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

Ceran’s hand tightened fractionally around hers. “I believe,” his voice was pitched low, “I must give you up again. Chasin,” he added, louder, a greeting for his brother, before he passed her hand into another and stepped away.
Eiko stared at her fingers resting in Chasin’s gloved grip, as his other hand curved at her waist, pulling her into his orbit.
In her periphery, she could see that Ceran was stealing Rion away from Corvan.
Where Ceran had adjusted to her, compensating for her, and where King Grigori had dragged and pulled at her, Chasin merely assumed competence. He moved, expecting her to follow, and she did. Cairn might complain about how slow she was, but she was certainly competent enough to adjust her body to invisible instruction—that was something she had been practising since she was ten years old, when Rion, Ky, and Kaito began to steer her as they walked.
Chasin’s hand at her waist asserted just enough pressure to place her where he wanted her, aligning her body with his in a way that made the dance feel liquid, flattering the silken glide and sway of her dress. Her spine straightened automatically, her chin drawing up. As a person, he sucked. As a dancer … he … sucked a little less.
His gloved fingers pressed once at her lower back in a small correction, and she adjusted instantly. Satisfied, his thumb traced a small, deliberate sign against her spine, with just enough weight to pepper gooseflesh across her exposed skin.
Yes.
Her stomach clenched. Hymn was bristling, the little monster still in a constricting cuff around her ankle.
I’m going to teach this guy a lesson, he growled ferociously. One day.
He was such a little wimp.
Eiko, on the other hand, … was also going to teach Chasin a lesson. One day.
Because she was also a wimp.
Chasin leaned in, his nose brushing her hairline briefly as he ducked to her ear.
He’s hunting, Hymn reminded her, as Chasin seemed to take note of her scent.
Chasin’s breath brushed the shell of her ear. “Congratulations on your engagement,” he whispered, that fractal, broken voice threatening to cut right through the silk of her gown, razing tiny little wounds all the way down her spine.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said stiffly. And by the way, fuck you, and I hate you.
The crowd had fallen into a careful hush around them, but the people weren’t actually watching them—at least not boldly. This wasn’t a pretty golden prince on display with his newly betrothed. This was the silent, terrifying commander of the Godsguard dancing with the ornamental princess-to-be. It was pitch-black leather-and-armour pressed against shimmering, glittering silk. It was gloved hands clasping bare hands decorated in gold lace. It was a tousled dark head pitched down, obsidian eyes cast over a headdress raining gold over secretive features, chiming delicately with every spin and turn. It seemed forbidden, in a way, and the nobles’ skirted, furtive glances only made it feel more so.
There was only a single point of decoration on his Godsguard uniform: a flower pinned to his pocket. A single, small, blood-red rose, so fresh that the petals were barely blooming. Perhaps his mother had forced it on him.
Chasin guided her through a slow turn, his grip unyielding. She followed the movement by touch alone, allowing her second sight to fade into darkness, the shift of his weight and the minute changes in the pressure of his fingertips enough to guide her. It was familiar in the worst possible way.
Her turn completed, he drew her back to his chest, closer than before, his lips a breath from her ear again. It was almost ironic that the one person most women, men—or anyone with a functioning sense of self-preservation—most wanted to have distance from, was the one person who had a legitimate reason to lean close.
Granted, he didn’t seem particularly motivated to use his damaged, whispering voice for anyone else, though Hymn had once told her that he spoke to Alessandra.
“Never trust a G-Goldmoor.” His voice broke against his own last name, his hand flexing around hers in a brief, instinctive reaction to pain. She didn’t need her second sight to see it; she could hear it in the painful scrape of sound he made.
“Are you talking about yourself?” she asked, thinking back to his layered, thrice-told lie about the poison. “Or your brothers? Or the king? Your parents?”
Yes. His fingers traced the word against the small of her back.
She swallowed. “Which one?”
He didn’t respond. They turned again, and for a brief moment, her back was to him. His hand slid higher, fingers spreading between her shoulder blades, steering her effortlessly back into him. As he did, he signed another word against her skin.
Mine.
Her stomach flipped, the heat of rage and the sharp cold of irritation sparking in equal measure. So that was why Chasin had chosen to dance with her, despite refusing to take to the floor with anyone else. Not that she had noticed. It must have been Hymn keeping an eye on⁠—
No, it was definitely you, Hymn interjected. I’m learning this information for the first time.
It was definitely her monster who had noticed⁠—
It was definitely you⁠—
Not that it was important. The reason was now clear: Chasin hated dancing, unless it was to remind the people he owned that he owned them.
Are we sure that’s the clear reason? Hymn attempted to meddle with her thought process again.
