20. Alchemy
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alchemy
Lord Vaner stood from the tan couch he sat upon in the parlor.
A much larger one than the one in the feeder wing.
The heavy presence of officers told me we were going where very important people stayed.
The council wing Vera mentioned. I hesitated near the entrance, but Egan urged me inside, shutting the door with a loud thud.
“Miss Amara,” Lord Vaner approached and clasped my hands. I stiffened, but let him tug me as he wished. “You are excused, officer.”
In panic, I turned to look at him over my shoulder; Egan’s nostrils flared. The blue irises in his eyes seemed to thin. For a moment, I expected him to tell Vaner no, but he turned on his heel and left through the wide doors, shutting them behind him.
“Stubborn boy.” Lord Vaner clicked his tongue, turning to me with a wide grin. “Welcome to the House of Lords.”
He curled his arm through mine and shuffled me across the parlor, through a wide alcove, farther into the wing.
Another officer waited right outside. Each point of entry had an officer, unlike the Citadel where Lord Draven stayed.
Odd, that the king was not the most closely guarded.
But knowing Lord Draven, it was more likely others needed protection from him.
Lord Vaner continued to look at my throat until it made me uncomfortable.
“Welcome to the beauty of Sycarious Court.” He spanned his hand out, motioning to every bit of the hall curving to the right. Were the Archives this way? That would explain the heavy protection. “You must feel so honored to be of service to the king.”
I smiled tightly, but there was no need to. Lord Vaner moved to the next topic of conversation, going on about my accommodations and how I would be happy for the few moon rotations I had left until everything came to a pinnacle.
“And it is very important you do as the alchemist tells you.”
An alchemist, not a healer? My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.
Healers were bluebloods with the specific ability to heal wounds.
There were different levels to their healing abilities.
Alchemists, on the other hand, had a much more invasive method to ‘healing’ by mixing unpracticed magickal elements.
We reached another entrance, this time without a door, so I was able to peer down the stairs into the stretch of darkness.
“Down we go.” He released my arm and waited for me to descend.
Nerves pinched my belly, but I stepped down, attempting to regulate my breathing. It was incredibly difficult considering it kept making me think of that hole I had been shoved inside of with Hollows.
I did not relax until I was at the base and I strode through a propped open door. A man with large circular bifocals looked up, his eyes seeming wider from the magnifying glass covering them.
“Saints,” he gasped, standing so quickly he knocked over a vial. It went rolling across the wooden platform where he had tons of liquids boiling inside beakers. The vial was stopped by one of the thick, open books.
He ran toward me, causing me to brace my spine to stop myself from stumbling back. Once he reached me, he slowed, his mouth parted.
“It worked,” he breathed, running his fingers over my throat. I leaned back, away from his touch.
“Now Al, do not go scaring our Vessel.” Lord Vaner tsked from behind me.
Al straightened. “Nonsense, Vaner, I have nothing but awe for this woman.” He called me a woman, but he studied me like a specimen to dissect. “Come dear, let us take a look at that red blood.”
He gripped my arm, and I pulled back. He turned back to me, a frown on his lips and his salt and pepper brows cinched tightly together. Another hand landed on my shoulder. The smell of moss balls intensified.
“None of this is a request, Miss Amara.” Lord Vaner’s hot breath seared my ear. I clenched my teeth, withholding my recoil. “You are to do exactly as Al says.”
My pulse jumped, reacting to his threatening tone. This time, when Al urged me forward, I went. He guided me to a seat beside the platform with the various bubbling concoctions within beakers.
I believed the only one to fear was Lord Draven, but Vaner made my blood curdle in a way Lord Draven did not. It was a disgusting heaviness that reminded me of how it felt to be pinned by the guards the first eve I had been accosted.
Al rubbed a square patch across the inner side of my arm, leaving behind dampness. My question was answered when the stinging smell of alcohol reached my nose.
“I have forgotten the needles.” Al snapped his fingers and shuffled away. I peered around toward Lord Vaner. He watched me with an intensity that sent fear skittering up my spine. Nothing good would come of this man.
The invasive thought settled.
I would keep my guard up around him.
“Here we are,” Al chirped, his spectacles wiggling on the bridge of his nose. He set a small, compact case on top of the surface, knocking into an empty beaker. It tipped to the side, and I was quick to straighten it. “Oh, my, quite foolish of me,” he mumbled and patted my arm. “Well done, girl.”
