“You meansave her?” The healer asks incredulously. “You can’t.”
“There has to be something…”
“You can’t possibly want her as your wife.”
“Of course I didn’t fucking want her!” Sitri snaps. I wince, this cold daunting feeling flowing through my blood. “Morin is the one that put her here. She needs her.”
“Well, Morin can’t stop this. Shouldn’t have had her perform Blood of the Gods if she wanted to keep her around. If there were a way to save someone from altering they would’ve found it for Beldric. Rumors are that fiasco ended in the deaths of five people instead of the one if they would’ve snuffed it out when it started.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Sitri cuts in. “I’ll deal with it. Just…heal her to the best of your abilities right now so I can inform Morin before and she doesn’t have any doubts as to whether--”
“Any attempts at healing necrosis will only be met by quicker deterioration. Besides, I do not have the intention for a nought,” he spits distastefully. “My advice, Prince, take it as a blessing from the Gods. An exit at no fault of your own. May you be fitted with a wife more suited to carry your heirs. I’ll inform Morin myself so she has no reason to doubt you. I’ll have her send a few Masks up.”
The sound of his light footsteps pattering across the floorboards as he makes toward the door. I wait for the sound of the door opening and closing shut. But there’s nothing.
Only loud ringing silence.
I…am…going…to…die.
I’ll take care of it.
Sitri’s going tokill me. I should feel something. I should be alarmed, trying to flee. If I flee I’ll turn into a monster. I’d rather die than turn into that horrifying creature. Finally, there’s the sound of the door opening and shutting.
Mostly I feeltired.
This is what I expected. It just took a little longer to get here. I need to get up and get back in bed before Sitri comes back in. So he doesn’t know I know. No sooner than the thought crosses my mind, I hear a door slamming again, and he barges in, face pulled into a deep scowl. He doesn’t notice me as he strides forward, and then freezes at the sight of the empty bed. He whips around and we stare at each other in mirrored expressions of shock.
There’s some bitter irony in that I thought I’d be eaten in coming here…and instead, I’ll die from eating someone else. A manic laugh works up my throat. It’ll be over soon. There’s some relief in that.There’s a lot of relief in that.
I mean, was I really supposed to live in these chambers for the rest of my life? What kind of life would that have been anyway? I’m a burden. And, now, I won’t be. I let out another bitter laugh. “Guess you’ll be rid of me after all.”
“Syra,” Sitri sighs, apparently deciding at this moment on my deathbed I finally deserve the decency of being called my given name. Or what he thinks is my given name.
“Syra,” I echo, staring off at the far wall.Syra. There it is. The bitter prick of regret, settling on my chest like a heavy weight, crushing and overwhelming me so thoroughly it feels like the floor is falling out from underneath me.
Sitri’s brows buckle with concern and uncertainty. He must think I’m insane, sitting here repeating back my own name. He leans down into a squat in front of me and my heart finally kicks up in my chest.
Not yet.
“Wait.” I rasp. “I—it’s Pandora. That’s my name.”
His eyes widen a fraction. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s questioning my lucidity or if he’s just bewildered.
“Syra is my sister,” I breathe, letting my head thud back to the wall.
He searches my face, eyes flitting over mine as he puts the pieces together. “What do you…you switched places with her?”
I nod heavily.
“Come on.” He reaches forward and I pleadingly throw up my hands.
“Don’t. N—not yet. Let me say something first. Please.”
A horrified, dawning recognition lights in his eyes and he slowly shakes his head. “I’m not going to hurt you, pet.”
He’s not…This time I’m the one combing his features for clues as to what that might mean for me, my future. It’s only the tight painful clenching of my stomach that makes me drop my hands back down to my abdomen. He locks an arm under my legs and the other under my lower back, heaves me off the floor, and settles me back into the bed. By the time I look up, he’s already leaving the room.
“Wait—“ I call out, half panicked, he’ll disappear before I can say what I need to say. He whirls and the ferocity in his expression gives me pause. “I want, um, could you get a letter to her?”
