P R E V I O U S L Y
But the last thing I saw was the sight of the arrow buried to the shaft in Tristan's neck, the poison tearing through his shirt and burning out his white skin.
HARTINGTON CASTLE, ALNWICK, STORMHOLT.
EDWINA
"YOU'RE HURT, WOMAN!" TRISTAN SNAPPED at me as soon as our feet made contact with the solid floors of the castle. Impatiently, he grabbed hold of my shoulders and carefully peered at the blood smearing my previously wounded chest.
I nearly slapped him on the spot and irritatedly pushed him off to latch my hands onto the arrow sunk into his neck.
"You're shot, Valmont! Why the fuck did you get into the way? The arrow was meant for me, you fucking idiot!"
His eyes barely widened as he caught sight of the poisoned tip embedded into his moon white skin and turning it black. Instead, he merely flicked his sleeve and returned his attention back to my injury.
"It's nothing."
"Are you even for real?" I shouted, voice cracked with urgency and worry and panic - I had to get that arrow out of him! "You're hurt! I'm not! Shut the hell up and let me have a look at you-"
"-I'm fine, woman - stay away!"
"-you better shut the bloody heck up and listen to me, Tristan Valmont!" I screamed right into his face, raging with gnawing worry. "You're going to behave and sit quietly while I take that thing out of your shoulder, are we clear?"
"Stay away from the arrow!" he roared, eyes blazing like fiery stars.
"For once, can you do what she says and shut that smart mouth of yours?" Llewellyn hissed as he came in running, face white worry. His eyes widened in fear as he saw the arrow sunk into Tristan's neck.
"I'm alright-"
"You're not!" he snarled at his elder brother and rushed to my side to restrain Tristan and prevent his flinging limbs from hitting anyone. Together, we managed to lock him in an iron hard grip as he spat and hissed, shooting us both clear glares.
Celinette ran in at the huge commotion, and her face drained of all colour.
"My son - my son!" she shrieked wildly, rushing to Tristan. Her elegant silk dress flew as she ran to her son, fresh lines of worry etched into her youthful face as her eyes began to water up.
I tried to make him sit still on the bed, my hands on the shaft of the arrow buried in his neck, close to the shoulder. It was made of something very sharp and gleaming, and the coated poison glimmered wickedly. I had no idea what it was or how it worked.
"Edwina, please - do something," Celinette was shaking my shoulders, horrified. I was their only hope, the only thing they could cling to in this time of despair.
"I'm perfectly fine!" Tristan brusquely hissed, tone sharper than cut glass as he tried to pry my hands off him. Llewellyn pinned his wrists in place as I wrestled Tristan, finally managing to get him to sit in one place. His skin was burning hot to touch, his dark blue shirt stained with sweat. The bruise was burning the skin, spreading like a dark stain. I gulped the emotions down my throat and gathered my wits, quickly unbuttoning the first few buttons to see the extent of the damage caused.
The fair white skin between his neck and left shoulder was bruised red and purple, throbbing painfully, a dark black around where the arrow had sunk in, an angry, angry bruise that made my eyes hurt by just seeing.
"Gods, it poisoned," Llewellyn gasped fearfully.
"It's poisoned, someone poisoned the tip of the arrow," Celinette whispered, close to tears.
"It's spreading," I observed with shock, his skin was slowly becoming an open flame, an evidence of how sick this was.
"It's a poison, Rotavelle poison, how are we going to find the antidote?" Celinette cried.
"There's only one solution. I'm going to have to pull out the arrow first-" I began.
"You're not supposed to pull out impaled objects, woman!" Tristan snarled suddenly, buckling under my steady hands, and a look passed between me and Llewellyn, who sat on top of him, pulling him down and forcing him to lie still.
"There's no choice. I need to stop it from spreading until we get the cure," I barked, snapping my fingers at the attendants.
"But-"
"-silence, Valmont!" I snapped. A young, able looking maid tentatively approached me as I beckoned to her furiously. "Find the King's lord commander, Philip - tell him to send Vivian Emmerson here at once. He's the only person beside the Rotavelles who might be able to help us-"
"-it's just poison. It won't kill me-" Tristan muttered frigidly as Llewellyn shot him a death glare.
