average human’s Reviews > One Small Echo > Status Update

He waited, and the longer he waited, the more dread she began to feel. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what he wanted from her, but now that she was aware of the meaning of the words he had forced her to sign the day before, she suddenly wasn’t so eager to express them again.
Still, he waited.
The silence stretched until it became a thing with weight, pressing in on her ears, her ribs, the back of her throat. She could hear his breathing, slow and controlled, and the faint shift of leather as he adjusted his stance. The fact that she could hear it at all made her think he wanted her to know just how utterly unhurried and comfortable he was.
She swallowed.
“I’m not saying it,” she whispered.
He leaned closer, looming over her until his lips were right by her ear. “Then no antidote.”
“Is this another trick?”
His fingers brushed her chest, and he signed a single word, simple enough that she could feel the shape of it.
No.
He lifted her hands. A silent demand.
I don’t think we can risk it, Hymn whispered, hiding behind her ribcage as he always did, though he had briefly fled down to her ankle when Chasin signed against her chest. It makes sense that he would use poison to force you back to him every day during the first week of your Silencing, especially considering … you know.
That you’re a bloodthirsty city-swallower? she asked.
Yeah, that. Anyway, I think it makes more sense that he would poison you and force these check-ins.
He could have just asked me to come see him every morning, she groused.
We’ve been over this already yesterday with your friends, he placated gently. This way, you won’t try to escape the barracks, putting the whole city at risk. He’s keeping the threat contained, and keeping an eye on you, and testing you.
She had discussed the situation with the others over dinner in the library, and they had all agreed that it would be best if she didn’t try to challenge the commander on this, but that was easier said than done.
She scowled, and the cork stopper of the vial traced the line of her mouth, almost like he was questioning her expression.
“How did you figure out what it means?” Chasin’s whisper was low, right by her ear again, so quiet she had to strain to hear it.
“I asked someone,” she lied. “Obviously. How else?”
He shifted back just enough that the pressure of him eased from her lungs. The leather of his uniform whispered, followed by the faint scrape of glass.
He took her hands again, but this time, he didn’t wait. He guided her into forming the words he wanted. Slow and precise. Patient in a way that felt innately threatening instead of soothing. He shaped her fingers, corrected her angle, and pressed where she hesitated, until the signs were unmistakable, burned into muscle memory whether she wanted them there or not.
I.
Belong.
To.
You.
The last sign lingered. His thumb rested at the base of her palm. She didn’t understand, but he made the slightest rumbling sound that felt like approval.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, and she heard the scraping of glass again before he pushed the vial into her hand.
He signed something against her chest. Probably drink or swallow. Or heck, it could have been wench for all she knew. It definitely wasn’t maim, flay, or burn.
She uncorked the vial and lifted it automatically but then stopped. Her brows knit together, her heart beating a panicked rhythm. Nutty and syrupy.
It was the exact same scent as the day before. The same scent as the liquid he had pretended was an antidote, before revealing that her coffee hadn’t been poisoned at all, but the vial had been.
This asshole was trying to poison her.
Again.
The absolute nerve of him.
Her stomach turned, and she slowly, deliberately, capped and lowered the vial. She wanted to smash it against the ground in protest, but while she could be exceptionally hot-headed and impulsive, there was a little whisper of reason inside her now.
Don’t do that, Hymn warned, as if sensing her urge, just in case you’re wrong and it’s the only dose he has with him.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. “It’s poison,” she said, with enough false bravado to power the Kingsguard. “Same as yesterday.”
Hymn had gone perfectly still, daring to peek out beneath the collar of her undershirt.
Chasin exhaled in a single, controlled breath, and then he was taking the vial from her. Glass scraped across wood again. He stepped calmly away from her, and she listened to the squeak of his breakfast trolley and the faint clink of ceramic, before liquid poured in a steady, controlled stream.
He seemed to be deliberately making noise so that she knew exactly what he was doing.
The smell bloomed immediately.
Coffee. Sun-blessed, light-touched, heavenly coffee.
Her heart was beating so fast she probably didn’t need the extra kick of energy, and she certainly should have been traumatised from the day before, but it put no dent in her obsession.
She wanted coffee.
She wanted it now.
Her stomach rumbled loudly, and she flinched, covering her midsection with her arm. She had always eaten like a little bird—that’s what Kaito used to say. But lately, she was growing strangely ravenous.
