Chapter 18 Lysa
eighteen
Lysa
Ifound him crumpled at the foot of the stairs leading away from the West Wing, he hadn’t made it far.
He lay sprawled on the cold flagstones, one arm thrown over his eyes as if warding off a blow, the other hand curled into a claw against his chest. The silver veins in his neck pulsed with a rapid rhythm.
Part of me, the healer or the freakin fool, wanted to drop to my knees and check his temperature. Wanted to smooth the hair back from his damp forehead. The rest of me wanted to kick him. I settled for a sharp shake of his shoulder using my boot.
“Wake up.”
Fenrik groaned. His arm fell away from his face, revealing eyes that were blown wide, the irises swallowed by black pupils rimmed in manic silver. He looked less like a lord and more like something that had crawled out of a nightmare to die on the rug.
“Lysa?” His voice was a wreck. He tried to push himself up, his elbows trembling, and failed. “Get away. It’s not—“
“Safe?” I dropped to a crouch to force him to look at me. “We’re well into unsafe, aren’t we?”
He flinched, good. At least he had some decency for that. I thrust the crumpled parchment into his face. “Did you write this? I need to know why. Why the bloody wedding circus and everything.”
He blinked, his gaze trying to find focus on the paper. He swatted weakly at it. “What is...”
“Read it, Fenrik.”
He snatched the paper, his coordination returning in a snap. He scanned the lines, his brow furrowing deeper with every word. The shadows around his collar lashed out.
”’I cannot let her know the truth,’“ he read, his voice devoid of inflection. He looked up, and for a second, his face was a mask of austere, marble stillness. “It’s my handwriting.”
“I know it’s your bloody handwriting, I want to know when you wrote it. I want to know if you were laughing when you sent for me. Just another tool for the collection? Something to use up and discard before the curse took you?”
“I didn’t...” He squeezed his eyes shut, the paper crumpling in his fist. “I don’t remember writing this.”
“So you said. How convenient. Does the beast eat your memories, or just your conscience?”
“I don’t remember!” He roared it and surged to his knees, looming over me, and the air in the corridor turned frigid. Frost cracked across the stones.
I scrambled back, my heart hammering. He looked monstrous then, truly monstrous. His lips pulled back from his teeth, sweat slicking his pale skin, the silver cracks on his face glowing.
“I try,” he gasped, one hand clawing at his temple as if to dig the memory out. “I try to find the moment, but it’s... it’s smoke. It’s ash.”
“Try harder,” I challenged, though my hands were shaking. I hated him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I hated that I wanted that. “If you didn’t write it, tell me. Look me in the eye and tell me.”
He looked at me. And then his eyes rolled back. The shadows on the floor reared up, solidifying into distinct, serpentine shapes that hissed. Fenrik slammed his forehead against the stone floor, a sound of agony tearing from his throat.
“Stop it,” I reached for him, but he snarled, actually snarled, and slashed a hand through the air between us.
“Get back!” he choked out. “Don’t you see what I am? Run, you stupid girl. Run before I finish what I started upstairs.”
“You didn’t start anything,” I said, my voice trembling. “You stopped. You barely touched me, then you ran away like a coward.”
He lifted his head, panting. The look he gave me was pure, unadulterated venom. “I stopped because I am trying to keep you alive. Though why I bother, given your determination to walk into the fire, is a mystery even the library couldn’t solve.”
“Maybe I like the fire,” I shot back.
“Then burn alone.” He shoved himself upright, staggering, using the wall for support. He looked at the letter in his fist, then at me, his expression darkening.
“If this letter says I am a monster who used you, then perhaps you should believe it. It would be safer for both of us.”
He remembers, I realized. He remembers writing this, and he can’t bear to say it.
The shadows twisting at his feet weren’t some external curse attacking him.
They were his own conscience, finally choking him.
He hadn’t brought me here to save him. He’d brought me here as a lamb for the slaughter, hoping my gift would silence the monster inside his chest long enough for him to pretend he was human.
“You’re right. It is safer to believe the letter. Because the letter is the only honest thing you and your house have given me.”
I stood there, clutching the damned letter, my chest heaving as I watched the silver light fade from Fenrik’s eyes, leaving him grey and hollowed out.
“Oh, Fenrik.” The voice was soft, slipping from the shadows at the end of the hall.
I jerked around, because I hadn’t heard footsteps.
Not a rustle of fabric, not even a breath.