For the love of light, Eiko groused back. Would you stop? I’m trying to concentrate here.
If you say so.
Chasin had only stepped onto the floor to remind her. To play his little game of ownership. She would bet anything that the King of All was watching them.
That he was seething.
This had nothing to do with her: It was between Chasin and his father.
“I belong to Prince Ceran now,” she said, a little haughtily. She didn’t believe it for a second, but it felt good to goad Chasin.
For starters, Ceran had about as much control over this situation as she did. And then there was the little fact that she would never hand over control of her person willingly. Not even to a charming, handsome prince. She wouldn’t be telling Ceran he owned her anytime soon. She would say it to Chasin, though. If it would piss him off.
A low sound left Chasin. Almost a laugh. “Do you?” he rasped against her ear.
Her jaw clenched. The music swelled, pulsing in her chest. All around them, the other couples were drawing closer together. Chasin had pulled her near enough that the long, strong length of his body brushed against hers with every movement.
It was borderline inappropriate, but nobody was going to stop him, and perhaps that was the point.
They passed near the edge of the floor, and Eiko drew on her second sight for a moment, searching the hall for a glimpse of Rion. She was still in Ceran’s arms, his posture relaxed and ever charming as he spoke to her, making her blush and laugh prettily.
Chasin’s hand at her waist shifted, fingers briefly flexing in, no longer guiding her but almost squeezing her.
Your attention belongs to me.
It wasn’t spoken, or signed, it just screamed from his body language.
Monsters are very possessive of their things, Hymn said thoughtfully. This is more evidence that there is little difference between him and his monster.
Did you just call me his “thing?” she asked, bewildered.
Monsters like to collect pretty things, he defended, and powerful things. The prettier and more powerful, the higher their aggression in guarding it.
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and released her second sight again, welcoming the comforting darkness.
The music drew itself towards a close, the final notes lingering as Chasin guided her through one last turn. He released her as the applause rose, polite and restrained, already fracturing into conversation. His hand left her waist, his presence receding without comment or acknowledgement. This time, the hum of conversation swallowed up any sounds of his footsteps, leaving her confused over whether she had truly been left alone or not.
Thankfully, the space between them barely existed before it was filled.
“Well,” Ceran said lightly, stepping in with impeccable timing, his hand finding hers. “I won’t give you up again. My brother gets enough of your time.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the nearest cluster of nobles. Amused, but uneasy, unsure if they were truly supposed to be laughing. Ceran felt it too. She could hear the slight adjustment in his breath, the way his grip tightened just a touch. But he recovered quickly, turning her neatly into his frame as the musicians started a new song. He didn’t ask her to dance, and she didn’t want to—not anymore. Not after Chasin. She was now too overstimulated; she just wanted to hide away and clutch at Rion or Ky, to not even speak, but simply to lean into her best friends and feel the comfort of their familiar presence.
But it didn’t seem to matter what she wanted.
“Come,” Ceran murmured. “We can’t end the night with that being your final dance, or people might talk.”
When she was permitted to stop dancing and stand with Rion again, it was at the front of the hall under the blistering attention of the king and queen. She barely dared to utter a single word, just in case she said the wrong thing, but people weren’t really coming to congratulate her. They were coming to praise and bless the king and queen on the engagements of their sons. She and Rion just happened to be there.
It gave Eiko a rare moment to truly examine the hall with what little energy she had left to power the second sight. It was a large, circular room with veined marble floors threaded in gold and copper, polished and shimmering with candlelight reflected from the chandeliers. The soaring ceiling was a pattern of domes, each gold-rimmed vault painted right to the edges in detailed scenes of myth and conquest that she desperately wanted to climb high and inspect.
Interestingly, there were no windows in the hall, but instead several arched alcoves housing large statues of kings and queens, each seated on matching thrones, draped in marbled cloth and regalia. Each of the carved kings held the same sceptre, and a ledge around the inside of the alcove glowed with flame from candles, wax coating the edges of the ledges and dripping onto the walls. In some of the alcoves, she could spot curtains behind the statues. She didn’t realise they were hidden doorways until people began to slip past them.
At first, it was just the odd gentleman, and she didn’t think much of it, but as the partygoers in the hall began to thin, she noticed more and more of the men slipping away unnoticed behind those burgundy curtains.
“Your Graces, may I offer my most sincere congratulations on these most happy unions …”
Eiko’s attention snapped back to the newest well-wishers stopping before the king and queen, her grip around Rion’s hand tightening reflexively.
Lord and Lady Erendi.
They were both bowing as Lady Erendi spoke, but when they straightened, Lord Erendi’s eyes were on Rion.
