies do this whole—” She waved the potato around on her fork.
“—arranged marriage thing all the time. Some of the engagements last, some of them don’t. The future isn’t set, you know.”
“It’s not the princes I’m worried about,” Rion whispered.
“It wasn’t the princes who called for her family,” Ren added, with just enough disdain that she was pretty sure he still had a problem with the princes. “It was … them.” The King of All and his queen. Or maybe just him. Or maybe just her.
Eiko nodded, none of them daring to speak out against the king or queen in the middle of the busy mess hall. Their table fell into loaded silence again. This time, Eiko didn’t know how to diffuse it, so she sighed and let the brittle quiet win.
Perhaps it was the break in her monotony that helped her to think clearly again, but at some point during breakfast, the answer to “what the hell had Alessandra meant by ‘You’re alive, aren’t you?
’” crashed into her with enough force to have her rushing to the library as soon as the others dispersed for bed.
It was always empty at that time of night, so she wasn’t surprised to find the hall shrouded in darkness.
Even when she activated her second sight, she was still forced to fumble around by touch until she could light one of the lanterns.
She searched the shelves until she found the section she needed.
Poison.
She plucked out each of the notebooks, ignoring the more formal tomes, until she found the most recently dated one.
The handwriting was regimented and unyielding.
A style she had grown intimately acquainted with.
She searched the glossary page, which had been stitched into the front of the hand-bound stack, her finger trailing down the thick vellum until she found what she was looking for.
Mute’s Mercy.
She flipped to the corresponding page and began to read.
Classification: Non-discriminant, terminal compound.
Restriction: Strictly Godsguard administration only.
Clearance: Not to be administered without command sanction.
Description: Liquid. Unnatural black. Faint surface sheen. Slight viscosity.
Origin: Blackreach Province. Botanical extract from endemic flora.
Efficacy: Lethal to humans. Lethal to monsters. No known natural or magical resistance.
Onset: Initial symptoms within four hours of ingestion. Respiratory constriction. Muscular degradation. Rapid progression to organ failure.
Administration: Oral. Do not atomise.
Antidote: None.
Handling Notes: Volatile. Degrades when exposed to heat or light. Do not store in metal vessels.
Identifying Characteristics: Odour is distinct and persistent. Ash and dust. Easily detected at close range.
Field Note: If odour is absent, compound integrity should be questioned.
Eiko set the notebook down with trembling hands, her fingertip dragging beneath several lines, sure she must have read them wrong.
An antidote did not exist.
It had a distinct, ash-and-dust odour.
Her stomach dropped. The vial he had pressed to her lips that first day had smelled and tasted nutty, sweet, and syrupy.
She flipped the page, her heart thudding as she desperately scanned for annotations or amendments.
There was nothing. Her pulse roared in her ears, fury and humiliation burning through her body.
Chasin had pretended her coffee was poisoned. He had lied.
He had convinced her she needed an antidote. He had lied.
He had compelled her to believe that the antidote was the real poison. He had lied about that too.
He made us go back seven times. Hymn sounded shocked. For a fake antidote. I really thought—
“I hate that man!” she suddenly screamed, slamming her fist against the book.
He had lied about poisoning her. Lied about curing her. Then lied again—about lying—so convincingly that he had both her and her monster utterly fooled.
The sound of her hitting the book echoed through the empty library, sharp and ugly.
She stood there, breathing hard, her hand aching, the lantern trembling slightly on the table beside her.
And then, slowly and deliberately, she smoothed the page flat.
She closed the notebook and returned it to its place on the shelf.
He was going to regret what he did.
She had no idea how to make him regret it, but it felt good to think the vow as she extinguished her lantern and released her second sight.
Chasin Goldmoor was going to pay.
Hopefully.
Some day.
She had just finished training—meaning she had just finished being beaten into a bruised, exhausted pulp—when an attendant appeared at the edge of the arena.
It wasn’t one of the uppity, annoyed ones who treated her like a nuisance.
This one was female. She had delicate, careful footsteps, and her voice was polished and silken-smooth.
“Miss Eiko.”
Eiko’s spine went rigid.
Cairn made an irritated noise beside her. “She’s busy,” he snapped.
“Her Grace requests your presence,” the attendant said, so low it was basically just a fearful whisper. “Immediately, if you p-please.”
Eiko’s stomach dropped. “Why?”
She had been enjoying her period of delusion, thinking the royals had forgotten all about her.