Chapter 22 #2
Oooh, Hymn ignored her, sounding excited by what he was reading. It causes temporary blindness and then extreme itchiness, often leading to real blindness when people scratch their own eyes out.
Holy darkness, Eiko spluttered. He wants us to make that? Like right now?
Yes, Hymn said excitedly. It’s actually not very difficult.
She paused, one hand hovering uncertainly above the page. “How do you know that?”
It says it right at the top of the page: the danger is contact, not complexity. We just need to be careful not to get any of it on you.
Her stomach flipped. That’s so deeply reassuring.
Hymn tightened around her wrist, grounding her. We need to learn this if we’re going to become unstoppable.
To get our revenge, she mused.
And to be unstoppable, he reiterated.
Yes, but mostly for revenge, she insisted.
Okay, let’s figure that part out later.
She traced the page margins lightly. Fine, let’s get started. I need sight for this. At least for the first few times.
Okay, but be careful, he warned. We don’t know what Queen Noemi has in store for us tonight.
She drew a slow breath in through her nose and let the second sight rise.
Light unfurled around her, a greenhouse blooming into being.
Sunlight poured through angled panes of glass overhead, breaking into honeyed shards that cut across stone and leaf and soil.
The air was thick and warm despite the unnatural chill that always permeated the Godsguard grounds.
It clung to her skin immediately, oddly soothing.
Condensation pearled along the glass, fat drops trembling at the seams before slipping free to patter softly onto the stone below, feeding into little tufts of moss.
Rows of plants crowded in close, forming lush walls of overlapping deep jade, pale sage, and waxy blue.
Vines climbed narrow trellises towards the light, their tendrils curled like grasping fingers, reaching for the sun and getting tangled in the steel structure of the greenhouse frame.
Terracotta pots lined low benches, their rims chalked white with mineral bloom, spaced apart by watering jugs of various sizes.
It smelled so alive. Crushed leaves, damp, rich soil, and paper.
That medicinal scent still threaded beneath it all: resinous, bitter, and sharp—but she didn’t hate it.
She very much liked the idea that she could create something with her own hands in this little space.
She stood very still for a moment, just taking it in.
Oh, she murmured reverently to Hymn. I like this place.
There were two cleared workbenches, stone-topped and scarred with years of use, the edges rounded smooth by the constant brush of hands and arms. Glass jars crowded the shelves above the bench Chasin had positioned her at, each one labelled in neat, careful script.
Powders in muted shades of ochre and rust. Twisted roots bundled with twine.
Dried peels curled into brittle spirals, fragrant even from where she stood.
It felt oddly like standing before the sweets cart back in the Stonesigh marketplace—she just wanted to touch everything, to taste and smell everything, to play with it all.
Gloves first, Hymn warned. And for the love of the dark, don’t put anything in your mouth.
She selected the pair of thicker gloves that hung on a board above the workbench, the leather oiled and supple, then skimmed the page titled Blindman’s Bluff.
Ratios. Ingredients. Method. Notes and warnings inked in cramped margins by different hands, corrections layered atop one another, scribbled arguments back and forth.
She blinked rapidly, immediately overwhelmed, but it wasn’t the first time she had tackled a difficult book written in a technical language entirely unfamiliar to her—or even on the subject of a literal unfamiliar language.
She read it through several times, until the structure of the recipe began to make sense to her, and then she moved slowly through the greenhouse, trying to learn the space, asking Hymn the names of all the things she was unfamiliar with, and the meanings for all the words she couldn’t puzzle out.
And then she began.
When she tried to grind the dried root, it cracked satisfyingly beneath the pestle, fibres surrendering with a soft, gritty sigh.
And when she tried to warm the oil over the low flame of the small alcohol burner, it thinned and shimmered obediently, its surface catching the light like glass.
When she folded the powders in, the scent sharpened instantly, climbing up the back of her throat and pricking behind her eyes.
She stirred until the mixture darkened by exactly one shade, and then quickly took it off the flame.
You’re very good at this, Hymn said quietly, sounding awed.
