Serpent's Kiss || Kingdom at the End of the World - Book I

[7] Old Pain

A whippoorwill sang its name somewhere close. The bird's curling poors and trilling wills snagged at Sofia's mind, plucking at the taut strings of her nerves. She clasped her hands in her lap and bent over them. Her chest hurt. Her eyes were dry, opened wide, staring into nothing.

Sir Fair joined them in the sitting room at some length. Sofia rose from her seat and opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come. Sir Fair said nothing, so there was nothing to be said. Sofia collapsed back into herself and the soft whippoorwills. She was aware of Sir Fair watching her, but couldn't muster any interest in his purpose.

Miss Hale had served tea. Sofia reached for her cup, mostly for something to do.

"It has gone cold," Miss Hale said. "Allow me."

Sofia let the woman fix her a fresh cup. She held it in her hands after, mostly for its warmth. Miss Hale nudged a plate of biscuits her way. Sofia found the sight of them sickening, and turned her face away.

A splash of red caught her eyes.

The whillpoorwill fell silent. All things did, lost under a sudden rush of noise at Sofia's temples. Dr. Beaufort was in the room, had walked in without her notice somehow, silent as a shadow and just as grim. His face glowed white. His suit and hands wore a darker, rusted color.

"Please," Sofia said.

Sir Beaufort, too, said nothing.

Sofia was aware of Miss Hale at her side, of Sir Fair looming at her back. She couldn't hear them. She couldn't hear herself but her throat hurt, so she must have been speaking - screaming, the same word, over and over again.

"I am sorry," Sir Beaufort mouthed without a voice.

Sofia's world crumbled.

#

There was a sound. A thin, fragile noise that rose and fell sharply in the still air. It took Valeri a moment to realize it had emerged from the girl's mouth. He felt it resonate in his chest and etch in the quiet space that once thrummed around a beating heart.

"Please," the girl whispered.

He could not speak a word.

Sofia's eyes dulled as Valeri watched. Her skin seemed to pale; her body grew smaller, curling into itself as if wounded. Valeri wished to calm her, but found his mind strangely muddled. Words of comfort, meaningless social trinkets as they were, would not fall from his tongue. He almost welcomed Sofia's mourning cry for breaking the awful quiet.

The girl twisted around, the movement stilted and vicious, and darted out of the room before any of them could think to stop her. The desperate thumping of her feet was cut off by the sound of the front door slamming open. A blast of wind invaded the manor, tangling cool fingers through Valeri's hair. It carried the scent of hunt, of life, of night and open skies.

Valeri blinked at the large hand wrapped around his arm. Eyes like bloody moons rose to the soldier's face. The man met them without flinching.

"Do not go after her," the soldier ordered. Valeri tried hard not to bare his teeth at the man's presumption. "You owe me an explanation, Beaufort."

"I owe you nothing," Valeri hissed.

The stench of the rotten woman still stung his throat. The sight of her—an empty corpse spilled dry on a white bed—was not one he would ever forget. Valeri had seen death, had been death often enough that it should not have mattered.

He hadn't meant for this woman to die. That made all the difference.

"Sir Beaufort?"

Ira's voice was steady. Valeri grabbed at the sound and anchored himself in it, in the manor, in his own skin. The bloodlust left him by slow degrees. The soldier released Valeri and took a step back. His eyes didn't leave Valeri's face, his wide mouth clenched tight. The man's anger no longer roused Valeri to answer in kind.