She didn’t hear Chasin returning to her, so she jumped when he took her hand, raising it and pressing a cup into her reaching fingers. It wasn’t the same cup as the day before, but a ceramic one with a raised enamel design.
He signed something against her chest: the same gesture as before.
Drink. Swallow. Wench. Could mean anything.
She hesitated for only a moment more, her index finger idly tracing the shape of an orchid in the enamel design on the cup, before she brought it close to her nose, breathing it in.
She couldn’t smell anything except the coffee—molasses, dark wood, and warmth. She was so hungry. Desperate for this little luxury, and any others she could get her hands on. It wasn’t a sensation she was used to, this … this greediness, but she didn’t have the space or time to examine it right now. She could only file it away under one of the many ways she had changed since boarding the Kingsweep.
“Is the antidote in the coffee?” she asked.
Chasin didn’t answer.
He said you would need an antidote every day, Hymn mused. Yesterday, you drank the coffee before ingesting the poison. He might have dosed you prematurely.
So forward-thinking, she said sarcastically.
“How do I tell if this is poisoned?” she asked, staring unseeingly down into the cup.
Again, Chasin didn’t answer.
He was such a shit banner captain. She actually preferred Cairn.
Any experience with poisons? she asked Hymn hopefully.
There’s no scent, no film on top other than the naturally occurring oil in the coffee. Hymn made a thoughtful sound. I think it’s fine to drink, but I’m no expert.
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t wait any longer. Her need for satiety had taken over, with the addictive, rich scent curling just below her nostrils. She raised the cup to her lips and drank deeply, groaning as she swallowed, the liquid heating her belly. The tightness in her chest eased.
Three more of these and I might be able to see again, she told Hymn.
At what cost? he returned.
She ignored that.
Chasin walked to the door and opened it. Taking that as her cue to leave, she fumbled to set her cup down on his desk, and then she quickly skipped out of the room before he could change his mind.
He said nothing as she passed and closed the door tightly behind her.
During breakfast, she ate through the tray Kaito had prepared for her in record time, and when she was done, her stomach still felt empty.
She was so hungry.
She stood to fill her tray again, but Kaito caught her arm. “I wouldn’t,” he said, sounding concerned. “I saw Cairn training you yesterday.”
Right. He had a point there. If she ate any more, she would just throw it all up again as soon as Cairn sent his cane into her stomach. She sank back down, accepting the cup of tea Kaito pushed at her instead.
They were quiet over breakfast, none of them knowing how to broach the awkward topic of Eiko’s and Rion’s possible impending engagements. It seemed that Ren was about to bring it up at one point—Eiko heard his fortifying draw of breath—but Ky quickly spoke up first, steering them to talk about training instead.
Ky knew her well. He knew that she needed time. She couldn’t force reality to sink into her mind; she needed to wait for it to seep slowly, until she could feel the dread of it in her bones, late at night, alone in her room. Then she could think about it clearly. Until then, the best she could do was to simply hop from happening to happening, doing her best to keep her head above water and not let the brutal world of the Godsguard knock her down.
She squeezed Ky’s hand under the table, thanking him silently, and he twisted their fingers together, clutching her as he finished his breakfast. The gesture spoke volumes. He wasn’t going to push her to talk, but he didn’t like this just as much as Ren.
After breakfast, Cairn took her into the arena and beat her half to death until she had been knocked down so many times that she could barely drag herself back to her wobbly feet. And then he sent her to the library to study with a dinner tray and a medical kit, complete with bandages and a sterilisation ointment. Rion, Ky, Kaito, and Ren hunted her down after they finished their own training and dinner, helping her to practise the hand gestures of Chasin’s language until her eyes began to bleed.
It was a very glamorous life she was living, and she repeated it again the very next day.
Wake up sore and bruised.
Go to the commander’s office (like walking to the gallows).
Reassure Commander of his ownership (with fingers mentally crossed behind back).
Drink coffee antidote (delightful).
Eat as much food as possible as fast as possible.
Get beaten up by old man with cane.
More food.
Study the language of hand signals until eyes bleed.
Sleep, rinse, repeat.
It wasn’t until the fifth day of this charming routine that something changed.
“Are we really not going to talk about it?” Ren finally snapped—he had been eerily quiet all through breakfast.
“They’ll talk about it when they’re ready,” Ky muttered.
