Page 24 of The Illuminated
“You were supposed to teach her to control her gifts,” Lucius snapped. “It’s not my fault she’s still so weakened by heretical magick.”
Their voices were too loud. I wanted to ask them to be quieter, but I didn’t care enough to scrounge up the effort it would take to speak. My eyes were shut tight, as they had been since Lucius scooped me up out of the boat on the way back from the dungeons. My voice was raw from screaming, and the world was now a muted blur. A meaningless void.
“Where are you taking her? We have to stop the bleeding,” Daelon said, unable to hide the panic from his voice.
“Why are you so damn concerned?”
“You’re leaving a trail of blood everywhere, for starters.”
“That’s her fault, not mine. And that’s what servants are for.”
I opened my eyes once Lucius moved me from his arms to the hard floor. I stared up at the ceiling. Though we were out of the dungeons, the weight of their torture still bore down upon my chest. A face eclipsed the spinning chandelier, and then a hand waved above me. Daelon. I just stared blankly, feeling as light as a summer cloud passing across the sky.
“God, she has got to be the most infuriating part of my entire existence,” Lucius said. “Though hopefully this will work out in my favor. Maybe this experience will help her see that her path to queenship is unavoidable.”
I heard the tearing of fabric and someone lifted my wrists, wrapping each one tightly.
My lips parted as Daelon’s tight features reappeared in my vision. “You still with us?”
Say something, please, Áine. Anything,he tried in my mind.
I had nothing to say. I could’ve laid there forever, staring up at the ceiling and feeling as free as a puff of cotton in the breeze. It seemed like a great deal of effort to use my voice or move my limbs. What was the point?
There was no point anymore. To anything at all.
“See? Dreadfully melodramatic,” Lucius said, when I remained silent. “I’m sure she hears us just fine. She wishes to punish me, for whatever overly emotional reason, and she doesn’t understand that I simply cannot be moved. Nor would this be the way to move me.”
I was plucked from the ground like a flower, and I closed my eyes again just to relieve myself of the effort it took to witness the world around me. I didn’t want to witness a single thing ever again.
“Should we arrange a padded room away from pointy objects?”
Silence.
“Oh, come on, brother.” Lucius sounded exasperated. “You cannot be seriously upset with me.”
“I just wish you would think more before you act. She isn’t like you. Not yet.” Daelon’s voice was level, and I tried to hang on to the softness in his words.
“Exactly. When her sympathetic urges and heretic emotionality is stamped out by her coronation, all will be well.”
Daelon sighed.
“Fine. I see the point. Now stop lecturing me before I send you on a dungeon spa day yourself.”
One of them chuckled and the other snorted. Then there was silence for several beats.
“Do you want me to watch her?” Daelon asked.
“You said it was my mess, didn’t you? Let’s just take her to my chambers. I’m sure I can manage it. I am spending eternity with her, after all.”
“Maybe this was the wrong idea. She’s going to ruin my silk comforter.” Lucius paused, holding me in his arms in front of his luxurious bed. “No, no. You’re right. She is more important than a bed cover, I suppose.”
Another ceiling came into view, and I felt a crack opening up in my suffocating haze of depression. Not big enough to crawl through, but it was nice to know it was there.
Someone removed my shoes. Daelon. It had to have been Daelon. I was becoming more aware of my surroundings, but I still clung tightly to my cherished denial of the last few hours. Just thinking of the dungeons would drag me back into a pit I never wanted to live inside again. So, I blocked the memory.
“Um… what would you do?” Lucius asked, his voice humored at the surface, but underneath I could sense a kind of uncertainty and curiosity that I’d never really heard from him before. “In this situation, I mean?”
“I would probably talk to her. And listen to what she has to say.”
