Chapter 24: Chapter 24 – Cold Heart

//Author Note: I would strongly urge you to read alongside this story. Shared world and setting, with crossovers coming!//

 

I am not who I was.

This isn’t a surprise, nor some new revelation. The girl that I was died. I was born from the corrupted remains of her corpse, and even the values that I had wanted to hold to are slowly distorting as time goes on.

I frightened Belle last evening.

It wasn’t happenstance, though she would likely have been frightened regardless. I intended to scare her.

Even more than that, it was satisfying.

Her fear tasted sweet, and remembering it now sends a shiver down my spine.

This is wrong.

It is all so entirely wrong.

But what can I do?

If it were my hand that was offending me, then I would take a saw from the garden and carve it off. Yet I cannot carve this feeling from my own flesh.

Flushing myself with the cold chill of my new magic, I try to embrace the numbness that I can only imagine. The frost feels like a comforting warmth, an old blanket in the cold of winter.

“Miss Greystone, why do you freeze yourself like that?” Sharre asks, standing over by the door as he watches me pretend to read. Every moment not spent sleeping he has followed me like an errant puppy, I try not to be annoyed by it.

“I must constantly practice, æther veins grow only through use, so we use them,” I explain. “It takes time before one can be so accustomed to magic it is of value in a struggle.”

Even my frost magic, for all that I’ve been investing in it this past week, isn’t near that point. The only reason I can chill my own flesh so thoroughly is that I’ve allowed the cold to accumulate over time.

Enemies will not grant me the time to flood their bodies with frost over the length of a day.

“Yes, miss,” Sharre says, leading into something more. “Why do you use it on yourself, miss? You can use it on the air, or on water, or anything else.”

“I could but…”

I could argue that containing the frost inside me might allow me to use that concentrated power later in some form.

I could argue that I’m creating a defensive shield against fire magics, which may or may not function as desired.

For some reason, when I try to explain it, my voice refuses to work.

“Miss?” Sharre asks, his ears flicking about in curiosity.

“I need to practice,” I whisper.

My new guard takes that as his answer, nodding slowly and letting me off the hook. A noble wouldn’t grant me such a reprieve and a servant or peasant wouldn’t dare ask in the first place.

I relax my burning æther channels, I have accidentally used more frost magic than I should, upsetting my practice and forcing me to relax them. I cannot risk complete burn out, even if it’s only my frost dedicated æther veins, it would still force me to pass out.

Even with my efforts, it takes years of effort to reach the power of a proper knight and it seems more and more likely that I’ll need just that. I need to rely on myself now, even with the thugs that I’ve hired and the servants learning their tasks.

“Sharre, why do you want to be a knight?” I ask the man, balancing the release of my æther to keep the spells fuelled without pressing too far.

“I want to be strong and respected,” he says, not thinking the question over for even a minute. “I want to prove that I’m worth something.”

“Worth something?” I ask.

“A man has to show the world that he’s strong. That he can hunt, farm, and craft. What can I do? I can keep the yard clean,” he says, shaking his head in defeat. “I want to be someone.”

“Right… and where would you want to go?” I ask. “As long as you don’t make a fuss, I can’t see a reason why you can’t find a place somewhere out there.”

“I… here is fine for the moment,” he says. Of course, he wouldn’t feel an obligation to stay with me. He shouldn’t.

The others have already been reaching out into the area around our estate. None have left for good, there aren’t many places for them to go and many dangers. All in all, the reason they are still with me is that it’s safer for them here, there is no lingering affection.

As dinner nears I rise from my chair, but the frostbitten cushion retains the shape imprinted in it. Holding down my shame, I pat down the chair to clear away the shape, Sharre must notice but he doesn’t say anything.

Perhaps he’s a better servant than expected.

I am the last to show up in the dining room but no one seems concerned, Sonia is still here in her usual spot with her son right beside her, and Belle is still with us. She freezes the moment I step into the room, her eyes contract and her heart triples in speed.

I’m quite sure that the cause is not affection.

Piper reaches out a hand to calm her down, as it seems the pair were in conversation before I arrived. The rest of the released slaves fill the long table. Even when we had guests over I can’t recall the table ever being full as it is now, the seat at the head of the table the only exception.

Unaffected by their gazes, I take my place.

“My Lady, for this evening we have a roast pig, an assortment of sauteed vegetables, deviled egg, and a chicken broth soup,” the head maid, Missus Arneut declares.