“Is there some magical way out of the situation we’re unaware of?” Rion asked, sounding a little too calm, which meant that she was annoyed. “Are you going to go to the King of All and tell him no yourself, are you, Ren?”
“I … don’t think that will be necessary,” Ky breathed out, the shock making his words wobble slightly. “It looks like the king is already two steps ahead of you.”
“What?” Eiko followed the shift in the room as they all jumped to their feet—the sudden hush, the scrape of the benches at her table. She quickly stood with them.
“It’s …” Ky seemed to be at a loss for words.
A ripple of whispers spread through the hall, and Eiko frowned at the sound of footsteps outside. Some of them shuffled in an excited sort of way, but some were the now-familiar, calm, booted footsteps of soldiers.
“Kingsguard,” someone muttered from a nearby table. “What in the dark is the Kingsguard doing here?”

Then Eiko caught it: a sound so achingly familiar. It was a woman’s laugh, so like a laugh she remembered from Stonesigh. It sounded like home. It rang through the hall, sharp with shock and cracked with relief.
Was that …?
Rion’s fingers tightened around Eiko’s wrist so hard it hurt.
“This one here. This is a creeping thistle.” Suddenly, Eiko could feel the dirt in the garden outside Rion’s house again. Mei’s familiar laugh rang out at some mischief Rion’s little sister was causing before she refocused, forcing Eiko to trace the shape of the thistles. “They’re an insidious weed, Eiko. They might look pretty, but they’re secretly strangling all the other roots in the garden. We must rip them out root and stem.”
“Rion?” Eiko whispered, but her friend didn’t answer.
The footsteps stopped somewhere near the entrance of the hall. Someone spoke, and it sounded like one of the castle attendants, all polished vowels and practised volume, and then another attendant was at their table.
“Miss Rion. Your family has arrived.”
Rion’s breath hitched like she had been punched, and she didn’t utter a word. Eiko was not smart enough to piece together whatever horror was happening, but it was clear something terrible was at play.
The attendant said, “They have been invited to Brightfort to celebrate the announcement of your courtship. The queen has arranged a tea for you to reacquaint yourselves before training begins for the day. Please join them in the courtyard, and I will escort you to the queen—I hope you understand, but they are not allowed inside.”
Eiko felt the blood drain from her face. What happened to a month? she internally screamed at Hymn. The queen said we had a whole month before it would be announced!
They must have changed their minds. Hymn sounded despairing. They must have sensed one or both of you might try to find a way out of the engagement.
“Where will we be meeting with the queen?” Rion asked. Her voice was … fine. Smooth. Light. It was the voice she used for queens and kings and princes … because that was a voice she had, now.
Rion was also changing.
Once again, Eiko had picked the short stick. She was changing in ways that had her encouraging hands to wrap around her neck, wanting to stuff as much food as humanly possible down her gullet, and considering marriage proposals she didn’t even want just because she caught sight of the queen’s jewellery. Rion was changing to become even more poised and perfect.
Eiko wasn’t jealous.
Not really.
She mostly wasn’t jealous.
I can feel how jealous you are, Hymn pointed out. It’s honestly shocking how jealous you are. I wasn’t expecting it to burn so badly. Are you okay?
She ignored him because the attendant was speaking.
“Her Grace waits in one of the Brightfort courtyards. If you would follow me, please.”
Rion stepped away from the table and none of them hesitated to follow her, much to the attendant’s apparent chagrin. Eiko knew his voice—it was the same man who had been sent to fetch her the previous two times. He made a small, strangled sound as all four of them fell into step behind Rion.
“I’m afraid—” he began.
“Yeah,” Eiko said pleasantly, “don’t worry, we just happen to be walking in the same direction.”
Kaito’s hand found the back of her uniform without thinking—guiding her through the hall, steadying her at the step into the courtyard, though she knew where it was by now. The closer they got to the courtyard, the louder it became.
It wasn’t the noise that greeted her every morning, the jostling bodies and clanging weapons, the shouted corrections and lecturing section leaders.
It was softer and messier.
Home.
Voices overlapped, and there was a gasp. A sob that tried to become a laugh and failed.
Then—
“Rion!”
The voice hit Eiko like an arrow, making it hard to breathe. It was the same tone Rion’s mother used whenever they stayed out too late. Relief and scolding. Mei.
Rion stopped so abruptly, Eiko walked into her. Ren and Kaito quickly steadied her. Rion didn’t even seem to notice.
