Chapter 23
Do We Like Chasin Now?
The next day, Eiko lasted approximately ten minutes into her daily Falling Session with Cane Man before the frustration inside her exploded.
“He’s not teaching me anything!” she ranted, dropping her staff and tossing her hands into the air.
“I really hope you’re talking to me and not that other girl’s imaginary friends,” Cairn groused.
She could hear his feet shifting in restless preparation—one foot steady, the other heavy, dragging, and stabbing, as it always was.
His posture seemed to hint that he was considering whether to keep hitting her even though she had clearly disarmed herself.
“Who, Vana?” She gave him a frown. “How could I be talking to someone else’s imaginary friends?”
He took a moment to answer, during which time she assumed that he was wondering what his options were, and if he chose the “just walk away” option, would she follow him?
She would. And if he chose the “beat her even harder than before” option, would she complain even louder?
She would. He seemed to realise that, because finally, he sighed and stalked over to the overhang for his canteen.
“Who the fuck are you talking about?” he shot over his shoulder.
“The commander.” She tried to say it confidently. She really did. Instead, it came out as a whisper. Just in case.
She could feel Cairn frowning at her.
She officially knew Cairn too well. She wanted to go back to a time when she didn’t know Cairn at all.
“Have you tried asking for what you need?” His tone was lined in heavy sarcasm.
“What?” she spluttered defensively. “No, he leaves me alone in the greenhouse all afternoon. He isn’t even there.”
“He sits in his fucking office all afternoon. You think he’s doing that for his fucking health? You think he doesn’t have better fucking things to do? He’s commander of the dark-damned Godsguard, blind girl.”
She shut her mouth with a snap.
“Listen.” Cairn sounded like he was scrubbing a weathered hand down his face.
“The commander is … complicated. I know it won’t make any sense to you, but if he isn’t breathing down your neck, it’s for a good reason.
He’s not just good at what he does—he’s brilliant.
I know you don’t understand him. When he’s ready, maybe, one day, he might help you understand.
Maybe. But it’s not your job to know what’s going on inside his head.
It’s your job to follow his orders and trust him. ”
Trust him?
Trust the man who didn’t just lie to her, but lied to her about lying to her, and then lied some more?
Not likely.
Cairn stood, nudging her leg with his cane. “That’s enough gossiping. Pick your damn staff back up.”
Two hours later, she marched herself to Chasin’s office instead of going to the greenhouse, her knuckles knocking angrily against the door.
He rapped distractedly on his desk, bidding her enter.
She didn’t bother closing the door behind her. She didn’t plan to stay long.
“I’m failing,” she announced flatly, striding a few steps into the room with every ounce of boisterous aplomb that she could muster.
The statement was met with silence, and then there was the scrape of parchment and the faintest brush of his glove against the desk as his fingers moved, hinting that he was ignoring her, at least outwardly.
That made something hot and reckless snap inside her chest.
“I don’t mean struggling,” she clarified.
“I mean I am actively, repeatedly, and creatively fucking this up. I’ve followed every version of the recipe.
I’ve tried every correction written in that cursed book.
I’ve burned things, curdled things, separated things, and produced something that hissed at me yesterday.
I don’t know what I created, but I think it tried to attack me. ”
There was no indication that he was even listening.
“I am not learning,” she reiterated. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me?”
Still nothing.
Her jaw tightened. “You left me with an impossible recipe and no guidance, and if this is some kind of test—” She cut herself off with a sharp breath. “—fine. But I can’t tell what you’re testing. Patience? Endurance? Whether I’ll lose my mind and drink the poison myself?”
The brief sounds from his desk halted.
“I need help.” Her voice dropped in tone, the words scraped raw on the way out. She hated this. She hated how he always drew her back to him, forcing her to beg for something. “All I’m learning is that I hate this book and I hate you.” That last part slipped out before she could stop it.
She waited, counting his frightfully, frustratingly even and steady breaths. She counted the space between her heartbeats. She counted to ten, and then to twenty.
He wasn’t going to respond.
Her hands curled into fists. “Fine,” she snapped. “Just … wanted you to know.”
That you hate him? Hymn asked.
