Chapter 146: A Painting Half-Finished

Those black lines. I had seen them once before, on the face of a Goddess lying in a cave. That was in the Everfrost Plains, miles and miles and miles away from here. I had never expected to see them again, least of all within the great walls of Aelheim.

Lady Tress Wardell was a beautiful woman. I could tell even now, while she was lost in her strange sleep. Her features were soft and delicate. The rest of her frame -that which I could see- was just as soft. Eira had looked beautiful too. Ruined, but beautiful. The woman in front of me was similar, but not the same. Eira had been almost covered in the strange black. Here, there were only two dark lines, tracing up her entire body and cutting across her cheeks. They joined into another line in the space above her eyes. The strange markings looked almost deliberate. Like a painting left half-finished.

Estovan had slipped in behind us and taken up a place along the wall by the window. His hand did not leave his rapier.

"What is this, Corin?" my father asked. He took a step forward. House Wardell's other son, Brennan Wardell, did not so much as look up from his hands as my father strode past him. He reached out with a hand toward the woman's face. Then he slowly set it down without touching her at all. He turned around and regarded Duke Wardell, who stood by the wall next to the door. "What is this?" he asked again.

"Would that I knew," Duke Wardell said. "It's some kind of sickness. One that none of the healers have been able to identify. One that I have been able to find no records of either. I…" His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. He leaned against the wall behind him and almost seemed to sag against it. Tristan Wardell was at his side. Perhaps to offer him support. Perhaps to sag right along with him.

I took a deep breath and balled my right hand into a fist, so hard I was sure the knuckles had gone white. Vaelin was still pounding in my head, begging to be let out. I did not know whether to let him. He was furious, I could feel that much. If I did let the Godblade out, would he try to kill this woman, just as he had Eira?

Corrupted. Intent. The Godblade all but hissed in my mind.

Vaelin. Get a hold of yourself, damn it. I don't even know what that means.

Slowly and reluctantly, I felt the Godblade relent. The twitching subsided, though I could feel him still leaning forward. He was watching and listening to everything with an attention I would never have expected from him.

Sere was at my side. She had gone from standing behind me to standing beside me, looking up at me with obvious concern. So she had noticed, then. It seemed that nobody else had, which was good.

"When did this happen?" my father asked. "How did this happen?"

Duke Wardell did not answer right away. Instead, he stared at the ground, as if that was the only place he could bear to look.

"Corin?" my father said gently. "How did this happen?"

"There was an attack on my life exactly seven days ago," the Duke said, in a voice so low I almost did not hear it. "The attack was for me, but it found my wife instead. Those lines appeared soon after, and then she would not wake. She has been like this since then."

An attack on a Ducal House. In their own manor, surrounded by Karr guards on all sides. One of the safest places in the entire city. No, I was fairly certain this was the safest place in the entire city. Forget the attack on the Auction House -if this news left this manor, the entire city would be in an uproar. It was no wonder at all why there were hardly any guards. Barely any maids. The only people still here were the ones Duke Wardell could trust with a secret that might flip Aelheim upside down.

"Who attacked you?" my father asked. "Assassins? The Assassin Guild would not dare attack a Ducal House."

Duke Wardell slowly shook his head. "There was only one of them. I did not get a good look at her. She attacked us in the middle of the night. Somehow, she made it past every single defense we had. My First Sword did not feel a thing. But I do not believe she was with the Assassin Guild. She- my wife-" He shook his head. "She took the blow for me. I should have-" He trailed off, and this time he sank all the way down to the floor.

"She," my father repeated. "A woman, then? Are you sure?"

"Yes. I think so," he murmured. "It's all a blur, but I'm sure of that much, at least."

A single assassin, then, if Duke Wardell's memory could be trusted. One who had gotten past this many guards to try and kill the Duke in his sleep. It didn't make much sense, and for a reason that was obvious. If someone was skilled enough to make it past this much security, how would they fail to kill the one they meant to? From what I knew, Duke Wardell was strong, but not absurdly so.

"She did not mean to kill you," I said. "I am not sure how exactly it played out, but I am sure the blow was not aimed for you." I paused and made my voice softer. Everyone was looking at me now, Duke Wardell most of all. I met his gaze. "This was not your fault."