Eiko felt the change before she heard it: Rion’s breath went ragged. Her perfect posture faltered. Something in her finally slipped and snapped. “Mama.” Her voice wobbled, sounding so suddenly small. “Papa.”
Then suddenly, she was running. Her boots slapped over stone, fast and uneven, every inch of her poised and polished persona dropping away.
The courtyard exploded in sound.
Mei cried out, the sound high and shaking, and then there was the thud of bodies colliding, arms wrapping and squeezing, Rion sobbing into someone’s shoulder. It had tears springing to Eiko’s eyes.
“My girl.” Rion’s father, Hayu. His voice broke. “My girl—Light above, my girl. You’re alive.”
Eiko’s throat burned. Beside her, Kaito was so still. His fingers pressed against her back, like he needed to anchor himself to something solid.
A second later, Rion’s mother made a sound that was almost a laugh through tears. “Ky!”
And suddenly Ky was being pulled in too, swallowed by the sounds of hugging and grief and relief.
Eiko took a hesitant step into the courtyard, leaving the shadow of the hall’s entrance. Sunlight hit her face, warm and bright, and she tried to stir her second sight, but it was still weak as a dying ember. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need it.
She knew these voices.
She knew the cadence of Stonesigh. The rough edges. The tough love.
A smaller set of footsteps came running from the other side of the courtyard.
“Rion!” a younger female voice cried. Emi. And then a boy’s voice that cracked mid-shout. Han.
“Rion! You’re alive!”
Rion laughed, and then immediately sobbed again. Eiko’s chest twisted so hard it felt like she had been kicked. The king and queen hadn’t simply decided to bring Rion’s parents into this … whatever this was. They had dragged her younger brother and sister into it too.
A pair of footsteps broke away from the knot of bodies and came straight towards her. Eiko heard the approach and stiffened automatically, her cane lifting a fraction out of instinct. She had been conditioned in only a few days to expect pain whenever someone suddenly came at her.
But the voice that met her wasn’t unfamiliar at all.
“Ai-yahh,” a man scolded gently, and a fresh outpouring of tears sprang to life in her eyes. “Eiko.”
“Hayu,” she croaked.
His hands cupped her shoulders, something he had done a hundred times before, like she was just another child who had scraped her knee and was trying to sneak home without getting it treated.
“You reckless little thing,” he said, and his voice thickened. “Always getting into trouble, you five.”
Then Rion’s mother was there, too, her hands on Eiko’s cheeks.
“Oh,” she whispered, voice as soft as Eiko had ever heard it. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Rion’s father moved on to Kaito, pulling him in for a tight hug, whispering something to him so low that Eiko couldn’t catch it.
“You’ve gotten so thin,” Rion’s mother said, horrified.
What? “I’ve been eating a lot,” Eiko admitted.
Mei made a sound of disbelief that Eiko had heard a thousand times before. “Eat more.”
“I’d love to,” Eiko joked, “but—” She quickly cut herself off. What in the dark could she possibly say? That her trainer had taken a liking to whacking her so hard in the stomach that her next meal was always a rough mouthful of arena muck from the stone ground? That after dinner, she burned through all her energy too quickly, sending herself to sleep before she had a chance to even drag herself to bed?
She couldn’t even tell her about the delicious coffee. She was drinking it to keep herself alive from a poisoning that may or may not even be real.
“Mei,” Kaito saved her, pulling the woman into a hug.
Rion’s little sister and brother collided with her a second later, breathless and delighted. They latched onto her and Ky, talking at a speed that Eiko would need several more bread rolls to keep up with.
This wasn’t fair.
This was cruel.
Because it felt like home … but it wasn’t.
A delicate cough sliced through the moment like a blade. That bloody attendant. He had kept his distance, but now he stepped forward with that polished, practised calm, annoyed that their grief-fuelled reunion was interrupting his schedule.
“My apologies,” he said, voice smooth as oiled stone. “Her Grace is waiting.”
Another attendant appeared—or perhaps she had been there the entire time—and began shepherding the Shulin family away, all sweetness and assurances.
The courtyard emptied too quickly, the warmth from their parting hugs fading far too fast.
Eiko stood in the sudden hush, her chest aching. Kaito seemed struck speechless. Ren was breathing deep and uneven, like he was fighting the urge to hit a wall. Ky and Eiko reached for each other on instinct, clasping hands in a tight, reassuring grip.
