Chapter Four
The tongue she was tasting was her own.
The fire burned low and unsteady, throwing long shadows on the walls.
Idris had wiped down the workbench with snow, then with a cloth soaked in vinegar.
He’d found a blanket in the cart and thrown it over the wood, and now Seraphina was lying down, scarf still in place, her fingers fidgeting with the bone shards along the Hearthband she wore as a belt.
She was waiting for him to finish setting up.
There were a few things that were bothering her, preventing her from relaxing and preparing her mind for what was to come.
Idris had convinced her to get out of her cloak, and her attention was constantly pulled toward where it hung from a peg near the entrance.
It was too far away. Not the cloak – the vomer bone she’d left in its pocket.
If she focused, listened closely enough, she swore she could hear it humming to her, a subtle vibration that moved the air, making the tiny hairs on her body stand on end.
Then there was the issue of telling Idris about the greater relic she had in her eye socket, the atlas vertebra of the child Saint Vivia.
He would have to remove it first. What would he think about her?
It wasn’t like there was any other option, but still, she found herself delaying it until the last moment.
The medicine chest was open on the floor, and she heard him set down his tools on an overturned crate he’d found in the barn. It turned out there was an oil lamp in the cart, and plenty of candles, and he’d already arranged them so he’d have light coming from different angles.
As talented a surgeon as he was, what if it all went wrong? What if her eyes, once attached, wouldn’t work? They’d been separated from a host for hours, kept in rather unsanitary conditions. What if her wounds got infected? Would she have to ask him to reimplant the relic?
What if it worked, and she could see again… Would she readjust to seeing the world in color? From shadows – dark, light, and in between – to the green of the forest and the blue of the sky.
What if it worked and she found Rune at the convent, and saw his face for the first time?
What if it worked and she could read Matteo’s journal?
“Idris…”
She sat up abruptly, but he was there, his fingers encircling her wrist as he pushed a flask into her hand.
“Drink this first.”
She sniffed the offering. “Brandy?”
“Take a few generous gulps. For courage.”
She frowned, and he chuckled, but she could tell it wasn’t lighthearted.
“Not only for courage, I know you don’t lack it. I’ll give you laudanum next. With a Quietus Net on top – literally on top, because I’ll have to lay it on your chest – it will knock you out.”
She’d started drinking, and at his words, she swallowed wrong and coughed.
“You want to put me to sleep?”
“It’s the best way.”
“No, wait. I don’t need laudanum. You can just use the Quietus Net. Use two, if you must. They will make me drowsy and block out the pain, but I’ll stay conscious.”
“Seraphina, no. This is a delicate procedure done in already unfavorable circumstances. Even with alcohol, laudanum, and a Quietus Net, you might move. I’ll have to restrain you.”
She clung to his arm. “Idris, I don’t want to sleep. The dreams…”
“You were serious about the dreams?” But he wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying. He replaced the flask in her hand with a small glass. “I mixed thirty drops with beer. Drink and do your best to hold it down.”
“You can restrain me, I don’t mind, but let me stay awake.”
“I’m operating alone. There’s no one to help me if the pain is too much and you start struggling, no one to hold you down.” He guided the glass to her lips. “Come on. It will be all right. Do you trust me?”
“I do. With my life, but…”
He tipped the glass, and she didn’t fight him.
The bitter liquid slid down her throat, making her gag.
It was the worst thing she’d ever tasted.
When Idris pulled it away, she covered her mouth and nose with her hand, doing her utmost not to vomit.
He gave her the flask of brandy again, and she finished it without even thinking.
“Better already, right?”
She felt warmth spreading in her chest and traveling down to her legs.
She nodded and let herself fall back on the workbench.
Her fingers unclenched, and within minutes, she found she couldn’t trace the pattern of the Hearthband anymore, her arms falling at her sides, her mind unable to count the bone shards.
What were the things that had been bothering her? She couldn’t quite remember.
“You’re underweight, tired, and on an empty stomach,” Idris said.
She felt him touch her ankle, and at first, she didn’t understand what he was doing, but then he pulled her leg flat on the surface of the workbench and secured her foot to the vice with a leather strap.
He used another one to secure her other foot.