There was silence. It lasted a few seconds before the Duke replied. "And how can you be sure?" His voice was cracked, as if he were pleading, not asking. Perhaps he was.

"If someone that skilled wanted you dead, My Lord," I said, "then you would be."

More silence at that. My father looked at me and slowly nodded before he turned back to his friend. "I agree with my daughter's assessment. This reads to me more like a warning. Or perhaps a distraction. Or perhaps something else entirely. And this…strangeness." He pointed. "Surely someone who could do so much could simply go for the kill, rather than doing whatever this is."

A warning. A distraction. A test. Something else entirely. There were too many options, and I could not narrow them with what little we knew. But there was a trick to it. When things were so complicated, one first needed to ask: Just who stood to gain?

I could think of exactly one man who benefited from that. It wasn't exactly proof. It was not even enough to say out loud. And if this was Julian, then it made even less sense why this attack took Duke Wardell's wife, rather than the Duke himself. There was no point thinking about this right now.

"I see," Duke Wardell eventually said, still on the floor. "You are right, I think. Gods, but I should have thought of it myself," he muttered. "The knowing doesn't change anything, though. None of the healers can help. Even the one S-rank healer in Aelheim used her Gift, and it did nothing." He tried to rise. Tristan was the one to help him back to his feet.

So Miranda Cirel had returned to the city, then. That was worth remembering, for more reasons than one.

He looked at my father, then at me. Finally, he looked at his wife. "So, as you can see, I cannot help you," he said. "I have my own concerns. Whatever it is… it does not matter to me any longer. Not when she is like this."

Sever.

Vaelin grumbled in my mind. He had been surprisingly patient after his earlier outburst.

I nodded and stepped forward. "And what if I could help her?"

Everyone stared at me at that. Even my father. I had told him about the expedition, but I hadn't told him about Eira. I wanted to keep Eira to myself. "I've seen these lines before," I said. "Vyranthos had strange blackness just like this." I pointed. "When it used its breath, it spread to some of the men. They all had these lines. I could cut them away." I looked up at them. "With my sword."

Everyone was staring at me now. Even Brennan Wardell, who had not looked anywhere but at his own mother since we had first come in. Duke Wardell opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything at all.

Brennan Wardell rose, and the chair fell behind him. He stepped forward and grabbed my arms. He was taller than I was, and far better built. "You're lying," he said. His eyes were wide. And red. There were dark circles under them that made the ones on his father's face look pale by comparison. He shook me. "How dare you lie about something like this?"

His grip lasted only a moment. Pressure filled the room, enough of it that he staggered. Enough of it that the air felt like it was made of soup. I had to condense my own mana just to breathe and not sway. Estovan had pushed off the wall, but Sere was faster. Brennan Wardell whimpered. Sere had put a hand on one of his arms, and she was squeezing tight. Her gaze was sharp, and there was hardly any light behind her eyes at all. Looking at them made me shiver, and she was not even looking at me.

Stolen from NovelPhoenix, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Brennan looked at her, and his face paled. He let go of me and took a step back, cradling his arm. Sere had a stupid amount of mana, and it seemed she was getting better and better at using it. I was just glad she hadn't broken his arm.

"Sere, it's okay," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Can you pull your mana back?" I murmured.

Sere slowly nodded, and the air returned to what it had been. There were several deep breaths, all at once. Besides Estovan, my father was the only one who seemed unaffected, even in the state he was in. Still, he was looking at Sere now with more scrutiny than he ever had. I could only imagine what he was thinking, but none of that was important right now.

I turned toward Duke Wardell. He was staring at me uncertainly. An odd look, on the face of a Duke. "I did not lie," I said. "I have seen this before, and I have fixed this before. I'm not sure if it will work the same, but it's worth a try." I gestured at Sere. "You can ask her. Some of those lines were crawling up her arm, and I cut them with my sword."

Sere gave a vigorous nod at that. The strange look in her eyes was gone now, and she looked again like a normal child.

"I see…" Duke Wardell said. He looked from me to his wife, then back to me again. "Will this really help? Will she wake again?"

I didn't know how to answer that. Vaelin hummed in my mind, and it felt like… caution. The Godblade was warning me not to promise more than I could deliver. I hadn't meant to do anything different.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Back then, this… strange corruption was fresh. A few minutes. Half an hour at most. It's been a lot longer." And the only person I couldn't save was one who had lived with this corruption for far longer. Eira hadn't even suggested I try to save her, which told me everything I needed to know about how that would have gone.