“We were supposed to have a month to figure this out,” she whispered. “Or at least … longer than this.”
“Instead, you got a leash,” Kaito said plainly.
Collateral, Hymn agreed quietly. This is how the royal family works.
“They’ll think it’s real,” Eiko whispered. “Rion won’t tell them the truth. She won’t put that on them. She’ll fall in line, now.”
“Of course they’ll think it’s real,” Kaito spat. “Why wouldn’t they? What parent wouldn’t want to believe their daughter is being honoured instead of—” He cut himself off.
Because none of them had words that didn’t feel like treason. None of them had words that felt safe saying out loud. Not in the King of All’s territory. Not when it suddenly felt like he had eyes and ears all throughout Lyra.
How else would he have known that summoning Rion’s family would be more than enough to force Eiko into line, as well?
“They seemed … thrilled,” Ky whispered.
“Blind girl!” Cairn was stalking towards them from the arena, his hobbled walk unmistakable. “You’re late!”
“Gotta go.” She sighed, squeezing Ky’s hand once before releasing him. With every step into the arena, she felt her body shaking more and more, the shock settling beneath her skin.
She had come to Goldmoor thinking the war was outside the walls. Outside their world, even. There were sometimes squabbles between the regions—alliances broken and remade, deals squandered and reformed, campaigns for land and territory—but the real enemy had always seemed clear, at least to Eiko. It was supposed to be the Quiet. The monsters who waited for darkness, who tried to claw into their minds and take over their bodies.
She had no idea that war was also right here. In golden sitting rooms and tinkling courtyards. Hiding behind skilful manipulations and veiled, jovial warnings.
There was a hidden war in the space between what the King of All wanted and what his subjects were willing to give … and she had already lost her first battle before she could even see it for what it was.

64%

Time was passing in a brutal, looping blur.
Everything began to taste like blood and dust, and everything began to smell like sweat and exhaustion—but what was worse was that she kind of liked it.
She didn’t like Cairn beating her up every day, but she liked that he allowed her to mouth off to him in a way the other recruits would never dare to speak to their section leaders. She liked that he was rough and gruff and perpetually annoyed by every little thing. It was easier for her to relate to than perfect, shiny, and fierce Alessandra and Ilara.
She didn’t like that being in Eclipse meant her training was twice as long, twice as bloody, and twice as likely to end in death, but she liked that the other Eclipse soldiers had decided to accept her, in their own, silent way. In the washroom, they always left her the basin bathed in sunlight, and her preferred shower cubicle, as though they realised habit and consistency were key for people with certain disabilities. They even barked at some Half-Moon bannermen to move after finding them at the table where Eiko usually had her meals with her friends. They had claimed her as one of their own, and for the first time since coming to Goldmoor, she was beginning to feel just as accepted and claimed as her friends.
She didn’t like that she hadn’t touched her bed in weeks, but she was at least making headway with Chasin’s language. That had to count for something.
She didn’t particularly like the monotony of it all. Not when every morning began with her waking sore and exhausted, swallowing down her dread, and chasing it with enough food to feed at least two grown men.
She had still been forced into Chasin’s office like a dog called to heel for a few days after Rion’s family arrived. Her hands guided into that humiliating oath before he poured her a cup of coffee, which she wasn’t even going to pretend to complain about. It was awful for the highlight of her day to so closely be tied to the absolute bane of her existence.
But then, one morning, she knocked on his door and waited, but the commander made no sound for her to enter.
When she finally turned to leave, Alessandra’s voice drifted from further down the hallway.
“It appears the surveillance period is over,” she said, her tone apathetic.
Eiko froze, blinking rapidly in the captain’s direction. Alessandra knew about the poison. Or … about the fake poison?
Should I ask her? Eiko questioned Hymn.
Definitely not—he began.
“Was I really poisoned?” she blurted.
The Crescent captain didn’t answer right away. Her footsteps stopped close enough that Eiko could feel the other woman’s presence, clean and dangerous as a drawn blade.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Alessandra asked.
“That’s … what does that even mean?”
Alessandra made a small scoffing sound and walked away, apparently disappearing into her office, as she closed the door with an uppity snick.
And that was that.
The commander was done giving her coffee and forcing her to acknowledge his ownership. Eiko should have felt relief, but she wasn’t free of him. That would have been far too convenient.
