Chapter 26 Bellgrave #3
Rion nodded, just barely, her sunset eyes clinging to Eiko as though Eiko were a lifeline tossed into a violent, churning ocean.
“You’re not going to think about what happened in here,” Eiko instructed her.
“Not yet. You’re only going to think about one thing.
” She leaned closer, whispering the words low.
“You’re only going to think about how King Grigori is going to die for what he’s done.
I swear to you, on my own life, that he’s going to die. ”
“He’s going to die,” Rion repeated, as Eiko drew back, her eyes still clinging, looking so lost.
“He is going to die,” Eiko promised, gripping her tightly.
“He’s going to die.” Rion hardened slightly, her hands slowly rising to grip Eiko in return. “Promise me, Eiko. I can’t go out there if it isn’t true.”
Eiko didn’t pause to think through the implications. “I’ll do it myself,” she swore. “That’s what Eclipse do, isn’t it?”
Rion nodded again, just barely.
“You just focus on me,” Eiko reminded her, tugging their veils over their faces before pulling Rion to the door. It would hide their tear-stained skin for a little while, at least.
She linked her arm through Rion’s, pulling her close so that it might look like Rion was leading her, even though it was the other way around. Once again, Eiko had not been permitted her cane. “Just me,” she snapped as she opened the door, and Rion’s body immediately started to lock up.
There was a Kingsguard soldier standing there, waiting. Several more lined the hall, likely ready to barge inside if they took any longer.
“The ceremony is about to begin,” the closest soldier said. “Allow me to escort you there.”
Rion huddled close to Eiko, her gaze cast down and to the side, keeping Eiko in her vision as they followed the soldier.
Eiko kept her shoulders pulled back, her face blank beneath the veil, and somehow kept her breaths even.
It was a miracle that she kept breathing at all, but Rion was copying that too.
The inhale and the exhale. So Eiko kept it even.
Behind her teeth, her tongue tasted bile.
Behind her ribs, her heart was doing something wild and wrong, the organ pounding like it wanted to tear free and splatter to the ground.
She remembered the sound of Mei’s protective huffing whenever it was suggested that Rion was old enough to work in the mines.
She remembered the impatient stab of her spade into the dirt of their garden, and the smell of the flowers she grew—a bunch always ending up in a vase in Eiko and Kaito’s kitchen.
She remembered walking in on Kaito and Hayu having a very awkward talk about girls and marriage expectations, and the way Hayu had jumped up with the most relieved laugh at her interruption, awkwardly turning back to Kaito and asking, “If my wife asks, you know what to say, right?”
Kaito had chuckled at him. “That I’ll be a paragon of virtue and it’s all because of you?”
She forced herself to stop remembering before she could think of the children. She simply couldn’t bear it.
Hymn wrapped himself around her chest, like he wanted to hold her heart and be her strength the same way she was trying to be Rion’s.
She could feel the little monster’s guilt in his silence.
His shame that he was no match for monsters like Bellgrave, who could manifest, huge and hulking, outside the skin.
He was grieving for her, but he was also grieving for his inability to protect her.
She wasn’t paying any attention to where the Kingsguard were leading them, but she didn’t need to. She could hear the ceremony drawing close.
The swell of music drifted towards them like a tide. The rhythmic, ceremonial cadence of it rubbed the wrong way against her skin.
The soldier slowed.
“Steps,” he warned, his voice low. It was a kindness Eiko hadn’t expected. She wondered if he had seen past her and Rion into the room. Into the corner, where Rion’s family had once stood. She wondered if he knew what the king had done.
Rion’s breath was increasing in tempo, each inhale carrying a hint of panic, and Eiko realised she had stopped controlling her own emotions.
She quickly steadied herself, slowing her breathing, as she lifted the front of her skirt with one hand, gold-threaded weight dragging like an anchor as she took the first step down. Rion copied her movements exactly.
As they descended, the music changed.
They passed into an outdoor area, the air crisp and salt laced. And then there was the smell of flowers—hundreds of them crushed under the reach of the sun and the sheer number of bodies packed tight in celebration.
They stepped out into a forecourt, and light hit Eiko’s skin in a gentle caress, like the sun itself was trying as hard as the little monster inside her to calm and reassure her.
The Crown Spire rose ahead of them: the tallest, grandest obelisk, quartz and gold-faced, reflecting sunlight in every direction.
A weapon of daylight. A tall sentry against the enemy they had all been raised to hate and fear.
Except Eiko had a little piece of the Quiet inside her, and he wasn’t evil at all.
The truest evil she had ever encountered was a human—but not just any human. It was a man who wore a crown and called himself the ruler of all. Of the Quiet, of the world of light, of the monsters and the humans. He sought to control them all.