He moved to her arms, and even if she wanted to, she found she couldn’t have fought him.
He’d made her give up her daggers, too. They hung by their belt next to her cloak.
“It won’t take long now. When you wake up, you’ll feel like death, but you won’t remember anything.”
Her arms were tied away from her body.
There was something… Something she’d been meaning to tell him. It was one of those things that had been bothering her.
She let out a soft groan.
Idris took out a pocket watch and pressed two fingers to her pulse. For a while, he stayed like that, counting.
“You’re all right,” he said. “You’re doing good. Now, for the last touch.”
She felt him lay something on her chest. It was light, barely there.
She felt its effect more than its weight.
A Quietus Net. This close to her person – not pinned to a curtain or hung from the ceiling – it would dull her senses within seconds.
Seraphina felt herself slipping, sliding, as if on ice, except the ice was warm and inviting.
He lifted her head to remove the scarf.
“Idris… There’s a… There’s a bone. In my eye.”
The last traces of tension dissipated from her body, and her head fell heavy in his hands. If nothing else, at least she missed his reaction.
Panting, coughing. Drenched in mud up to his knees.
“I’m sorry, I tried, I’m sorry…”
Once again, he’d failed his mission, had come back empty-handed.
This time, for sure, there would be consequences.
He wanted to turn on his heel, find a superior…
But there was this piercing, constant suggestion slinking between his thoughts, telling him he should do as she said – as the woman with the scarf said – or else. Or else.
“Please, please don’t…”
For the first time in his life, he knew what freedom was. Because she’d taken it away.
Raw desire coursed through the man’s flesh.
It had resided within him all this time, but he’d pushed it down, tamed it at night, when her back was pressed to his front and his arms banded around her delicate frame.
He’d contained his baser needs when she’d tempted him with her touches, her willingness to put her lips on his mangled skin.
She stood before him now, a flurry of snowflakes dancing around her beautiful face, the abandoned lamp at her feet casting her in an ethereal glow.
She’d asked him to kiss her, and while he was certain he’d so far refused her for a very good reason, he couldn’t remember what it was.
His body moved of its own accord, while his mind fought to understand what was making him cross the one boundary he’d built when it came to her.
His chest pressed against hers, she tilted her head up, he greedily inhaled her wildflower breath.
His cock swelled, throbbed painfully in rhythm with his own heartbeat, and then he was kissing her, his mouth devouring hers like he’d been starved since creation.
It felt foreign.
She wasn’t on the outside, witnessing him kissing her.
She was inside him, in his mind and in his body.
Dread rose in her chest while liquid pleasure coiled in her lower belly.
The member that hung heavy below her pelvis felt sinfully good, forbiddenly so.
It jerked against her thigh and gushed from the tip, leaving a stain on the front of her pants.
On instinct, she rocked her hips forward, seeking friction, rubbing against…
The tongue she was tasting was her own.
This wasn’t right. She had to tear away, end the kiss.
It was abhorrent, a perversion. She screamed at herself, she screamed inside her head and his, but nothing happened…
. Nothing happened. The kiss went on, wildflowers and regret, pulling herself by the waist to rub herself against her own erection, she lived in two bodies…
Did he even exist anymore if she’d taken over?
Did his will matter?
Did what he wanted matter at all?
“Please, please don’t…”
The soldier, again. He didn’t know what he was begging for, couldn’t voice it.
Release me.
Release me.
“Easy now. Take your time.”
Seraphina’s head jerked away from the pungent odor of smelling salts. Her hand shot up and grabbed onto Idris, but he’d already stoppered the vial and was putting it away. Still, the smell lingered, having punched straight through the back of her nose and into her brain.
“Sorry about that, but you weren’t waking on your own after I removed the Quietus Net.”
“Did it work?”
Idris had removed the restraints, and she was free to move around.
She touched her temples with trembling fingers and found a bandage over her eyes, wrapping all around her head.
The darkness was complete now. Without Saint Vivia’s relic, there were no shadows, and she felt disoriented, unable to calculate the distance between herself and the objects that surrounded her.
A chill rushed up her spine, making her shudder and groan like a wounded animal.
“It didn’t work…”
“No, it did,” he said quickly. “You need to heal first.”