"Will it-" Tristan Wardell spoke up. "Can it make things worse?"

He asked the question I was afraid he would ask. "I don't know," I said. "I don't know much about this."

It was a terrible answer. A flimsy thing to hang a woman's life upon, and I knew it even as I said it. Anyone with sense would have dressed it up. But it was the truth. And I disliked lying.

None of the three answered me. They all just stared at the woman on the bed, as if willpower alone might make those black lines disappear and let her wake. My father was the one who spoke in the end. He walked up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. "I trust her, Corin. If she thinks she can do this, then she can."

I did not know where this much confidence came from, but I appreciated it. Duke Wardell looked at his friend, then looked at me. "Do it," he finally said.

I nodded. My father lifted his hand from my shoulder, and I stepped forward. I extended my hand to the side. In one moment, my hand was empty. In the next, the room was bathed in crimson. A violent crimson that overpowered everything else, until all of it was the color of blood. Brennan Wardell took a hurried step back. His father and brother were staring at me with wide eyes. My father looked at the blade, and he only looked… sad. Sad for what, I did not know.

I approached the bed. This should be simple enough. With Sere and the rest of the men of the expedition, all I had needed to do was stab them through with Vaelin. I raised the blade above the woman and took a deep breath. The black lines almost seemed to squirm on Lady Wardell's skin.

Strange. Vaelin murmured distantly.

I did not have time to think about what that meant. I brought the blade down. And there was resistance, just as there had been at the top of that mountain. There was a hissing sound, one that seemed to come from the air itself. My arms were trembling, and the black lines really were squirming. My blade pressed at her skin, and yet it touched the woman not at all. The room became the Godblade, this woman, and nothing else.

I had to pour in an almost absurd amount of mana just to keep from being thrown back. This was much harder than it had been with Sere. Much, much harder.

I almost didn't think I would manage it at all. Then there was a high-pitched keening sound. It split the air. The two lines bubbled on the woman's skin, and then fell off entirely. I took a deep breath. It was over.

Those two black lines were on the floor, writhing like snakes. They had done this on Everfrost Peak too, right before they had dissolved into nothing. It was done-

They launched toward me. Two snakes of darkness. I was not ready for it. Someone let out a cry, and I did not know who. My father, perhaps. I heard Sere take a step behind me. She would get there too late. I cut through the air with Vaelin, only barely getting my sword up in time.

The two black lines twisted in the air, moving past Vaelin. They were going straight for me.

Vaelin surged in my mind, and my hand moved. There was pain, and a crack. My hand twisted in a way no hand was supposed to. The sword made an impossible turn and slashed the two lines through the middle. There was more resistance, just for a moment. Then they slammed into the nearest wall, fell to the ground, and started to boil into nothing.

I was on my knees. Estovan had crossed the room before the lines finished boiling away, rapier drawn. Sere was at my side. My right wrist was broken. I stared at it and tried to fight past the pain. It was too much. It was-

I took a deep breath and unsummoned Vaelin.

Click. Click.

The pain washed away. From blazing agony into only a dull throb. It was good that I'd remembered to dismiss Vaelin before reaching for my Gift, or that would have been another disaster.

Sorry. I heard Vaelin murmur.

You did what you had to. Thanks, Vaelin. It was true enough. Though I hadn't known Vaelin could actually take over the way he had. Not after everything. That… that was a concern for another day.

"Esra!" My father was on my other side, leaning down. His eyes were wide and panicked as they found the broken wrist. "We'll get a healer. There must be someone here who can treat that. You must be in-"

"Father," I cut him off. "I'm fine."

He looked at me with all the concern in the world. With all the concern a father should have. Perhaps he had forgotten about my Gift in the moment. Slowly, he nodded, though he kept a hand on my shoulder.

There was a sniffling on my other side. I turned to Sere and saw tears on her cheeks. "Hey, I'm okay," I said, reaching for her with my hand. My broken hand. Some of the bone was jutting past the bloody skin. Sere stared at it. I winced, and awkwardly patted her with my other arm instead. "I'm okay, Sere."