Instead, he showed up to her training session that day with Cairn. And then the next. It wasn’t every day—he kept it sporadic enough to stir her jumpiness and paranoia, never knowing when to expect his silent, weighty presence.
Sometimes, he came in the mornings, quiet as a shadow, standing at the edge of the arena while Cairn warmed up his shoulder—Cairn always warmed up his shoulder, as he needed that arm to consistently beat her with his cane. It was his whacking arm.
Sometimes, Chasin came in the late afternoons, when the sun sat low enough to slash gold across the stone and make her second sight briefly twitch awake, just enough to sharpen the bright parts of the world and flash his shadowed stare and cold countenance into her mind before she forcibly made herself blind again.
Sometimes, he came in the middle of the day, and she felt his calm, calculating observation while she lay sprawled, knocked to the ground. She hated his stare the most during those times: when Cairn had sent her stumbling and falling for the hundredth time, and the stone had bitten into her soft skin more than it could bear, and she was dragging in air through her teeth because her lungs didn’t know whether to breathe or scream.
She was becoming so paranoid that she was starting to feel Chasin watching her even when he wasn’t there. The sensation was like a constant, cold touch of metal against her throat. The most infuriating part was that he never said a word. He didn’t sign any corrections or orders to Cairn or join the old man in beating her. He just hovered there in that still, predatory quiet.
Watching.
Assessing.
Forcing her to remember those dark-damned words he had made her sign so many times.
I belong to you.
It made her want to scream. It made her want to break something. And it made absolutely no difference, because the monotony of her routine didn’t care about her feelings. The monotony kept things moving no matter what. Cairn’s cane whistled through the air every day, a cruel little song that ended in monotonous, reliable pain.
“Again,” he always grunted after successfully knocking her over.
Again.
And again.
Sometimes he made her practise different stances with her wooden staff until her calves trembled and her knees wanted to fold. Sometimes he struck the staff until her palms blistered and split with the shuddering force of his blows. Sometimes he made her stand still and listen—just listen—until she could name every individual little sound she could hear in the arena.
“You’re too slow,” he told her one day, after he swept her feet out from under her so hard that her head snapped back, and she could have sworn that the world flashed white.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she spat, coughing up dust. He was a terrible instructor.
“You’d be useless even if I told you what to do,” he grumbled.
She sat up, glaring in his direction. “You’re such an old bastard.”
“I’ve been called worse by better,” Cairn replied, and kicked her staff towards her with just enough force that it clattered against her shin.
Hymn, ever helpful, whispered, He’s awful.
A light-licking dick, she agreed.
He’s also … not wrong, Hymn added reluctantly. He’s still easily beating you.
Eiko wanted to disagree out of principle, but she couldn’t, not when her body felt like it was shrinking. Not when her uniform hung looser every day. Not when she could feel her cheekbones sharpening, her ribs becoming too easy to count beneath her skin. Not when her hunger had turned into something constant. At first, the ravenousness had been shocking. It was an ugly, greedy impulse that made her want to shove food into her mouth until her jaw fatigued from chewing.
Now, it was no longer shocking … it was just … there. Always. A constant ache in her belly that never went away. Like something inside her had taken up residence and demanded to be fed.
She ate before training.
She ate after training.
She ate between treating her bruises and cuts and scrapes.
She ate until she felt sick, and then she ate again anyway, because the sickness didn’t last, but the hunger did.
She even dreamed of food: bread so dense she could knock someone out with it, stew thick enough to stand a spoon in, berries crushed into syrup with sugar thick enough to make her entire mouth sticky. She woke up with the taste of it on her tongue and nothing in her stomach but that gnawing, endless want. One afternoon, after she had been knocked onto her ass so many times she couldn’t feel her tailbone anymore, Cairn finally called a halt.
“Sit,” he ordered.
Eiko sat, her body on autopilot. It was dangerous not to obey one of Cairn’s orders during training. Not because he would punish her, but because he only ever gave her clear instruction when she was in the direct path of greater harm than he intended. He needed her to be functioning enough that she would still get back up after being knocked down.
The arena sounded different without the constant impact of her falling—too open and too quiet. Perhaps the other recruits had finished for the day. They always finished before her.
Cairn’s cane clicked as he paced in front of her.
“You’re losing too much weight,” he said bluntly.
Eiko blinked, caught off guard by the observation. Not that it wasn’t true, she just didn’t expect him to comment on it.