"And get me something to knock him out. Something strong, go quickly!" I demanded, and maid hurried off at once.
"I don't need painkillers!" he snapped angrily, getting up. His firm fingers traveled to the arrow, ready to pull it out, and it took the combined efforts of Llewellyn, Celinette and me to force him down and he looked at us furiously.
"Valmont, I swear on Uranus that if you move one inch, I will make your life a living hell," I swore with my eyes screaming murder. "Now," I continued menacingly, rolling up my sleeves. "Don't. Move."
He went very, very still as I unbuttoned his blue shirt and half pulled, half tore it off him.
I blinked three times.
His arms were gleaming muscle, lean and sculpted, as if chiseled out of moon white marble. Any moment made the muscles under his perfect skin move like ripples, sending heat throbbing straight to my core.
"Edwina, do something!" Celinette screamed in my ear, tears rushing down her face. I must not lose my cool. I must be calm. I carefully laid Tristan down on the sheets, feeling the burning hot skin under my hands.
The poison might not kill him, but it could do far worse things. Things that had been intended to happen to me.
"Hold still. This will hurt," my voice rasped. His hands balled into fists as he resigned, anticipating the searing pain to come.
Slowly, I dragged the arrow out, keeping a steady pressure on the wound. It hurt me more than Tristan, because I could feel his pain, I could literally feel the shaking nerves under his skin - pulsing and throbbing with pain as I slowly pulled out the arrow. He hardly made a sound, only the white strain of his knuckles showing how much it truly hurt, reining in the tortured screams that would have burst from any other man's lips.
At last, I inched the last few centimetres of the arrow out. Nearly a foot long, more than half of it was slick with Tristan's dark blood dripping to the carpeted floor.
"Gods," Llewellyn cursed.
The tip had melted up completely, burnt and out of shape. I threw the arrow against the wall with a vengeance, leaning in to notice the damage done. The injury was bleeding profusely, and I could see the poison laced in his veins, slowly spreading its wicked sickness into his untainted blood.
"Please," Celinette sobbed. "Help him."
"It's no good," I sorrowfully shook my head. "I have to burn it out before it spreads. Get me bandages."
Celinette gulped and quickly ran out of the room herself, vanishing into thin air to aid a quick return, something that servants couldn't have done. Tristan had gone completely still, as if something in him had simply stopped fighting.
"Edwina, this is bad," his brother whispered.
"Hold him. I'm going to burn out the bruised skin. We'll... we'll find a way. He's going to be alright-" I tried to keep my voice steady, failing. I didn't know who I was trying to convince more - Llewellyn or my own failed self. There was a fleeting, vanishing sense of hopelessness taking grip on me as I shook my head and fought it off.
Instead I concentrated on reducing the flame in my body to pinpricks in my fingers. Slowly, I let it out in small doses as Tristan's skin sprung aflame, charring the injured skin black.
He didn't make a sound. I was surprised at his tolerance, and close to tears. The man I knew would have shouted curses at me. This man was lying there, dazed, sprawled, looking up at the sky like that was all that existed.
His eyes appeared dazed, clouded, as if. Instead of the alert gleam omnipresent in the dark blue, they now seemed to be several shades lighter, as if seeing something that wasn't there. As if seeing a ghost.
His sister's, maybe.
"There," I whispered, watching the poison burn out under my slightly flaming fingers - I needed something to wrap it up in, and I wondered, panicking - why was Celinette taking so long?
Suddenly, a commotion outside caused Llewellyn's head to snap up sharply and mine followed suit as the moon goddess burst into the room, hysterical and delirious with the maid behind her, and at their heels - Celestina Rotavelle.
I had snapped up on my feet before the fragile goddess had taken two steps into the room, slamming her against the wall with my hand ready to wring her frightened white throat. I would skin any Rotavelle I came across once Tristan was back to normal.