“To see two princes so honourably bound in devotion is a rare and radiant thing,” his wife continued, gushing to the king and queen. “May their bond bring strength to the realm, and light to your house for generations to come.”
“You are most kind, Lady Erendi,” the queen said. She said something else, too, but Eiko was too busy trying not to strangle Rion’s hand or Lord Erendi’s neck to pay attention.
“You have blessed Stonesigh with this union …” She tuned out Lady Erendi completely.
Lord Erendi had his brows drawn together, his eyes narrowing slightly as he eyed Rion. At first, it was with a stubborn sort of suspicion, but then his attention swept over Eiko, and that suspicion settled into brittle disbelief. He must have been watching then from the sides of the hall, marvelling over how the beautiful woman with the long auburn hair and the other one who stumbled around blindly so closely resembled his son’s best friends.

78%

You did so well, Hymn said, curling about her neck, his tail tickling her collarbone. We’re going to be unbeatable in no time.
Cairn turned away. “Go get some water. We’re not sparring today.”
“Am I fighting him again?” she asked, nodding towards where Ewan was still standing, the slap slap sound of his staff against leather remaining steady as he tossed it back and forth between his hands.
“No,” Cairn said over his shoulder. “He’s done entertaining himself.”
Ewan laughed. “Looking forward to next time, lass.”
“So am I,” she lied, rolling her sore shoulder and following Cairn over to the overhang, using her staff as a cane until it hit the bench, and then she swapped it out for her actual cane. She collapsed to the bench and snatched up the canteen she always brought to training, draining a few gulps of the cool water.
“It’s time to choose a speciality, now that you can almost hold your own.”
“I can absolutely hold my own …” She didn’t need her second sight to know that he was giving her that perplexed, disbelieving stare that he gave her sometimes. “Against a tray of cream puffs,” she finished.
Silence.
It’s the stare, Hymn confirmed.
The one that says, “Were you dropped on your head as a child, or are you going down the same path as Vana?” she asked Hymn.
Definitely that one.
More silence.
“Just ask about the Copperlight Thingy,” she said to Cairn. “I know you’re dying to.”
He sighed. Long and hard. “I’ve let you get too comfortable.”
“You didn’t let me. It’s just my nature. I’m extremely adaptable. The trick is to never confront your emotions, thoughts, or feelings, and to run from all difficult conversations at all costs—if you wanted to know.”
An unwilling chuckle escaped him. “I appreciate the insight into your frightful little bird brain. Now—” He slapped a heavy tome or ledger onto the bench between them, making her jump. “—it’s time you pick a speciality.”
“In what?”
“Killing, blind girl.”
“Why just blind girls? Why not all girls?”
Silence again.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Was a late night.”
His sigh was heavier than the last. “You must choose a weapon⁠—”
“Poison,” she declared automatically.
Yes! Hymn cheered enthusiastically. And one day, we’re going to fake poison the commander, and then fake save him, fake poison him again, and fake save him seven more times!
Eiko blinked rapidly. Holy sun, I really am that stupid, aren’t I?
“You might want to know the options,” Cairn said dryly. “Once you decide on a speciality, there’s no changing your mind. You have to complete the training from start to finish before you can pick anothe⁠—”
“Definitely poison,” she said.
He picked up the ledger, and she heard the brief scrape of a quill. “Poison it is.” There was a hint of amusement in his tone. A hint was too much amusement.
I just made a terrible mistake, didn’t I? she asked Hymn.
Before he could answer, Cairn slapped the soft leather cover of the ledger closed, and she heard him tying it off. “You’ll still train in basic combat with me in the mornings,” he said, “but then you’ll need to report to the current poison specialist for the rest of your training. We only have one poison specialist in Eclipse.”
Oh, darkness. Hymn sighed. Yes, we made a terrible mistake.
“Who is the⁠—”
“The commander,” Cairn interrupted, expecting her question. “Naturally.”
“Naturally,” she drawled. “So anyway, I’m going to pick daggers. Love daggers. Great method for killing.”
“I already wrote poison,” he said—was he walking away?
“Hey, old man!” She jumped up and tried to run after him, but he had placed a wooden training staff on the ground right in front of her, and it sent her quickly sprawling to the stone.
“Report to the damned commander!” he snapped over his shoulder. “And next time, you’d better listen to me instead of making rash decisions!”

80%

Good second choice. His little head bobbed along her collarbone like he was nodding, as his tail hung over the other side of her neck, swishing gently. And then Cairn?
And then Cairn, she agreed.
Who else?
Lord Erendi, she decided. Actually, put him above Cairn and the King of All—the king is a creep and a raging, power-hungry dick, but he isn’t trying to hollow people out.