“I’m eating plenty,” she defended.
“You’re burning through plenty,” Cairn snapped, and she flinched at the sharpness of it. “Whatever it is you’re doing with that monster of yours—whatever it costs—your body can’t keep up. You’ll snap in half before long. Simple as that.”
“Maybe that’s the goal,” she snarked back. “Maybe if I snap clean in half, the King of All will find someone else to breed.”
Cairn went still, the click of his cane dragged into silence.
She groaned, her head falling into her hands. She should not have said that. She waited for the repercussions of speaking out against the king. Instead, Cairn made a rough sound that might have been a laugh if he were less of a light-licking dick.
“That still happening, then? Thought the prince gave up on you when he didn’t come to visit again.”
Eiko shrugged a shoulder, deciding it would be best not to answer. Prince Ceran hadn’t tried to speak with her again, but Rion’s family remained within the castle, and Rion had been summoned to several more “teas” in the garden.
Eiko had not been summoned.
Cairn tapped against the stone a few times, and then he said, “Your bed is there for a reason. Use it. No more studying until you fall asleep in the library.”
Eiko stared in his direction. “How do you know I’m not sleeping in my bed?”
He scoffed. “You’re not the only one with a habit of reading all night.”
“You—” she began, but then stopped. He wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about the man whose office was right beside the library.
The only man who would have any idea that she wasn’t leaving the hall at night. The man who shouldn’t have known that, unless he paid close attention. The man who was utterly determined to haunt her dark-damned existence.
Cairn didn’t give her space to think any further. “Am I understood?”
She opened her mouth to retort, to insist that Cairn himself had been the one to show her to the library and instruct her to learn Chasin’s language, but he cut in again, his voice turning rougher.
“I don’t train corpses,” he said. “And I don’t train little blind girls determined to disappear inside their uniforms. You want to survive this? You build muscle. You build strength. You might think you’re honing this … skill … of yours, but you’re not. It’s eating you for fuel, and it’ll keep going until there’s nothing left of you.”
Eiko swallowed. She hated that he made sense. She hated even more that the hunger inside her perked up at the word eating, like a dog hearing its leash unclip.
Eiko’s throat tightened. “Fine,” she whispered.
For a moment, Cairn didn’t speak. Then he said, “If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me.”
Right, because she was going to run to Chasin’s right-hand man and spill all her secrets. Did she really look that stupid?
“I’m fine,” she snarked, injecting a little more strength behind the declaration. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Cairn was scowling. She could feel it. “Whatever it is,” he growled, “stop letting ‘it’ happen. Do something about ‘it.’”
Eiko’s fingers curled around her staff. “Did you tell him?” she asked tightly. “You promised that my secret was safe with you. Why are you talking to him about me spending all night in the library?”
“I told him your monster was reading the books to you.”
Oh. Why hadn’t she thought of that lie?
“Now,” he added, and his voice went sharp again, “get up.”
She got up, and she went right back to being knocked down.
Again.
And again.

That night, she decided to take dinner in the mess hall instead of the library. She couldn’t possibly say that she was fluent in Chasin’s language, but she had now possibly memorised just enough to get by. She wove through the tables in the hall until she came to the one they always sat at.
“Eiko?” Kaito jumped up, surprised. “Are you okay?” He grabbed her face, tilting it up. Searching for tears of blood, she realised.
It was … understandable, considering that was how she had been ending her nights for weeks on end.
“I’m fine.” She brushed him off. “I just thought I’d skip studying tonight.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” Ren asked curiously.
She shrugged. “Actually, I think that’s what the commander ordered.”
“I’ll get you some food.” Ky jumped up, hurrying off before she could stop him and insist on grabbing her own tray.
It was like all of Eiko’s friends expected the worst to happen to her overnight. They were all far too relieved to see her—tired and stumbling—every morning. She had assumed it was a breakfast thing. An overnight thing. But dinner seemed no different. So maybe they were just surprised that she was still alive after she had been let out of their sight for any extended period of time.
Mildly insulting, but okay.
She sat down beside Rion. Her friend had become quieter in a way that scared Eiko. They hadn’t spoken in depth about their impending threat of marriage. Rion had become very close-lipped about her situation, though Eiko had noted her voice began to soften when she talked about Corvan.
Eiko had thought that maybe it was just their breakfasts that had grown heavy and silent, but apparently, they were spending their dinners in much the same way. In heaviness and awkward silence.