The crowd stretched around the forecourt in controlled, shimmering density—loyal subjects held at a distance by guards and velvet ropes. Decorations were everywhere, the entire forecourt draped in gold cloth and bunches of flowers.
Eiko could feel eyes burning into her, trying to claw beneath her veil.
The soldier led them along a long, straight path laid with pale fabric and scattered petals, but she couldn’t stop seeing something else in her mind: a puddle of blood crawling across stone.
Legs. Boots, carelessly stepping free. The wet sound of chewing and crunching.
Her throat clenched so hard she thought she might choke.
Hymn pressed himself against the inside of her skin like he wanted to make her invisible, just like he was. She lifted her head only when the path narrowed, only when there was no choice but to face the centre.
The aisle led straight towards the royal family.
All of them were arranged beneath the Crown Spire.
Queen Noemi sat poised and immaculate, calm as ever. It was impossible to tell whether she knew what had just transpired. King Grigori was beside her—radiant and beloved and benevolent, not a speck of blood on his boots.
Corvan stood before the thrones, golden and magnificent. Unsmiling, but also not exactly scowling. He watched Rion walk towards him with the smallest dimple of worry etched into his forehead.
Ceran stood beside his brother, his posture precise, his face controlled in a way that made Eiko’s stomach twist. There was no warmth or cruelty, only an indistinguishable mask, something locked behind his eyes.
Eiko lifted her free hand to her collar, tracing one of the diamonds as she drew out the full force of her second sight and silently prayed for the power not to fail her right at that moment.
The brightest colours emanated from King Grigori—strokes of pleasure and satisfaction and greed so sickening, she almost stumbled to the side and emptied her stomach.
Forcing her vision to narrow, she swept it over Ceran, frowning in confusion at the spreading blooms of ruby-red pain emanating from his body, pulsing from his ribs and sternum and throat.
He was reminded too, Hymn whispered in shock.
Eiko shuddered, turning away, her gaze snagged by the last body positioned below the spire.
Chasin.
He stood slightly off to the side of his parents’ thrones, looking like he would prefer to be anywhere but there.
He had told her not to trust a Goldmoor, and he had spoken the truth. Perhaps for the first time.
She tried to drag her eyes away, but he was a shadow carved into the sunlight with a crude, unfeeling knife.
His gaze found her, and her hand immediately fell from the collar.
She could feel the place where he had put his mouth on her like the sensation was branded onto her skin and soul, fresh and humiliating, layered in facets of fury and confusion.
Chasin’s dark brows drew together as he watched her, something darkening in his eyes as they drifted towards his father and then jerked back to her.
His mouth tightened into a line so severe, it might as well have been a scowl, and he seemed to swell in size until she was forced to look away from him so that she wouldn’t stumble in her steps.
What had Cairn said? Chasin was brilliant. It seemed he had puzzled something together just from a single look at her veil-covered face.
The crowd’s noise rose and fell in waves as they drew closer—the polite roar of loyal subjects witnessing history.
The sun reflected down on them, projected in a dozen different directions as it collided with the spire, blessing every person gathered.
The sun reached so far it seemed to be attempting to scrub darkness itself out of the world, but Eiko could feel it anyway.
The darkness of humankind, the rot within the world of light.
She could sense the wrongness in King Grigori, now that she knew what was folded beneath his skin.
Bellgrave.
Her stomach lurched. Her fingers tightened reflexively on Rion’s arm.
She caught sight of Ky, Kaito, and Ren—positioned close to the spire, having clearly fought their way there.
Just like Chasin, they were all realising that something had gone horribly wrong, but Eiko shook her head at them, just barely, warning them not to interfere in any way.
If they did, it would be the death of them.
Kaito and Ren locked their jaws, sharing a tense look, eyeing the bulk of the Kingsguard spread throughout the forecourt. Ky just watched Eiko and Rion, something in his face cracking. Beautiful, soft-hearted Ky.
The news would break them all. Ky, because of how much he loved Rion and Eiko. Ren, for the same reason.
For Kaito, it would be like losing a second set of parents.
Eiko had to force herself to look away, or else her last thread of resolve would crumble.
They were close enough now that Eiko could hear the officiant’s voice beginning to rise, the ceremonial speech already beginning, fancy words about unity and stability and peace tangling through the air.
Something sharp and cold slid into place inside Eiko.
A little vow of her own.
This might look like a wedding to the rest of Lyra, but to Eiko, it was a funeral.
She had finally, finally been unmade. Properly broken down and shattered.
Turned inside out until there was nothing left but the shell of who she once was—she was now the carcass that Bellgrave would have spat back out.
But an unmade woman had one very particular opportunity: she had the opportunity to rebuild herself in an image of her choosing.
Eiko chose death.
She would see that death would reach the foot of every person who had ever harmed her, her friends, or her family.
They reached the dais.
This was the end of the world as she knew it, and the beginning of her revenge.