Should we put him above Chasin? Hymn sounded torn.
Eiko pressed her fingers to the door, her mind dragged back to the night before, to Chasin signing a word into her skin.
Mine.
No, she grumbled pettily. Keep him at the top.
With a fortifying breath, she formed a fist and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
The words were whispered against the back of her neck, the sound harsh and broken. She froze, too shocked to react, but a reaction was apparently what he wanted, because he decided to make his presence felt as well as known. He stepped into her body. He didn’t press tightly, but she could feel the brush of his uniform, the brief, powerful flex of his thigh, and the heat of his broad shoulders and chest threatening to swallow her up.
There were many reasons to spiral, to panic, to begin shaking like a leaf and hyperventilating like Ky did when confronted with a new style of coat. And yet, all she could focus on was that Chasin Goldmoor no longer smelled of death, and the sudden change confused her beyond measure.
He smelled human, suddenly. Of leather and steel, of course, but other things, too, just beneath the surface, things that were painfully mundane and normal. The snap of a flower stem, sap blooming. Chopped wood, plucked herbs, rain-dampened greenery. Parchment, ink, and glue. Tea. Fire, and stoked embers. And beneath all of that—all of those achingly average, human scents—she caught the faintest whiff of sandalwood soap.
It made her wonder what she smelled like.
Probably arena dirt and sweat.
“I was instructed to report for specialist training,” she said to the door, because she had no idea what else to do or say. “Cairn sent me to you.”
“You chose already?” he murmured, the husky words like tiny claws scratching at her skin.
“Yes.”
His knuckles brushed up her spine, his finger tracing a word against her back.
Hasty.
And then another.
Impulsive.
It took her a moment to figure out which words he intended, as it wasn’t quite the same to feel them as it was to see them, but luckily, she had practised his language blind every night and continued to practise blind every night. She knew the form and flow of the words, often shaping them with one hand while she felt them with the other. She had traced them over her little desk in the library, and onto her bedsheets at night while trying to sleep. The form of the words was slightly different when traced, of course, and she had only done it idly to help with her memorisation. It was like a second language, a variation to his main language, which she hadn’t intended to learn.
She certainly hadn’t learned that way with the expectation that Chasin would begin to use her skin as a damn ledger, but here they were. As it turned out, she was remarkably adept at feeling out the language even when it was traced against her body.
“This makes sense,” he whispered, adding for you, in quick strokes against her back.
If anyone walked into the hallway at this point … there would be questions.
Mostly “What the fuck?” and “Uh, is everything okay here?” and, if the speaker were directly behind the commander, “Chasin, why are you talking to a door?”
She frowned. “It does?”
Yes, he signed, his head dipping lower, until his breath stirred her ear. “Most weapons require …” Strength, he signed. Power. “Poison requires careful planning.” Cunning, he added, fingers blunt and sweeping against her back.
“Does it hurt?” she found herself asking, before she could bite back the question. “To speak, I mean?”
Those deft fingers suddenly gripped her shoulders, spinning her around. He pressed a single, long finger to her chest, easing her back against the door, and then he signed, Follow, against her chest, right above the shaped leather of her uniform, his touch burning through the mesh of her undershirt.
And then he walked away.
She swallowed nervously and turned towards the sound of his steps, following as he passed into the adjoining library. Her cane clicked lightly against the floor as she adjusted, trailing him past the long benches through the centre of the hall.
He opened a door at the other end—one which she had never ventured through—and stepped outside again. Sunlight stroked her face, the air brisk and salty. The stone felt warm, even through her supple-soled boots, the waves rolling in from somewhere below, distant but unmistakable. Seabirds cried overhead.
It was a small courtyard, and there seemed to be garden beds on either side of the walkway. She felt the stroke of a trailing vine across her arm and reached out to let her fingers brush against the flowers blooming and spilling from the sides of the raised bed. Spiked, soft, fuzzy, and velvety. Shy bulbs and boastful, unfurling blooms. Their scents curled around her, mixing in a happy way with the salty sea air.
She had spent so many mornings with Mei in the little garden outside Rion’s family’s cottage, helping to tend the flowers there for her stall in the marketplace—the stall that became Rion’s, once she was old enough, allowing Mei to pick up extra shifts in the mine. Some of the flowers Eiko knew by touch and scent. The bluebells and the roses, especially.
On the far side of the courtyard, she heard the unmistakable sound of a fragile glass door opening.
Humidity wrapped around her the instant she stepped through the doorway after Chasin. She paused, overwhelmed by scent alone: crushed leaves, damp earth, sharp citrus, with something sweet and medicinal curling beneath it all. Water dripped somewhere nearby, and the faintest sound of scraping as a leaf brushed back and forth against a glass pane.