Yes, she drawled back sarcastically, that’s exactly what I wanted him to know.
You’re not being sarcastic at all, are you?
No, she grumbled.
She turned on her heel and stalked out, letting the door slam behind her hard enough that it rattled something on the wall.
She didn’t particularly care what it was, but she secretly hoped it was one of his obsidian daggers, and that it bounced right off the floor and propelled it into his stupid, silent head.
Or one of the axes, Hymn chimed in.
She went straight to the greenhouse, while Hymn seemed to get caught on which weapon would cause the most damage if it magically rebounded off the floor and propelled itself into Chasin’s face.
The humidity caressed her skin as she stepped inside. The scent was still comforting, despite her many afternoons of failure. At least here she could fail alone, without an audience.
Definitely the axe, Hymn decided.
She slapped her hands against the open book and briefly pulled on her second sight, checking the page.
Nulla Forma.
Gritting her teeth and bracing her spine, she started again from scratch.
She could navigate her workstation blind now, and she could identify most of the ingredients by touch and smell, making it easy to feel her way through the process, using her second sight for the briefest glimpses only when she needed it.
In a way, she owed her rapid familiarisation of the space to the fact that she had been repeating the exact same recipe over and over and over, with only slight variations.
But she would never admit that to Chasin, or anyone else.
I didn’t hear anything, Hymn promised helpfully.
Good, she said. And then she failed at the recipe even faster than yesterday, the mixture curdling almost immediately. She swore colourfully, reset her workstation, and tried again.
The next version seized and hardened so abruptly that it cracked the bowl.
She froze, her breath shallow, her heart hammering.
And then she tried again.
By the time the sky darkened, she was sitting on the stone floor with her back against the bench, her head tipped to the ceiling, fighting back tears.
The vial beside the book remained empty.
Her evening lesson in Brightfort loomed: a distant, inevitable threat. Another opportunity to fail at something, although this time, she would have a gaggle of resigned, heavily sighing royal attendants to titter and tut over every misstep.
She dragged herself upright and set herself to cleaning the bench with the same grim thoroughness as always, and then she left the greenhouse.
When Eiko finally dragged herself back to her room, it was nearing midnight, and she wanted nothing more than to burrow beneath her blankets and fantasise with Hymn about weapons falling from walls and rebounding into the skulls of all of her enemies—of which she really only had one, and his name was Chasin, and he conveniently had many and varied weapons to bounce, so it promised to be a very productive fantasy session.
She paused in the opening of her doorway, hand tight around the handle. Someone was there.
The room smelled faintly of paper, polish, leather, and something masculine, and she could feel the clean, cold snap of night air drifting in through the window she hadn’t left open.
“Ren?” she asked, too exhausted to reach for her second sight.
The edge of her bed creaked, the sound of someone who had just leaned forward, putting their weight over their legs, probably bracing elbows to knees.
“It’s me,” he confirmed.
“Hi,” she said after a moment, her tone cautious. Was this it? The conversation she had been waiting for? The confrontation they were both avoiding?
“Come here,” he murmured. “Sit with me for a bit. I … have to tell you something.”
She closed the door with her heel and leaned her cane against the wall before crossing the room to sit beside him. He reached for her hand immediately, tugging it over his thigh, his fingers tangling with hers. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, and she relaxed a little.
“What’s this?” she asked, the tips of her fingers brushing something in his lap. A book, it seemed like.
“I was worried, so I did some research,” he said, and there was something off in his tone. His touch felt less like reassurance all of a sudden and more like a shackle.
She frowned. “That sounds ominous.”
“I searched the library tonight.” He paused, seeming to suck in a fortifying breath. “I was in there for hours, floundering, really. Never actually used a library before.”
Her brow knitted tighter. “Okay?”
She could hear his free hand rubbing along the back of his neck, trying to soothe an anxiety that tensed in his muscles. “Well … I stepped out for some tea, and when I came back, there was a book there, on one of the benches, just waiting for me. Ah … this book.” He tapped the tome in his lap.
Her stomach tightened. “And? What’s the book?” she prompted.
He shifted, the mattress creaking softly beneath him, and read aloud, “Abnormal Silencings.”
Her breath snagged.