"Get the fuck out," my voice was a low hiss as my fingers squeezed the neck of Llewellyn's new wife. He didn't say anything as her fingers helplessly clawed on mine, but Celinette dragged me off her, shaking with tears as the nature goddess slumped to the floor, massaging her red skin.
"No - listen-" Celinette cried as I nearly lunged again at Celestina. "She says she has a cure!"
I stopped in my tracks, ears perked up.
"A cure?"
"Y - yes," Celestina stuttered, her pink cheeks burning to a deep red, the rouge already melting down her face.
"You poisoned the wine. You poisoned the arrows," Llewellyn frowned, grey eyes darkening at the strange woman. "You expect us to believe you?"
"I... that was not me," she stammered, jaw shaking violently as if she was standing in a storm. "Lord - Lord Emerick made us do it..." A tear trickled down her frightened eye, harshly smearing through the colors they'd painted on her face for the wedding. "He - he made us all drink the antidote beforehand so that... so that no one suspected that the wine was -"
"-the wine was?" I impatiently clicked my tongue.
"I... all the wine glasses meant for you were poisoned with the same thing - Q - Queen Regnant..." Celestina timidly spoke it out, clutching her mahogany red fishtail braid.
I knew it. That was the reason why Halette had pressed me to drink it.
And it hadn't harmed her when she drunk it herself.
And yet... when I was about to gulp it down - she'd stopped me.
She'd warned me.
Saved me.
"Only Edwina's wine was poisoned?" Llewellyn demanded furiously.
"Yes... I'm - I'm so sorry," she whispered, her words a soft and sincere mumble.
They'd poisoned the wine meant for me. The arrows meant for me. And that arrow had injured Tristan.
Meaning that it could be no good.
"The arrows too?"
She nodded nervously, eyes lighting up with resentful fear like emeralds in the dark. Eyes that made it clear she'd wanted no part of it, that she'd been made to drink the antidote just like the other twelve Rotavelles, that she'd been made to marry, just as helplessly.
"My grandfather - he poisoned the arrows with the same thing he added to your drinks," she murmured. Her lips were no longer stained red, the lipstick had worn off to reveal tender peach skin.
Shivering, Celestina Rotavelle stood there in her white wedding silks, eyes trying to avoid all of us, shaking so violently that I suspected she'd blow away like a leaf any moment. She nervously chewed and bit her lip under my scrutinizing glare as I suspiciously studied her every moment. Those eyes were filling up with tears again, perhaps pent up emotion of everything happening so fast.
"I... I still have a bit of the antidote left. If that can help..." her voice trailed off.
Silence reigned.
"Give it to me," my voice was deadly still, finally not shaking. I was desperate. Desperate for anything that could help. I held out a waiting hand.
She fumbled for a minute with a huge ruby pendant gleaming at her throat, nestled in the hollows between her bones. Managing to pull it over her head, she pressed something on the clasp to reveal a false pocket hidden in the pendant, finally pulling out a tiny bottle hardly larger than my toe nail.
It was half full with a liquid which bore the blue shade of seaglass, brimming with innocent bubbles. She must have had only half of it, perhaps not liking the taste. The rest of it was in the palm of my hands, this thing, this could be the only thing that saved him.
"Go."
She almost fell over her feet to leave as Llewellyn looked at her coldly. I pressed my lips together and beckoned to Celinette to follow Celestina and see her to her chambers.
I might have something, but I was absolutely not giving it to my husband until I was sure it wasn't more poison.
"Your Grace - the sedative," the maid I'd asked earlier came forward, holding out a pyramidal bottle with a colored stopper. It was a drug called Avlebore, often taken by many immortals for a painless, deep sleep. I remembered taking it a few times myself.
She handed me some cotton bandages and a pair of scissors, respectfully leaving as I gave her a grateful nod.
Tristan had stopped moving. His eyes were half shut, but still moving restlessly behind those pale lids, the only sound that of his ragged breathing. It was a sound that made my blood run cold in my veins - this god, this deadly, dangerous god, breathing harshly with gasping breaths.
What was I going to do? Wait for Vivian to come and confirm if the antidote was safe but risk harming Tristan till then? Or give it to him anyways, even if it was poison?