Attempting to lighten the mood, Eiko nervously cleared her throat. “So … I’ve been on this diet—don’t want to look all pudgy in my wedding gown, you know⁠—”
“Eiko,” Kaito hissed. “That is not funny.”
But Rion choked on her water and then started laughing. She laughed until it sounded like she was tearing up, and then she dropped her head onto Eiko’s shoulder. “Love you.”
“Love you.” Eiko stabbed blindly at Rion’s plate while the other woman was distracted with silly sentimentality, until she managed to spear one of the potatoes she could smell. “You guys need to lighten up. The princes aren’t all that bad. And lords and ladies do this whole—” She waved the potato around on her fork. “—arranged marriage thing all the time. Some of the engagements last, some of them don’t. The future isn’t set, you know.”
“It’s not the princes I’m worried about,” Rion whispered.
“It wasn’t the princes who called for her family,” Ren added, with just enough disdain that she was pretty sure he still had a problem with the princes. “It was … them.” The King of All and his queen. Or maybe just him. Or maybe just her.
Eiko nodded, none of them daring to speak out against the king or queen in the middle of the busy mess hall. Their table fell into loaded silence again. This time, Eiko didn’t know how to diffuse it, so she sighed and let the brittle quiet win.
Perhaps it was the break in her monotony that helped her to think clearly again, but at some point during breakfast, the answer to “what the hell had Alessandra meant by ‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’” crashed into her with enough force to have her rushing to the library as soon as the others dispersed for bed. It was always empty at that time of night, so she wasn’t surprised to find the hall shrouded in darkness. Even when she activated her second sight, she was still forced to fumble around by touch until she could light one of the lanterns. She searched the shelves until she found the section she needed.
Poison.
She plucked out each of the notebooks, ignoring the more formal tomes, until she found the most recently dated one. The handwriting was regimented and unyielding. A style she had grown intimately acquainted with. She searched the glossary page, which had been stitched into the front of the hand-bound stack, her finger trailing down the thick vellum until she found what she was looking for.
Mute’s Mercy.
She flipped to the corresponding page and began to read.
Classification: Non-discriminant, terminal compound.
Restriction: Strictly Godsguard administration only.
Clearance: Not to be administered without command sanction.
Description: Liquid. Unnatural black. Faint surface sheen. Slight viscosity.
Origin: Blackreach Province. Botanical extract from endemic flora.
Efficacy: Lethal to humans. Lethal to monsters. No known natural or magical resistance.
Onset: Initial symptoms within four hours of ingestion. Respiratory constriction. Muscular degradation. Rapid progression to organ failure.
Administration: Oral. Do not atomise.
Antidote: None.
Handling Notes: Volatile. Degrades when exposed to heat or light. Do not store in metal vessels.
Identifying Characteristics: Odour is distinct and persistent. Ash and dust. Easily detected at close range.
Field Note: If odour is absent, compound integrity should be questioned.
Eiko set the notebook down with trembling hands, her fingertip dragging beneath several lines, sure she must have read them wrong.
An antidote did not exist.
It had a distinct, ash-and-dust odour.
Her stomach dropped. The vial he had pressed to her lips that first day had smelled and tasted nutty, sweet, and syrupy. She flipped the page, her heart thudding as she desperately scanned for annotations or amendments. There was nothing. Her pulse roared in her ears, fury and humiliation burning through her body.
Chasin had pretended her coffee was poisoned. He had lied.
He had convinced her she needed an antidote. He had lied.
He had compelled her to believe that the antidote was the real poison. He had lied about that too.
He made us go back seven times. Hymn sounded shocked. For a fake antidote. I really thought⁠—
“I hate that man!” she suddenly screamed, slamming her fist against the book.
He had lied about poisoning her. Lied about curing her. Then lied again—about lying—so convincingly that he had both her and her monster utterly fooled.
The sound of her hitting the book echoed through the empty library, sharp and ugly. She stood there, breathing hard, her hand aching, the lantern trembling slightly on the table beside her. And then, slowly and deliberately, she smoothed the page flat. She closed the notebook and returned it to its place on the shelf.
He was going to regret what he did.
She had no idea how to make him regret it, but it felt good to think the vow as she extinguished her lantern and released her second sight.
Chasin Goldmoor was going to pay.
Hopefully.
Some day.