Lady Kelda Morvain materialized from the gloom of the corridor, her pale green robes crisp amidst the dust and rubble the house had shaken loose.
She didn’t even look at me, her focus was entirely on him.
She moved with grace, closing the distance between them looking for all the world like an angel descending into a pit.
“I’ve got you,” she said, catching his weight against her slight frame with surprising strength. “Easy, now.”
Fenrik didn’t pull away. He let out a broken sound.
“Kelda?” he said, the name slurring.
“I’m here. Just breathe.” She pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the cut on his forehead where he’d struck the stone. Only then did she turn her eyes toward me. There was no gloating triumph. Just a profound, weary pity that felt like a slap across the face.
“You should step back, Miss Emberlin,” she said, her voice intimate. “Your aura is... agitating him.”
“Agitating him?” I bristled, taking a step forward despite the warning bells ringing in my head. My own hands were stained with ink and sweat, and I felt wild and unkempt next to her. “I am the only one who has been able to stop the shadow. I stabilized the wyrmling and I stabilized him.”
“Did you?” Kelda tilted her head, a crease marring her brow. She shifted her grip on Fenrik, her fingers pressing into the pressure points of his neck. Shadows curled around her wrist, docile. “Look at him, my dear. Truly look.”
She gestured to the man in her arms. Fenrik’s breathing was ragged, shallow gasps that rattled in his chest. His skin was translucent, the veins dark and angry.
“This is not stabilization,” Kelda said. “This is acceleration.”
“I... I quieted the magic, it worked. I felt it.”
“You felt your magic interacting with the dragon,” she corrected me gently.
I was a slow child, then. “You possess a rare gift, yes. But his condition is clearly more than you can handle. It feeds on emotion. It feeds on raw power.” Her gaze dropped to where my shirt was dishevelled, to the flush likely still high on my neck from the almost-moment in the study.
“And you, my dear, are a storm of both.”
Fenrik groaned, his hand grappling for Kelda’s sleeve. “The letter,” he mumbled. “She found... the letter.”
Kelda shot a glance at the crumpled balls of paper in my fist. A flash of something sharp passed through her eyes before settling back into sorrow.
“Shh,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “It doesn’t matter now.” She looked up at me again. “He’s been fighting this battle for thirteen years, Lysa. We have managed it, kept it contained. It was a delicate balance, but he was alive.”
“He was dying. He told me he was dying.”
“He is dying faster now.“ Her voice hardened a fraction.
“He brought you here out of desperation, blind hope. But look at the evidence. Since you arrived, the wards have fractured. The aggressive incidents have tripled. And now,” she wiped another smear of blood from his brow, “he is bleeding out his own magic because he cannot process the volatility of yours.”
She sighed, a tragic, heavy sound.
“You’re not saving him, Lysa. You’re feeding the beast that’s eating him alive.”
I took a step back. Then another. My spine hit the cold stone wall. The logic was twisted, sickening, but looking at Fenrik, broken, trembling, leaning into her touch because he had no strength left to stand on his own, it was impossible to refute.
“I wanted to help.”
“I know,” Kelda said, dropping her voice to a conspirator’s hush. “It’s not your fault you’re incompatible. Magic is a fickle thing. But if you stay... if you keep pushing this bond...” She let the sentence hang in the air.
Fenrik’s eyes fluttered open, landing on me.
“Go,” he whispered.
I didn’t know if he was speaking to me, or to the monsters in his head, but it shattered the last of my resolve. I turned and ran. I stumbled into the Great Hall, my boots skidding on the stone.
A soft rustle of fabric was the only warning I got. I didn’t turn. I couldn’t bear to see the pity on her perfectly smooth face again. This Kelda Morvain moved without a sound.
“Lysa.”
Her voice was gentle. She stopped an arm’s length away. She wasn’t out of breath, and she still looked impeccable.
“He is resting, the spell I wove... it will hold the shadows at bay for a few hours.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I said. “I thought the Quieting was helping him and the creatures in this house. I felt it working.”
“I know you did.” Kelda stepped closer, invading my space with her scent. “The tragedy of wild magic is that it feels like power right up until it destroys the vessel.”
She reached into her sleeve. She took out a small, stoppered vial. The liquid inside was clear, catching the dim light of the sconces. She took my hand and pressed the glass into my grip, then folded my fingers over it.
“This is Draught of Lethe-water, it will ease his pain. It will quiet the mind, soothe the memories that haunt him.”
I stared at her hand covering mine. “Why give it to me?”