Chapter 18 Lysa #2
“Because he will not take it from me,” she said, a sad smile touching her lips.
“He is stubborn. He fights every cure because he believes he deserves the suffering. But you...” Her eyes searched mine.
“He trusts you. If you decide to stay, the next time his monster jumps all over you, give this to him. Remeber, it’s not the man that wants you, it’s the beast.” She squeezed my hand, hard.
“I won’t stay.”
“Leave it on his bedside, then. After you’ve gone.”
The breath left me in a rush. After you’ve gone.
“It’s better this way, Lysa. For his sake. You saw him back there. You saw what happens when your magic collides with the curse. Do you want to be the one holding his hand when his heart bursts?”
The vial felt incredibly heavy in my palm.
The evidence slotted into place. The ley-window showing the ritual, he had accepted the shadow.
The letter, he had known I would be a danger, that I would have to leave if I knew the truth.
My own arrogance, thinking I could fix in weeks what had been festering for years.
The house gave a mournful groan around us.
I flinched. Even the manor sounded like it was dying.
“I am... incompatible,” I said.
“You are fire, my dear,” Kelda said softly, releasing my hand. “ And he is made of dry tinder. It was a beautiful thought. But mercy sometimes requires us to walk away.” She stepped back, leaving me alone in the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the empty air. I gripped the vial until my knuckles turned white, turned on my heel, and walked toward the stairs.
My canvas satchel was barely half-full when the wardrobe doors rattled in their frames.
“I know, I’m going.”
I shoved my spare tunic in, not bothering to fold it. The room seemed to contract, the air pressure dropping until my ears popped. I snatched my bag and turned for the corridor. The heavy oak door slammed shut an inch from my nose.
“I get it,” I whispered. “I’m unsafe. I’m leaving.”
I gripped the iron handle. It was cold, and for a moment, it refused to turn. I laid my scarred palm flat against the wood, pushing my own magic into the grain. Let me go. The latch clicked open with a reluctant clack.
I stumbled into the hallway just as the sconces lining the walls flared white-hot, blindingly bright, before dying out.
Darkness swallowed the corridor before the gas sputtered back to a weak, sickly blue.
Instability. Kelda’s words rang in my ears.
I was leaking chaotic magic, disrupting the ecosystem of the estate.
Every flickering light was an accusation.
You feed the beast. You break the sanctuary.
“Lady Stormgarde.”
Mrs. Crane stood at the top of the stairwell, her hands clasped over her chatelaine. She didn’t look frightened by the ghost-level theatrics of the manor; she looked furious. And she had called me something else than Miss Embelin.
“Get out of the way, Mrs. Crane,” I said, unable to meet those eyes. “Please.”
“The house isn’t chasing you out,” she said, her voice cutting through the groaning of the timbers.
“It’s barricading the exits. The Stormgarde wards are old magic, Hearthcraft woven with dragon-bone.
They crush threats, no need to fight them.
This?” She gestured to a window shutter banging against the stone.
“This is a tantrum. It’s begging you to stay. ”
“The House is confused,” I said, adjusting the strap of my bag to hide the tremble in my fingers. “My magic is incompatible. I’m making the curse accelerate.”
“Is that what the Lady Morvain told you?” Mrs. Crane took a step towards me. “She handles magic like she handles silverware, girl. You handle it like a heartbeat.”
“She knows him,” I snapped. “She’s kept him alive for a decade.”
“She has kept him preserved, like a butterfly on a pin. There is a difference between living and surviving, and Master Fenrik hasn’t lived since he was nineteen.”
I tried to push past her, but the jealousy I’d been strangling flared up. It wasn’t fair. Kelda was elegant, controlled, and right. She belonged in this world of high collars and ancient bloodlines. I was just a girl with ink-stained fingers and a dangerous gift.
“He went to her,” I said, my voice betraying me. “When he fell. He let her hold him. He looked at me like I was the monster.”
“He holds onto her because she is the crutch he knows, not the one he needs,” Mrs. Crane said. “The Sentinel Beasts, Lysa. The eagle in the hall. It has not moved from its pedestal since the master’s parents died. Yesterday, I saw its head turned toward your bedroom door.”
“Coincidence.”
“Loyalty,” she insisted. “Creatures know. The house knows. Why can you not see what is right in front of you?”
“Because I won’t be the reason anyone else dies!”