"Llewellyn," I croaked, the length of the bandage in my hands, "please. Cut this for me."
He deftly cut it out in a second, his face white as a ghost as he handed it to me as I washed out the injury. Tristan winced slightly, as steam rose up, hissing.
It was when I began to tie a tourniquet that he thrashed suddenly, and I gritted my teeth.
"Would you relax? It's hard enough to patch you up without you squirming every inch of the way!"
"Please."
The voice suddenly stopped the hysterical thoughts swimming in circles in my head, bringing me back to the snapping reality.
It was a soft voice, pleading and heartbroken. Not the voice of the strong King and God I was married to. No, it was the voice of a young boy, a child on the verge of crying for something it has lost.
Llewellyn went white as I tried to keep myself calm, proceeding with my work, taking deep breaths.
"Please, Elodie. Please. Forgive me!"
"Oh God - no. It's the dream. The nightmares, Edwina," Llewellyn urgently whispered, his tone cracking slowly and losing hope.
"Hey, take deep breaths," I said softly, watching Tristan's eyelids flutter half shut, and he twitched, moving his head listlessly from one side to the other.
"Edwina. Help him. Please."
"Please, Elodie, I tried! Forgive me!" Tristan cried out, and my heart sank as the two of us attempted to hold him still, but he was thrashing wildly now, eyes sometimes open, sometimes shut, hazed over.
"Tristan, please," I said softly, stroking his hair. "Stay with me," I begged, distraught. "Just stay here - don't float away-"
"I tried so hard, please! Believe me! No, you can't, El, you can't leave. PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME! HELP HER! PLEASE, NOT MY SISTER - PLEASE, NO!"
Llewellyn was in the verge of tears as I felt my eyes brim, my heart exploding with emotions too dreadful to feel. I picked up the sedative, raising his chin to me gently, my touch soft and careful.
"Back off, Lady, I have a wife," Tristan hissed as I tried to make him drink it up, desperate and pleading.
"Please, drink this... please," I begged, ready to throw myself at his feet if he would listen. He was delirious, fever breaking in spots over his flushed skin, and I decided I would wait no longer.
I'd waited long enough. He was drinking the antidote, now.
Llewellyn quickly poured out the blue, clear cure into a glass thimble as I determinedly dipped a finger in it and brought it to my tongue. I had to know - I had to know if it was really harmless or going to hurt him more.
The liquid tasted pure. Like rainbows and clean starlight, singing of relief and painlessness.
"Give it here," I ordered him, as he nodded and held down Tristan. He'd begun trashing at his hands again, writhing and shaking as I tried to keep him still enough, to make him drink it and relieve his pain.
"NO, DON'T, PLEASE!" he screamed, hands opening and closing like withered roses, and gulping, taking ragged breaths, voice hoarse and dry as bone.
"Please, drink this, please-" Llewellyn wept, but he kept on thrashing, hands flailing, still strong enough to knock both of us off.
"Wait," a voice croaked out from the other end of the room as the huge doors swung open. "Wait," the man said in a firm voice as another entered behind him and stepped out of the shadows.
Relief flooded me as I saw Vivian approach, followed by Eric whose face was lined with concern. Letters were sent to each of the six capitals of Endollon when a ruler took to injury. The first letter must have reached Eric at the same time as Philip had reached Vertgate.
"Go," Eric nodded curtly to Llewellyn as Vivian silently closed the door, lips set in a grim line as his serious, amber eyes fell on the wound.
"But-"
"Go. You don't have to see this," Vivian affirmed, voice cold but guarded as he walked to the bed and regarded Tristan's violently shaking body. He pried the bottle of the antidote out of my sweating palms as the door closed, leaving just me and the three gods in the room.
"I just heard. What happened at the wedding?" Eric inquired quietly, grey eyes scanning the signs of struggle in the room and finally resting on my torn gown, my slender leg revealed through the rips in the dark blue fabric. Wisely enough, he kept his mouth shut and chose not to comment.
