“I’ll send the arcanist then,” the princess stands. 

“No!” The girl stands too, her chair crashing against the rough floor. “Nonononono…” 

She remembers… 

Bare feet drummed on flagstone. Bloody marks where she tore her own skin. Firm fingers on her slender arms. The stone table. 

This was before the voice, but not much before. No one to keep her company. No one to suffer with her. 

“This is the spare?” The man’s face was as thin as his voice. His nose was like a scalpel. His fingers were nothing more than skin-clad bones. His eyes were dark, but they glittered with that darkness, and with the black desires they concealed. His hair was long, but combed back into an immaculately groomed braid. His cloak was fine velvet, embroidered with the unintelligible runes and sigils of his office. Adrian Adney. 

Oh how she hates that man…

“Arcanist Adney. This is the spare,” her grandfather had confirmed. King Ronan. Father of her mother. He was old, but his hands were strong, and she was small. 

“Beautiful child,” the arcanist knelt. He ran one skeletal finger along one pale trembling cheek. She tried to recoil from him, but there were her grandfather’s hands, holding her in place. 

“Grandpa?” Her voice was as thin as her wrists. The elderly king ignored her. 

“You will want to leave her with me, your majesty” Adrian said. “There will be pain. You will not wish to see.” 

“I will stay,” King Ronan had replied. His face has been too high, too shadowed, for her to see what expression was there, no matter how she had craned her neck. His voice had been too even, too perfectly controlled. 

“Grandpa?” Her voice was wavering now. She tried never to cry. Always to hold herself with the composure expected of a princess of Ardholm. Those forbidden tears had been clawing at the corners of her eyes here… 

“I will stay,” the king had said again. Again he ignored his granddaughter’s plea. “If I shall do this thing to her, then I think… If she must endure it, than I must at least watch it.” 

“Ahhh,” Adrian had sighed. “Great king, you are strong, but… careful your majesty lest that strength be your undoing.” 

“Watch your tongue,” the king had snapped. “It isn’t too late to give you to the inquisition.” 

“Yes, your majesty, I’m afraid it is,” the arcanist straightened. “Still. Stay if you wish, though I’m afraid you will come to regret that choice.”  

They had taken her then, to a chamber. A chamber that she hadn’t known existed. She had thought she had explored the entire castle- even the forbidden dungeons. She had been wrong. It wasn’t the sort of chamber one would expect for black rituals and forbidden surgeries. No bone alters. No goblets of blood. Just featureless unfeeling flagstone and dull brass grates over the many drains. Bright lanterns, and clean tin trays gleaming with their light. Precise razor instruments and faded peeling tomes. Endless cabinets and racks of clear glass vials. And, of course, the stone table. 

It was set in a rotating base, geared and articulated and stone. There were grooves and drains in its surface, and a precisely chiseled hexagram. Thick leather straps too, and complicated shining buckles. 

Oh how she had fought. Oh how she had kicked and screamed. Nothing like how she would kick and scream later, when the arcanist took up his knives. Oh how she had fought. It hadn’t mattered of course; one young girl against two grown men? And then later, a young girl pulling against thick bands of leather and steel? It had been inevitable. 

And then the voice…

Broken. Lost. Do you hear me?

She’s standing, still. Her chair has another chip in the back rest. Her sister backing away slowly. The sword is in her hand, unfinished grip pricking her palm. She sets it carefully down on the oft-scarred table. A table. A normal table. A battered wooden table. 

Child.

The voice. She tries not to remember where it came from, but the memories are there, circling like predatory aquatic beasts. 

What do you see, child?

“Table,” she says. “Chair. Sister. Sister’s chair. Sword…” she reaches out one trembling hand. 

What do you smell, child?

“Salt,” she says. She closes her eyes. “Perfume. Blood.” 

What do you feel?

“Cold,” she moves her toes. “Wet.” 

What do you hear?

“Dripping.” She opens her eyes. “Heartbeat. Breathing. Blood.” 

Here, foolish girl. You must be here. Breathe out your thoughts, breathe in the present. Your failures do not weigh on you alone.

“Be here,” she takes a deep breath. “I am here. It is now. No knives. Blood on the inside.” 

“I’ll send him in,” Nerissa says, holds up her thin gloved hands. “He will help.” 

“No!” The girl grabs for… something… anything… But her sister is already gone. She can feel the arcanist nearing. She can feel his spells on her thin limbs, holding her like the leather straps did so long ago. Stilling her… does he know? That she would kill him if she got the chance? Not the voice, though it would delight in the act as well. Her. SHE would kill him. She would enjoy it. She would peel the sinews from his bones… 

And then his spells lie on her fully, and she sleeps.

… she hates this table. The voice does too, but it doesn’t seem to understand the visceral, limb-shaking revulsion she has for it. She would struggle and thrash- no matter how useless- were it not for the spells holding her musculature flaccid. 

“Marvelous,” Adrian Adney hums. “Truly marvelous.” He holds his hands just so, speaks the alien unintelligible words, and the shallow wound on her cheek knits itself back together. “Now.” He claps his hands together. “I understand you used a pair of scrolls?”

She wears her hatred on her face and holds her tongue. 

“Yes,” Adrian continues as if she had replied. “Well. We shall have to replace those. First though, a few tests.” He flips open a heavy leather-bound tome, runs one bony finger down the vellum page. “How are you finding the integration? I believe last time your words were…. Ah. ‘Unintelligible screaming.’ Does that remain the best way to describe your condition?” 

She huffs, and strains against the spell- to predictably negligible effect. 

Patience, child. The fool's reckoning will build until he is consumed by it.