She only slowly nodded, though she kept sniffling. I would need to get her a lot of sweets to make up for-

"Where-" A woman's voice, followed by coughing. "Where am I?"

Then there were footsteps, and three cries. The two sons of House Wardell fell in front of the bed. Duke Wardell stared at me, then at his wife. His eyes were open wide, and I got the impression this was the first time they had seen anything in some time.

Lady Wardell was awake.

We left the Wardells to their reunion. It felt like the kind of thing that deserved no audience.

The small sitting room was as we had left it, down to the tea gone lukewarm on the low table. The maid from before turned out to have a healing Gift. She knit the bone of my wrist back together right there on the couch, her hands glowing a soft green while she worked. It still hurt. When she finished, there was a line right where the wrist had cracked. A dark pink one, stark against my pale skin. She assured me it would fade in a few days. I hoped it happened sooner. In two days, we would have the first qualifier.

"Does it truly not hurt, My Lady?" Prele had asked, somewhere in the middle of her work. I told her it was manageable. The look she gave me was one part awe and three parts horror, and she worked faster after that. I suspected that without my Gift, I would have been in a very different state.

Now Sere had wrapped herself around me on the couch and showed no sign of ever letting go. I let her. She was warm, and she had more than earned it. It did make reaching for the tea much, much harder. Every time I stretched toward the cup, her arms tightened, until I gave up on the tea entirely. My father sat across from us, in the seat Duke Wardell had taken before. Estovan stood behind him, near the window.

"You took a risk," my father said. He had not looked away from me in some time. "Did you know that would happen?"

"No," I said. "It wasn't like that on the mountain."

My father slowly nodded. He held up a cup. He had been holding it for some time, though I had never seen him actually drink from it. "The Godblade took control," he said. It was not a question. "This 'Vaelin.'"

I could only nod. "He hasn't done it in a long time."

"I suppose we should be glad he did, in this instance," my father murmured. "Have you gone through the Integration yet? The movement was…savage, but it should not have broken your wrist the way it did."

He said the word with an odd emphasis. The kind that only came with something important, something you assumed the other person already knew. And what did he mean, it shouldn't have broken my wrist? It plainly had.

"My Lord?" Estovan said from behind him.

My father glanced back at him. "Ah, but Heroes do always keep their tricks close to their chest. It's no wonder you haven't heard of this either." He turned back to me, and something in my face must have told him everything. "You as well, then."

"I…don't know what any of that means," I finally said.

My father hesitated. I thought he was trying to tell me something. Or rather, trying to decide if he should tell me something. "Has he…has Vaelin never mentioned it?"

I shook my head. I felt Vaelin vaguely stir, but he had been quiet since we had left the room. As if he had retreated in on himself.

"For a Hero, it's the-"

There were footsteps. We all turned to see Duke Wardell walk into the room. And he was walking with his back straight and his gaze steady. The way a Duke should walk. He saw us, saw my hand. He bowed deeply. "She is awake," he said. His posture might have been correct, but his voice still trembled. "She- It doesn't seem like anything is wrong with her. A little lightheaded, perhaps, but that's it. I can't believe it. Thank you."

It felt rather awkward to be thanked like this by a man of higher rank than me. "Err…thanks?" I said.

"My son Brennan begs your forgiveness as well," the Duke added. "For laying hands on you. He has not slept in days, and he is… ashamed of himself."

"There's nothing to forgive," I said. And there wasn't.

Duke Wardell mentioned nothing about a girl with a broken wrist moving with it as if it were normal. I wondered if he thought that was just me being a Hero. Oh well, it didn't matter.

The Duke nodded and rose from his bow then, and looked at my father. "You wished to talk? You needed my help, didn't you? And it must be dire, if you went through all of this."

My father nodded and gestured to the seat next to him. "We do. You might want to sit down first, Corin."

This was what we had come all the way here for. It seemed this trip would be fruitful after all. It could have happened without a broken wrist, but I was not going to complain now that it was already over. I had a lot of questions about what had just happened, but even those could wait.

Sere was still holding me tight. I would let her, for as long as she wanted. Besides, she was warm.

Duke Wardell took a seat. He reached for the cup, and then he paused. Something played across his eyes. "I just remembered," he murmured.

"Remembered what?" I asked.

He met my gaze. "The woman. She gave me her name. I'd almost forgotten. Her name was Silver."