Chapter 10 #2
But what? Hymn asked, apparently hanging off her thoughts instead of attempting to decipher Chasin’s debrief.
I was trying to think of a redeeming quality, Eiko admitted. I’m actually coming up blank.
Are you reliable?
Not particularly.
Hmm, Hymn murmured, sounding far too perplexed. Are you proficient in any trades?
She internally winced. Is tripping over everything a trade?
Only if you’re a court fool. You would make a great court fool!
Eiko cringed.
Are you clean, tidy, and well-organised? Hymn asked.
I don’t have any possessions anymore so … sure.
There you go! he trilled happily, circling her wrist. I knew we’d come up with something.
Thoroughly depressed now, she tried to activate the colours again, hoping to sneak a glimpse of the princes and the king. Unfortunately, the second sight didn’t want to cooperate.
We’re too burnt out, Hymn told her despairingly. The second sight needs time to replenish. You’ve barely eaten and haven’t slept at all.
Eiko subtly tucked her hand into her pocket, pinching the still-warm bread roll hidden away and breaking off a piece.
She slipped it into her mouth and tried to chew as inconspicuously as possible.
Rion tapped her thigh, also trying to be inconspicuous. Well, too bad, Rion. Food is fuel, and fuel is needed to see.
She pinched another piece of bread and slipped it between her lips.
“Didn’t manifest?” The king suddenly interrupted Chasin’s silent debrief.
Eiko froze mid-chew, bread lodging in her throat.
“She still hasn’t manifested?” King Grigori pressed, and there was that tone again … intrigue or greed or something else.
“Are you sure she Silenced?”
Chasin made a quiet scoffing sound.
“I must check for myself—”
Don’t let him touch me! Hymn screamed, streaming away from her wrist and huddling behind the bars of her ribcage to shake and shudder like a leaf fighting off a gale-force wind.
“If you would oblige me, Miss Eiko?” The king had dropped the “lady” after being reminded of who she was. So much for being a noble maid.
Eiko sat there, staring in the direction of his voice, mildly horrified.
“The king is asking you to stand and offer your hand,” Ceran provided, amused.
Eiko rose shakily to her feet and walked to the king, stopping when she heard his slight exhalation of impatience. She tugged her shaking hand from her pocket, and—
“What in the dark?” The king sounded horrified and disgusted. “What are you clutching, girl?”
Oops.
Eiko had used her free hand, since her other hand was wrapped around her cane. Except her free hand had taken all of her anxiety out on the hidden bread roll, mangling it into a carcass squeezed half to death by the fist she had only just begun to unfurl.
Rion made a small, despairing sound. Vana murmured, “Crumbs and crumbs and crowns and crumbs,” as though she had just taken on so much second-hand shame that her rantings had been triggered into another flare-up. Ceran chuckled in that same, velvety rumble she remembered from weeks ago.
Corvan and Chasin were silent.
The attendant must have left the room again, as she couldn’t hear him having an audible heart attack.
Please don’t touch him, Hymn whimpered.
I don’t have a choice. He’s the King of All—and I am part of that “all.”
“Apologies, Your Grace.” She quickly stuffed the bread carcass back into her pocket and wiped her hand hastily on her uniform before offering it again.
The king took her hand in a hot, uninviting grip, the pads of his fingers thick and rough, and Hymn shrieked inside her chest like he was being torn apart.
Don’t let him touch me!
Eiko’s breath hitched, her knees growing weak, her body so tight with anxiety it was beginning to feel like thin glass under pressure.
“Hold still, girl,” the king chastised, his voice hinting at two very different men: one, jovial and booming, charismatic and lively; the other, sharp, impatient, and wildly dangerous.
Hymn whimpered, his voice barely a thread. His monster hates you. It wants to tear through you just for breathing near him. It’s right behind him, right under his skin, and he’s squeezing it back down so it won’t attack.
Oh, sun above. The king? She shot back, alarmed.
King Grigori’s thumb pressed against her wrist, slow and proprietary, and Eiko fought the urge to yank away.
No, Hymn answered. Chasin.
What?
A low, suppressed sound came from Chasin’s direction. He was still standing close to his father. It wasn’t exactly a word, more like a loud breath, hinting at something straining.
His monster, apparently, straining with the need to attack her.
Hymn curled up tighter, trying to make himself as small as possible. The king inhaled sharply, almost pleased.
“I sense it,” he mused, every ragged, dangerous, hidden edge to his persona somehow appeased. “It’s hiding, and it doesn’t want to be found.”