My shoulders instinctively shrunk at the praise, and I was quick to straighten. Now I understood why there were so many bottles and shards of glass littering various areas. He’d dropped plenty already.
He stared at me absently, a sheen shining in his deep blue gaze.
“Not squeamish,” he murmured under his breath, speaking to himself. His smile widened. “Not like many of the Elite bluebloods around here, eh?” He lifted the tube he had been fiddling with, brandishing the thin needle at the tip. “Place your arm here, dearie.” He patted the tabletop.
My stomach turned with nervousness despite having received injections on an annum basis.
As all redbloods must. A special faction of officers that carried out orders from the Council Registry would establish a post in every village and inject the anti-viral concoction into every redblood across Sycarious.
There was no choice; it was law. Considering there was a registry of all redbloods, it was a very meticulous effort to ensure all of us were vaccinated for the safety of bluebloods, since diseases redbloods could carry were detrimental to them.
The needle entered the inner side of my elbow with a pinch. I gritted my teeth, and my nerves calmed with a puff of breath leaving my lips.
I watched scarlet fill the long tube and slide into a jar. This was not a vaccination; he was drawing blood from me.
“It shan’t take terribly long.” He patted my shoulder. Oddly enough, he made my nerves calm.
“Is it the vaccine?”
“Not at all, dearie, you do not need it twice in one annum.” He seemed to be a middle-aged man, and more suited to be in a library, not wearing an ivory cloak with smears across his clothing.
“All these questions,” Lord Vaner murmured. I startled. He was much closer than before. As soon as I met his intense focus, I turned back to staring at the red dripping into the jar.
My head swam, and I blinked to steady myself.
“Vaner, I have strict control of the girl. You may go,” Al said, grabbing a secondary beaker with bubbling liquid. “You will not want to be present for the screams.”
What?
I bit my tongue. He said it so calmly.
“Perhaps you are correct. I will send a member of the Guard down in case you need assistance.”
Footsteps retreated.
Al set the beaker of bubbling liquid on the surface of the table. As he retreated, the back of his hand knocked into another jar. Upon reflex, I lashed out and straightened the glass, stopping it from shattering across the ground. His bushy brows jumped.
“Well done, girl, well done.”
“I am happy to help.” I searched the mess about the chamber.
“If you would accept my aid, I can keep your worktables clean, my lord.” I tacked on the formal address for all Elites.
“It will allow you to focus on your incredibly important work.” I relaxed my shoulders despite the wooziness in my head.
“There is naught for me to do withering away with the other feeders.”
And being chained to a bed.
“You are not afraid to get your hands dirty?” He peered at me over the rim of the spectacles.
“No, my lord.”
“Pah, no need for the formality. Al is fine. Besides, my only claim to being an Elite is a distant relation to the Earl of the North.” Al smoothed his hands down his apron.
“You may be helpful,” he mused. “I will arrange it with Vaner.” His bushy brows wiggled, and he lunged for the jar half-filled with scarlet.
That is why my surroundings are spinning.
“Any more and you will be useless.” He tsked to himself, withdrawing the needle from the inner crevice of my arm. A dot welled where it had been. He pressed a small bit of cotton over it and slapped an adhesive strip over the top. “Come, young woman,” he ordered, grabbing my arm.
I stumbled off the chair, gritting my teeth to keep balanced.
As we neared the other side of the vast chamber, my gaze continued to trail to a wall of shelves hosting glass and books of all shapes and sizes.
My gaze kept trailing back and forth with an incessant pull to look.
The sensation resembled the urge to look at the Creation Scripture Lord Draven had me translating.
Something was behind that wall, something I must see.
He guided me around the edge of another table and pulled back a curtain. “Sit, sit.”
But not at this moment when I was being watched.
Despite my reservations, I sat, steadying myself with a few breaths. Cold seeped through the layer of my dress from the metal seat.
Al grabbed a strap attached to the arm, and the flap fell over the top of my forearm. He reached under and secured it tightly. I squeezed my hand into a fist. He reached across to bind my other arm in a similar fashion. My panic began when he crouched and fastened my shins to the legs of the chair.
“Al?”
“This is for your own good.” He patted my knee as he stood and reached for the fastener around my waist. “Will protect you from wanting to slice your veins out.”