Chasin planted a gentle hand against her chest, a silent command to stay where she was, so she did. She stayed, wondering how he could be such an asshole one minute, and so gentle the next.
She heard him move around her, the faint rustle of plants being brushed aside and glass clinking. He positioned her before a workstation of sorts, his body brushing behind her again as he raised her hands, setting them against a roughly bound book, already open to a particular page.
“Your first poison. Make it,” he commanded, voice now so quiet it was only a rough breath. “Submit it to me. Then you are done for the day. You will need your monster.”
To read the recipe and identify the plants.
She nodded. “Okay, but⁠—”
The glass door creaked lightly. He was already gone. She sighed.
Right, of course. The commander didn’t care that the queen was summoning her for princess lessons. He didn’t care about how she was supposed to fit all this training into her day. He cared that he had given an order, and he expected it to be obeyed.
Cairn was a terrible instructor, but Chasin might just be worse.
Definitely worse, Hymn said. Anyway, this poison is called Blindman’s Bluff.
Seriously? Eiko asked dryly.
Oooh, Hymn ignored her, sounding excited by what he was reading. It causes temporary blindness and then extreme itchiness, often leading to real blindness when people scratch their own eyes out.
Holy darkness, Eiko spluttered. He wants us to make that? Like right now?
Yes, Hymn said excitedly. It’s actually not very difficult.
She paused, one hand hovering uncertainly above the page. “How do you know that?”
It says it right at the top of the page: the danger is contact, not complexity. We just need to be careful not to get any of it on you.
Her stomach flipped. That’s so deeply reassuring.
Hymn tightened around her wrist, grounding her. We need to learn this if we’re going to become unstoppable.
To get our revenge, she mused.
And to be unstoppable, he reiterated.
Yes, but mostly for revenge, she insisted.
Okay, let’s figure that part out later.
She traced the page margins lightly. Fine, let’s get started. I need sight for this. At least for the first few times.
Okay, but be careful, he warned. We don’t know what Queen Noemi has in store for us tonight.
She drew a slow breath in through her nose and let the second sight rise. Light unfurled around her, a greenhouse blooming into being. Sunlight poured through angled panes of glass overhead, breaking into honeyed shards that cut across stone and leaf and soil. The air was thick and warm despite the unnatural chill that always permeated the Godsguard grounds. It clung to her skin immediately, oddly soothing. Condensation pearled along the glass, fat drops trembling at the seams before slipping free to patter softly onto the stone below, feeding into little tufts of moss.
Rows of plants crowded in close, forming lush walls of overlapping deep jade, pale sage, and waxy blue. Vines climbed narrow trellises towards the light, their tendrils curled like grasping fingers, reaching for the sun and getting tangled in the steel structure of the greenhouse frame. Terracotta pots lined low benches, their rims chalked white with mineral bloom, spaced apart by watering jugs of various sizes.
It smelled so alive. Crushed leaves, damp, rich soil, and paper. That medicinal scent still threaded beneath it all: resinous, bitter, and sharp—but she didn’t hate it. She very much liked the idea that she could create something with her own hands in this little space. She stood very still for a moment, just taking it in.
Oh, she murmured reverently to Hymn. I like this place.
There were two cleared workbenches, stone-topped and scarred with years of use, the edges rounded smooth by the constant brush of hands and arms. Glass jars crowded the shelves above the bench Chasin had positioned her at, each one labelled in neat, careful script. Powders in muted shades of ochre and rust. Twisted roots bundled with twine. Dried peels curled into brittle spirals, fragrant even from where she stood.
It felt oddly like standing before the sweets cart back in the Stonesigh marketplace—she just wanted to touch everything, to taste and smell everything, to play with it all.
Gloves first, Hymn warned. And for the love of the dark, don’t put anything in your mouth.
She selected the pair of thicker gloves that hung on a board above the workbench, the leather oiled and supple, then skimmed the page titled Blindman’s Bluff.
Ratios. Ingredients. Method. Notes and warnings inked in cramped margins by different hands, corrections layered atop one another, scribbled arguments back and forth.
She blinked rapidly, immediately overwhelmed, but it wasn’t the first time she had tackled a difficult book written in a technical language entirely unfamiliar to her—or even on the subject of a literal unfamiliar language.
She read it through several times, until the structure of the recipe began to make sense to her, and then she moved slowly through the greenhouse, trying to learn the space, asking Hymn the names of all the things she was unfamiliar with, and the meanings for all the words she couldn’t puzzle out.
And then she began.