The shout tore out of me. Before Mrs. Crane could respond, a deafening crack echoed through the foyer below. We both looked down. The massive silver-backed mirror in the entryway had split down the centre. A spiderweb of fractures spiralled out from the heart of the glass.
“It’s breaking, everything I touch here breaks.
” I ran down the stairs, ignoring Mrs. Crane calling my name.
The house seemed to heave a great sigh, the temperature plummeting until my breath misted in the air.
I wrestled with the iron bolts of the front door.
They were stiff, fighting me, hot to the touch.
“Lysa, stop!” Mrs. Crane reached the bottom landing.
I wrenched the door open. The mist and roar of the river rushed in to meet me. I turned to the housekeeper. I dropped my bag for a heartbeat and grabbed Mrs. Crane’s shoulders. I pressed a quick kiss to her startled cheek.
“Take care of him,” I said.
I grabbed my bag and stepped into the fog before the house could slam the door on me again.
The door moved sluggishly, fighting the hinges, as if the wood itself was reluctant to sever the connection.
Through the narrowing gap, I looked back one last time.
Past Mrs. Crane, Kelda stood on the grand staircase.
As the door reached the final inch of its arc, she looked at me.
Her eyes met mine through the crack, and a slow smile spread across her face. She turned around. The latch clicked.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the fog. “I’m so sorry.” I forced my feet to move down the winding path, away from the cliffs, away from the silver veins of magic and the golden hope I had been foolish enough to believe in.
The walk was a blur of misery until the cobblestones of Abberwyn rose up to meet me.
The town was exactly as it’s always been, beautiful in its normalcy.
It lay nestled in the valley’s cupped palms, split by the Silver River that rushed under the arched stone bridges.
Even through my grief, the magic of the place washed over me, not the jagged, volatile power of the manor, but the soft, domestic hum of Hush Magic.
The air smelled of roasting coffee and chamomile, wafting from The Drifting Teapot where the dragon baristas would be heating water to the precise temperature for mending a broken mood.
The shop windows glowed, displaying self-stirring cauldrons and heavy woolen cloaks woven with warmth-charms. It was a town built on comfort, on the ancient tea alchemy that healed the spirit and the Hearthcraft that kept the rain from chilling the bones.
A young book-dragon perched on the gutter of the Rainmint Bookshop, gnawing contentedly on a discarded pamphlet, its scales flashing copper in the lamplight.
It was safe. It was home. It was everything I was supposed to want.
And it felt suffocatingly small. I kept my head down, avoiding the gaze of the townsfolk who moved with easy steps.
I didn’t want them to see the smudge on my face or the tears that must surely be lingering in my eyes.
I navigated the familiar twisting streets until the sign of Emberlin’s Infirmary for Arcane Beasts creaked above me.
I pushed open the door. The bell chimed, a bright, cheerful sound.
“Lysa?”
Briony appeared from the back room, a bundle of dried lavender in her hands.
She wore a dress of soft yellow linen, her auburn braid messy in the way beautiful girls could get away with.
Her green eyes widened as she took in my appearance—my wet hair, the mud on my boots, the canvas bag dropped carelessly on the floorboards.
“Oh,” she breathed, rushing toward me. “Oh, Lysa. You’re back.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I was fine. Instead, my knees gave out, and I collapsed into my little sister’s arms, sobbing for the monster I had left.
After I stopped crying, I sat on a sturdy new stool, not the wobbly one that threatened to pinch my backside every ten minutes, and stared at the crates stacked against the wall.
Star-glass vials. Imported sun-root. A delivery of dragon-friendly bandages that cost more than our food budget for a year.
“He kept his word,” Briony said, leaning against the counter. “The final draft cleared the bank this morning. We’re safe, Lysa. Actually, properly safe.”
“I broke the contract,” I said. “I ran away.”
“Yes but he loves you!” Briony sighed.
“How could you possibly know that? He is the one who sent me away, Briony.”
“That’s exactly what the hero does in The Knight of the Hollow Hill,“ she countered, waving a hand dismissively. “It’s practically a requirement for tragic devotion. Besides, Mrs. Higgins at the bakery says the Stormgardes aren’t human anyway.
She says they made a pact with the earth-gods under the cliffs.
That they have hearts of stone that only beat once every hundred years. ”
I snorted, despite the misery clogging my throat. “Mrs. Higgins thinks her cat is a reincarnated duke.”