There was a heavy, braced silence.
How can you all sense each other? Eiko asked Hymn. How do you know Chasin’s monster wants to hurt me? How can the king sense you without touching you?
Power leaves traces, he said lowly. She didn’t think he was trying to be cryptic; he just seemed too afraid to speak.
Why does Chasin’s monster want to hurt me?
Not hurt. Kill.
Why? she pressed, sensing more than hearing as Chasin very quietly shifted beside the king.
Because he touched me, Hymn whispered. That’s why you can’t let anyone touch me.
“I would be inclined to say the monster is weak,” the king continued to muse, “but if he was, she would have manifested him quickly. You should have taken her into your banner, Chasin. A Silenced woman is a very rare woman.”
She didn’t love that the king kept talking about her as though she were a gold ornament being presented for consideration for him to hang on a castle wall somewhere, but at least he hadn’t said “girl” again.
Chasin signed something short and sharp enough that the movement rustled his uniform.
The king scoffed. “You’re delaying the inevitable.”
Chasin’s presence vibrated with a barely contained pressure, a storm waiting for one wrong breath. Eiko’s hand trembled in the king’s grip.
Ceran’s voice drifted closer, smooth and assessing. “Best not to provoke him, Father. You know what his monster is like.”
“Let him be provoked,” the king dismissed, utterly unafraid. “If the girls cannot withstand being near a monster, they are useless to me.”
And she was back to being a girl again. That was a very short-lived womanhood.
Suddenly, she could feel the king, or his monster, probing beneath her skin. Whatever it was, it had the precision of a hair-thin blade wielded by a skilled carver. It separated her skin from bone and attempted to flay her open for closer inspection.
Get away, Hymn pleaded. Get away from him!
She twitched, but the king still held her wrist, refusing to release her.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, sounding increasingly delighted. “She stirs my monster. Not much rouses him.”
Chasin’s jaw clicked in a thin, violent sound.
Hide, she told Hymn. The little monster scurried deeper into her chest.
“You may sit.” King Grigori finally released Eiko. She stumbled back and then hastily tapped her way back to the chaise, where Rion pulled her quickly down between herself and Vana.
“I feel them,” Vana muttered. “Searching, searching, searching for the killer.”
Rion and Eiko clutched each other, pressing close together, both of their fingers shaking.
At some point, the attendant must have returned with tea and cakes.
Eiko could smell the delightful array of sugar and boiled leaves on the short table before them.
The king had sucked up so much of her attention that she hadn’t heard anything else going on in the room, but now, with a few paces of distance, she found herself suddenly wondering if she could inconspicuously swipe one of the cakes without anyone noticing.
“How long has that one been talking to herself?” King Grigori sounded annoyed.
After a pause, where Chasin seemed to be speaking, he made a gruff sound.
“So we have one mentally addled girl with a bloodthirsty beast, one physically addled girl with a hidden beast, and one perfect specimen with a strong hand on a powerful monster.” His footsteps paced before their chaise, slow and thoughtful.
“Excellent choices,” he concluded, amused.
Eiko’s stomach dropped. This was an evaluation. A choosing of some kind.
“When will they be receiving lace?” King Grigori asked.
“I would be very curious to know which monster the blind girl managed to Silence. A Rustling, perhaps?” He chuckled, the sound painted with warring humour and anticipation, like he couldn’t believe it of her, and yet he couldn’t quite stop himself from gleefully imagining the impossible.
A Rustling? The most violent and unstable of all the monsters—the thing inside Chasin that always had Hymn screaming his little head off and spiralling through her body for a better hiding place? Yeah … unlikely.
Do you know what you are? she asked the little monster. A Murmuring, maybe? I’ve heard they can come in all sizes.
The only way to discover our “class,” as you humans put it, is to join with a human and have the lace reveal our bond.
The colour of the lace that appears on your skin tells us our class.
Pitch black for the Kill Class, or the Rustlings.
Blood red for the War Class, or the Whistlings.
Pearl white for the Espionage Class, or the Murmurings.
She had known the names of the monster classes, but not the corresponding Godsguard names. Espionage definitely seemed a more likely class for Hymn than “kill” or “war.” He was very good at hiding.
“Make it tomorrow,” the king ordered. “I have plans to make, and I would prefer to know the classes of their monsters before I decide.”
Rion’s fingers tightened around hers, and Eiko knew her friend had understood more than she let on. Rion always understood things faster than Eiko. Curse her bright, brilliant brain.