Chapter 6
Lucky for me, my menses only lasted one more full day before coming to a stop.
Meaning I only had to make one more nighttime trip to the laundry for the time being.
This time, Astrid was nowhere to be found, and after replacing everything just as I found it, I made my way back to my room undisturbed with a small bit of time to think before my paltry breakfast would be delivered.
Today, we would finish the red book.
I flexed my fingers, playing with the wind power I had somehow gained, using it to blast my face with small bits of air.
It wasn’t much, but it was easy to call when I wanted a fresh burst of air.
As I played around with it more, I thought back to the fifteen years I had spent with my parents before their deaths.
Despite them teaching me to read the language of the Seid, I didn’t recall them ever mentioning anything like this.
I tried to reflect back further, to remember some of my earliest lessons, but they were fuzzy in my mind.
All too soon, the door was being pressed open and I was given my daily crust of bread. Whether it was a result of my menses, or just the extremely low rations, I felt slightly dizzy as I walked next to Markus to enter the reading room.
Adis stood as he always did, his too-thin lips pressed into an even thinner line.
I had never seen Adis smile, and even in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t picture him ever cracking one.
Markus or Syrus either. They were all just so serious in their dark tailcoats, their backs ramrod straight, their frowns practically painted on.
I was barely situated on my knees, which protested at another day of being pressed to the cold stone before I was commanded to begin.
The chants left my lips with fluidity as I recited a tale that spoke of gentleness, kindness, and care. Something I doubted the men in the room had ever experienced. Something that left a salty taste on my tongue.
I estimated that only an hour had passed when I flipped the last page and closed the book. I set it on my lap, waiting for Adis to reveal what my reading had gifted him.
The men made eye contact with each other as they flicked their wrists and cracked their necks, but nothing abnormal appeared to manifest. The moments ticked by, and I kept my gaze on Adis even as I could hear the men shifting impatiently behind me.
“Well?” he demanded at last.
“Nothing,” Markus murmured. “I don’t feel anything.”
Syrus must have agreed, as Adis turned his burning eyes to me.
“What have you done!” He sneered, but before I could blink, he was in front of me, hand slapping my face so hard, my neck cracked with the impact.
My ribs, not yet healed from the beating two days before, stung as his shiny black shoe rose off the stone, and I was kicked again and again.
“Stupid imbecile. I don’t know what you did, but when I find out that pretty cousin of yours is dead. Do you hear me? Dead!”
I tried to protest, but it was impossible as the blows rained down on my ribs, knocking what little air I could suck in with the binding on my chest right back out. I was going to suffocate.
I was going to die.
“Wait!” The blows stopped. “I feel pain,” Syrus said, the grimace audible in his tone. “I think we got the power of empathy.”
Adis groaned. “Fuck it all. Wasting my time on stupid fucking powers. I told you to bring the books with the best powers you could find!”
Their kicking bag forgotten, Adis stepped over me to continue his squabble with Markus and Syrus.
“Sir, we tried our best, but as you know, we don’t know the language ourselves. That Seid we killed to attain this collection might have lied.” The words were forced and for the first time I realized that perhaps Markus and Syrus were just as afraid of Adis as I was.
Someone let out a breath, maybe Adis. “Fuck it all,” he muttered before nudging my beaten body with the toe of his shiny shoe. “Take him back to his room.”
I couldn’t find the words to protest as I was lifted between them for the first time. Every breath hurt. Astrid’s words came to me as they roughly deposited me in my room. It hadn’t taken long for me to need a healer.
Not seeing any other option, I waited until the door closed before I crawled to where I had hidden the stone in my pack, digging it out with my left arm supporting my right one as it was too weak on its own. It seemed to take forever, but soon the blue stone was in my hand.
Crawling toward the door, it took every inch of my remaining strength to stand enough to open it before squatting down to place the stone and close it once more.
I couldn’t even make it to the bed, instead choosing to lean on the wall next to the door, pressing my forehead to the cool stones as the world drifted into darkness.
“Oh my.” The high-pitched words roused me from my slumber. Strong arms wrapped around me, then I was flying.
Okay, not flying, but I was definitely lifted through the air then placed on my bed.
My eyes were swollen shut, but I could hear Astrid fussing around. My limbs were moved and pain shot through me as she touched my side.
“I think your ribs are broken,” she murmured low in my ear.
I couldn’t nod, or even really think. There was only pain.
Then, there was tugging.
“I think we should remove your binding.”
My eyelids shot open at those words.
The room was dark, unfamiliar at first, until the events of the day came back to me. “No. I’ll be fine.” I tried to move, to prove I would be okay, but the pain had me breathing through my teeth with a single flinch.
“I think you need a healer,” Astrid deduced as she stood there, looking at me, eyes appraising as she crossed her arms over her aproned chest.
“But . . .” It was too dangerous, but I didn’t need to say that.
“There is a non-spy healer on staff, she wouldn’t say anything—I would tell her not to.”