I like it, she decided internally. Everything is under my control … and things will turn out exactly the way I want them if I do things in the right order. And there’s no old man beating me with a cane.
It suits you, Hymn said happily, coiling around her wrist. It felt like his little head was perking up to watch her stir the concoction. I can’t wait to use it on someone.
She halted.
You seem … very excited to … hurt people, she hesitated to say.
Are you not? He seemed confused. I’ll admit, it’s a new sensation. I thought it was coming from you.
That did not seem like a good sign.
Not at all.
But, as with everything else she was currently juggling, there was nothing to be done about it in that moment, so she pushed it to the back of her mind, filing it away into a little box labelled, “So the totally cute and delightful little baby monster living inside my body is beginning to get delightful little baby violent urges.”
She went back to work, Hymn happily observing and commenting on every step.
The sun crept across the glass overhead, light shifting from gold to amber. Shadows lengthened between the benches, making it a little harder to see. Sweat slicked her spine, but she barely noticed, absorbed in the slow, deliberate choreography of her hands.
When she finally sealed the vial, her shoulders ached, and her eyes burned from holding onto the second sight for so long.
She double-checked to make sure she had cleaned her bench thoroughly before she let the second sight fall away.
The world softened immediately. Light drained into warmth and sound and scent.
The drip of water returned to prominence.
She exhaled, leaning her hip lightly against the bench, steady and exhausted in equal measure.
You feel happy, Hymn said. Usually, you have a dozen feelings all happening at once.
Eiko smiled faintly. That was fun. Strangely meditative.
She picked up her cane and stepped out of the greenhouse, tracing her way back to Chasin’s office.
The door opened only a moment after she knocked, but he wasn’t alone in the office. She could hear the shifting of bodies, and the kind of loaded hush that usually followed an abrupt pause in conversation.
“Recruit.” Chasin’s voice scraped across the room to her from his desk, and she heard the other bodies shift just enough to let her through.
She knew the sound of that particular leather rustling. They were Eclipse.
She walked to the desk and held out the vial. Chasin took it from her but caught her hand before she could draw it back. He pressed it, palm facing up, onto the surface of his desk and tapped it, the directive clear: Don’t move.
She waited and heard one of the soldiers murmur, “Poison, then.”
Someone grumbled unhappily, another chuckled, and then there was the clink of coin passing hands. Several minutes of silence followed, but these were Eclipse soldiers. They were comfortable in silence.
Eventually, Chasin’s finger brushed her open palm, signing, Well done. And then, dismissed. Tomorrow.
Well done?
She left the office in a daze.
Well done?
She knew how to handle failure. She knew how to handle having her ass handed to her. She knew how to handle being the odd one out, the “less pretty and less polished” princess and the “unwanted recruit.”
She did not know what to do with well fucking done.
Eiko and Rion were directed to climb the many thousands of staircases of Brightfort at a measured pace, led by the attendant who had been waiting for them by the gate to the Godsguard grounds.
The air smelled faintly of floor polish and fresh linen, with something herbal lingering beneath it, reminding her of dried flowers tucked into drawers.
The hallways were quieter in this part of the castle, and when they were finally shown into the informal family dining room, it was to discover that the royal family was absent.
Instead, they were greeted by a small army of attendants. Specifically, they greeted Rion warmly and Eiko with slight resignation.
In no time at all, Eiko’s third subject of the day became her most despised.
There was no single instructor—rather, a rotating chorus of correction.
How to stand properly (out of the way). How to sit properly (out of the way, but prettily).
How to hold cutlery (as an extension of the wrist rather than the hand).
How to respond to questions (pause before answering so as not to appear overeager), and what to do after entering a room (greet the royals and then get out of the way).
Rion absorbed it all with easy grace, while Eiko nodded off several times and received several “accidental” elbows to the back of her head to wake her back up.
Time blurred while she wondered if she had died and merged with the dark to live a perpetual, hellish existence.
Tea was poured and repoured.
Napkins were unfolded and delicately shaken (Eiko’s flew out of her hand and whacked Rion in the face).
Mouths were dabbed.
Napkins were refolded.
Laughter was encouraged, and then quickly discouraged.