Chapter 7 - ILSEVEL #3
He makes an abrupt move, as though he’s going to grab me and kiss me again.
I recoil in my seat, but Lyria barks, “Artoris!” Her sharp voice is enough to stop him cold.
He casts me one last look that hardly befits an ardent lover before storming across the room.
He brushes past Lyria without a glance, missing the face she makes at his retreating back.
She steps lightly to shut and bolt the door in his wake.
“How did you get in?” I demand, my voice tight.
Lyria turns to survey me, one eyebrow upraised. “Are you sorry I did?”
“No!” I answer quickly. “No, not at all. I just . . . I thought he’d bolted it.” I thought I was trapped.
“He did,” my half-sister acknowledges. “But I know a useful trick or two for the unbolting of doors.” She offers no further explanation, but glides across the room, studying me closely by the narrow light coming through the curtains. “You look terrible.”
I’m not about to argue. Fingers trembling, I pull the fabric of my rumpled shift straight and begin to tie the laces. “I’ve certainly felt better.”
“You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
My lip curls. “Artoris might have had an easier time of things if I’d stayed abed.”
Lyria takes another step toward me, but her foot comes down on a bit of crumpled parchment, dropped unnoticed on the floor.
She picks it up, gives it a cursory glance, then frowns and looks again more closely.
Realizing what she’s discovered, I grimace as yet another flush of embarrassment stains my cheeks.
Lyria peers at me over the missive. “So. You really love him?”
I snort. “According to my own written confession, I suppose I do. Too bad I don’t remember writing it.”
Lyria’s eyes narrow. “Tell me the truth, Ilsevel.”
“The truth?” I throw up my hands. “The truth is, I’m fairly certain I’ve hated him for a long time now.
Hated him for pawing at me, for putting his hands where I did not give permission.
For trying to take far more than I was ready or willing to give.
But for so long I couldn’t bear to hate him.
If I did, that would mean what had happened had really happened.
That ours wasn’t some forbidden love story, but something sordid.
Something awful.” I shake my head slowly, recalling the frightened young girl of fifteen that I once was, a girl who still feels all too present in this room.
“I suppose I did what I had to do. I recast Artoris in the role of some desperate lover, and me as the lovelorn maiden.” My skin crawls at the memory of Artoris’s embraces, that warm, wet mouth, those hard fingers.
“I suppose I’m getting what I asked for, aren’t I? My very own happy ending.”
Lyria’s face is solemn in the half-light. Wordless, she offers the letter back to me, but I recoil. “Kindly oblige me by throwing it in the fire, will you?”
She nods, crosses the room, and feeds the flames with the last evidence of my childish infatuation. Too late to do anyone any good, but it’s somehow a small relief, nonetheless.
“What he said is true.” Lyria turns to face me again, firelight flickering across her features. “Larongar has agreed to give you to Mage Artoris as a reward for . . . for services rendered.”
“How generous of my beloved father.” I tip my head back, trying not to let tears escape through my lashes.
“Perhaps I should have married the Shadow King after all! He, at least, asked. Not that it makes much difference, but one must appreciate the effort to appear generous. And perhaps then Aurae and Faraine would both be safe.”
Lyria flinches at the bitterness of my words, but keeps her own sorrows carefully masked. “We cannot know what would have happened. Besides, no one could have predicted that attack on the temple.”
I frown suddenly and continue frowning, even as my half-sister assists me out of the green chair and helps me hobble across the room back to the bed.
“One thing bothers me,” I muse, as I’m tucked in like a child.
“You say there was an attack on the temple, and Artoris rescued me . . . but the timing is off. Somehow I was missing long enough to have been presumed dead, and for Father to ship Faraine off to the Shadow Realm in my stead. What was I doing all that time? Was I”—I shudder, not liking to speak the words—“with Artoris?”
Lyria bites her lip, not quite looking at me.
She fusses over straightening the already straight blankets.
“No one knows exactly. But . . . yes, Ilsevel. You were gone for . . . for some while.” I open my mouth, but she cuts me off.
“Please. It’s better if you don’t try to remember.
Some things simply don’t bear recollection. Let it go. For your own sake.”
Exhaustion claws at my mind. I sink down into the pillows, vaguely aware of a strange burn on my breast. I don’t think it’s the residual memory of Artoris’s unwelcome touch, but something else . . . something . . . I don’t understand.
“When is my marriage supposed to take place?” I ask dully.
“Artoris is pushing Larongar to hold the ceremony by the end of the week. You need a little more time for healing. But it won’t be long.”
A lump forms in my gut at the prospect of what lies ahead for me. “Then I suppose I should rest up. My bridegroom seems especially vigorous.”
Lyria can offer no comfort, but to my surprise, she bends over suddenly and kisses my forehead.
“Sleep now,” she says with uncharacteristic gentleness.
My eyes grow heavy—so heavy, I half-wonder if my sister has put some sort of spell on me.
I sink rapidly into sleep, my last conscious awareness my sister’s voice, sounding far away: “I’m going to help you, Ilsie.
You’re the only sister I’ve got left. I’ll figure out something . . .”