"The arrow. They broke guest right. It was meant for me," was all I managed, my voice barely more than a cracked sigh.
Vivian firmly held Tristan down as his fingers probed at the poisoned skin. His brow furrowed in seriousness as he inspected the injury.
"Devil's Root," he concluded, frigid.
"That's bad, Edwina," Eric muttered, peering into Tristan's half open eye. He shook once more and his hand shot out, but Eric had already closed his hand around him in a steel grip and I finally managed to tip the sedative down his throat.
His body when slack at once, rigid and still.
"It will take me eleven days to brew a cure, Edwina. He'll be far beyond our help by then," Vivian slowly spoke, locking a regretful eye into mine.
No, no. He couldn't leave me so easily.
"What does the poison do? It can't kill him."
"It'll drive him mad. The insanity will rip his soul out by the roots. Then it'll gnaw on his memories, slowly. Bit by bit, day by day. Feeding on his worst fears and slowly making him lose his mind. He'll stop speaking by the fourth day. At the end of one week, he won't even be able to move. By the time I find the Blue Eadelth and finish the antidote, he'll be gone."
This could not happen to him. I wouldn't let it happen to him.
It was all my fault.
"This - will this help?" I croaked, slowly passing the tiny vial Celestina had handed to me. "I feared using it. I can't trust the Rotavelles."
Vivian silently took the glass bottle from me, holding it up at an arm's length to the light as the blue green liquid swirled in a spiral. Uncorking it, he sniffed. He raised a detached eyebrow.
"It could. If the poison hasn't spread too far enough." His voice was cold and grim, not hopeful.
"I burned it out. Leached it the best I could," I desperately offered.
He picked up a syringe and slowly drew the liquid up a sharp needle.
"Help me turn him over."
Together, he and Eric eased Tristan onto the mattress and rolled him onto his back as I covered his cold body with soft blanket. His tired head rested on the pillow, black hair messed out like smears of ink on white. He looked younger, more endearing, with the permanent scowl off his face. My fingers once again itched to gently stroke his silken hair.
The tip of the syringe disappeared into his skin which rose in rebellious resistance once more, then finally fell.
I had to do something - something, anything - the worst thing I feared was doing nothing while someone I cared for hurt.
I felt ashamed. Impure. Evil.
Shameful thoughts adorned all my breaths as the demons in my head tried to make me drown in sorrows.
Vivian's able hands firmly loosened my grip and pried the bandages from me as Eric gently put a hand around my shoulder.
"I need to - I have to help - let me," I croaked hoarsely. My heart felt like it was being dragged down by leaden weights, even my voice refused to leave my throat.
"Your hands are shaking, Edwina," he said quietly, handing me a glass of clear water. I tried to push it away but Eric carefully held me in place, raising it to my lips.
"Drink."
Helpless, broken, desperate; I numbly shook my head as my cousin made me sit down on a couch, putting a comforting arm on my shoulder. I watched Vivian swiftly finish off wrapping up the injury with clean bandages with experienced hands.
"You're bleeding," he observed, arching back my shoulders to look at my chest, where Leander's sword had torn into my heart mere hours ago. Patiently, he made me lean back and peeled the silk off chest. The fabric was completely soaked through with my blood.
"Was bleeding. I'm fine now."
"Sit here for a while. You've lost quite a bit of blood," Vivian said, his voice a silent command.
"He'll get cold," I pleadingly nodded at Tristan. "Get him another blanket-"
Suddenly, I stopped mid sentence, for his body had slightly shifted in his drugged sleep, muscles catching the dim light peeking from the curtains. The light fell on the vast expanse of his bare back.
But his back wasn't bare.
From the back of his neck, right to his spine, a single long scar gleamed dully with the wicked tinge of Bloodstone.
• • • • •
Umm... yes. He's got a scar right down his back. A scar from the most lethal substance that exists. Did you hear the way he screamed in his sleep? Trust me, that was really hard to write - because Tristan is just so powerfully strong, it's next to impossible to imagine him crumbling to pieces. This chapter has gotta be the most painful one until now for me. I wonder what'll happen next?