I considered her proposition. I likely really did need a healer, but just Astrid knowing my secret already made me feel far too exposed so I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.” I shifted my weight so I was sitting on the bed. “Some rest will help.”
A dark eyebrow arched. She didn’t believe me. But she didn’t have to. It was my secret, and the less people who knew the better. If the viscount found out, he would have me executed, I was sure of it.
More than one child wasn’t allowed.
“All right. I’ll let you make the decision this time, but make sure you act as injured as possible when they come for you tomorrow. They need to let you rest. I don’t know what they have you doing but . . .”
There weren’t many positions for women in a household like this. That I knew. And seeing as Astrid was a cook, and maids didn’t usually show up with scores of broken ribs, I knew what she was assuming.
Neither of us said it though.
She took a hesitant step forward, pressing the small blue stone back into my hand. I fought not to wince as the pressure caused my shoulder to shift a smidge.
“If things get worse in the night, put it back out and I’ll send for the healer.”
I dipped my chin. I wouldn’t be doing that.
Astrid gave me one last glance, filled with a special sort of pity, before closing the door behind her.
It didn’t take long at all for darkness to reclaim me once more.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I didn’t even have a chance to test my acting skills, as by the time the light of the sun seeped through the cracks of the exterior wall, I had yet to be able to move myself.
Thus, when Syrus and Markus came to collect me, they had to carry me between them just as they had done to bring me to my room the night before.
As I was unceremoniously dumped on the floor of the reading room, I hoped that Viscount Adis would have some sympathy for me.
In the end, I never found out if he had sympathy for me or not as the moment I was dumped on the cold stone floor, he snarled, and I was lifted once more.
I wasn’t even sure I had been fully out of Markus and Syrus’s grips before the plans had changed.
It didn’t matter though, as the constant stabbing in my side was the current worry.
I could worry about the details of the rest later.
On what I thought was the way back, I debated how I would place the small blue stone outside my door once more.
But before I could consider the details of collecting it from wherever I had dropped it the night before and somehow crawling my way to the door, I was deposited somewhere that was arguably not my room.
It was slightly larger than my cell, perhaps the size of two of my rooms pushed together—meaning it still wasn’t much, but it was bigger.
There was a woman there, with black hair braided down her back.
It was hard to focus through my swimming vision, but I could have sworn she was holding a bunch of herbs in her hands.
“Oh!” The voice was higher-pitched than Astrid’s, and it only took me a moment to deduce where I had ended up.
I was seeing a healer anyway.
And she might be one of the ones who was a spy.
Panic clawed its way through my insides as I ran over all of the ways I could keep her from removing my chest wrap as I was shifted onto a narrow cot similar to the one in my room. But first, I absolutely had to get Markus and Syrus out of the room.
“Water,” I croaked, faking a cough. It sounded weak, and the cough stabbed everything I had been trying to keep still, but it was enough.
Only Syrus left, but the women in the viscount’s household were far more resourceful and observant than I had originally concluded.
“Markus, can you head into town and purchase me a few supplies?” Before he even finished nodding, she was rattling off a list. The words ran together she spoke so fast, and I knew she was doing it on purpose.
By the time the list had finished, Syrus was back, and she accepted a glass of water on my behalf. Lifting my arms was near impossible.
“Syrus, please assist Markus with collecting the items at the market.”
He didn’t even ask what the items were. He just nodded and left.
And just like that, I was alone with the female doctor, who was at least somewhat respected, I hoped.
“I’m Friar,” she introduced herself, the name one I hadn’t heard in a long time.
“Let’s take a look at what the viscount has done this time.
” She reached down to help yank my shirt over my head.
I didn’t stop her, my mind either slow from the injury, or just running without my input, I couldn’t be sure.
It wasn’t until it was off, gripped in her delicate hands, that I noticed the blood on it.
And that it was too late for my excuse.
She eyed the wrappings around my chest, her lips slightly agape.
“I . . . er . . .” All of the excuses died on my lips. I knew after years of practice that my wrap was good, but there were still two small, but distinctive, mounds beneath the fabric. Nothing I had prepared would explain this.
But fate took that option away from me anyway, because, at that moment, the door swung open.
Before I could warn Friar, or even pull down my shirt to conserve my modesty, General Otho, who looked much different ducking into the small room where the doctor worked, sauntered in, his gaze immediately flying to the bandages and . . .
I yanked my shirt from Friar’s grip, clutching it to my chest while simultaneously wondering what would happen when news of my .
. . or Milo’s death, reached the center of town.
Had he already proposed to Helene? Hopefully.
It would put a damper on their wedding, that was for sure.
Hopefully he had used chemicals from my collection to turn his hair blond.
Anything to avoid this embarrassment.
And my eminent death.
As my thoughts continued their slow spiral, I noticed three things simultaneously.
One, the fact that neither Friar nor General Otho had spoken yet.
Two, that all the color had drained from General Otho’s face.
Three, Otho had perhaps the most beautiful gray eyes I had ever seen on a man—something I had failed to notice during our first meeting.
Then the shouted words, “Who did this to you?”