“I… while I have trust in the chefs, I will have to refuse any serving tonight,” I say. “Or anything, until future notice, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, my Lady,” she quickly rushes to nod, but I hold up a hand to keep her from leaving before I can further explain. A good servant knows not to question, but trust is not something to simply take for granted.

“My unfortunate condition makes ordinary foods… anathema to good taste,” I explain.

“Is there anything that we might prepare for you?” She asks, not even flinching.

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“There is no need,” I say. “If circumstances turn against me, I may take you up on that offer. Until then, you need not concern yourself with the topic.”

“As you say, my Lady.”

It seems that my conversation with the head maid has garnered the attentions of my guests. Even the servants can’t hide their twitching ears, endlessly curious about this condition, no doubt.

“You can’t eat?” My young nephew asks. He’s already gnawing on a stick of bread, an offence in noble decorum, but I do not begrudge him as I do not begrudge the rest of my guests.

“I can eat, as you have seen me do these past few days, but the taste is quite foul. I’ve spied you in the garden last week, you picked the petal from a pretty blue flower and made quite the unpleasant expression. I think it would be an experience much akin to that.”

The boy’s eyes widen in distraught horror as he looks down at his remaining tooth-marked breadstick.

“I spat it out,” he shamelessly admits. “Were you spitting out your dinner secretly?”

“No,” I shake my head, letting a smile slip onto my lips. “That would be much too undignified. A proper Lady would never dare so much as scowl at something so little.”

The boy seems confused, but I’ll have him properly tutored before long to make sure he never makes a fool of himself. He may not share my family name, but he is a relative, and perhaps even a dependant given the awkward situation he has been left in.

“If it was so bad, why did you keep eating?” Piper asks, sighing in frustration as she meets my eyes.

She’s sitting in my seat, or what was my seat when…

For a moment, everything is what it was.

I’m surrounded by close family, we’re eating as ever before, but there’s someone with us who should not be. I thought him a guest when he showed up, but father was none too happy to see him.

There was no argument. The monster was here for the same reason as us.

He was after dinner.

“Christina?” Piper asks, her expression conveying worry which I disperse with a small smile. Or I try to at least.

“It is a small thing to suffer,” I explain. “I would rather not sacrifice my dignity in making an issue of it.”

“Tonight is different?” Piper asks.

“Tonight, I have come to the realization that I do not want to lie,” I say. “Lies are… heavy. Burdensome. Distasteful.”

The words slip through my guard before I can give them proper consideration. Thankfully, it is nothing to be too much ashamed of. Recovering my noble mask, I address the expressions of those in the room with me.

I do not trust them, not because they are terrible people, but simply because I can be sure that they’ll betray me given good reason. Some here already have good enough reason to betray me for my last name.

Even still, it’s a small relief to let my thoughts be free. A dangerous relief, unsettling the frost that I’ve concentrated into my heart. I keep my mouth closed from expressing anything more.

Who knows what would break out should I lower my guard?

The entrée arrives first, and I cannot help but notice that Belle has turned terribly pale as she looks down into it. Though her mind is likely more focused on my last meal, which she too eagerly came along to witness.

The initial fright has since died and in its place, a heavy thoughtful expression has taken her. I have shown her myself, the monster I have become, and I…

I need people who can understand what I am and continue to assist me.

Piper, who is cheerily conversing by her side, seems perhaps a smarter choice, at least in terms of violence. I know that she wouldn’t blanch at the sight of such torturous horror as I find my meals becoming. My hesitation with her comes from multiple points.

I would not wish to have her wounded by my weakness, thus I will never bring her on a hunt. Belle can handle herself to a small degree, but Piper hasn’t even that.

Marginally less importantly, I cannot trust her to tell me the truth.

This last point is a difficult one for me as her lies are intended to be sweet. She would paint a world that I would be tempted to believe, but I am unsure how much of her affections are truth and how much a lie.

The small friendship that I would like to claim could very well be nothing but a deception. A deception with the purpose of protecting herself and her people from me, should the monster in me ever become a threat.

I settle into my chair as the conversations start to rise around me. It’s all almost exclusively from the guests who have become much more animated since they’ve been freed. It’s a cacophony of chaos that would have made my late father truly distraught.

Any decent noble would be brought to despair should this be their own home.

Though, I’m not sure I could find a proper noble if I searched all the kingdom, so what does it matter?

What has my noble bearing and manners done to aid these people? What have they done to aid the peasants and commoners under my rule? What have they done to aid me?

Though I haven’t the stomach for it, I rather wish that I had a cup of tea to drink right now. Something to busy my hands with, as I pretend that everything is as it should be.

A heavier lie than most.

 

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