Lady Death's Diary: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

I spent the night of my seventeenth birthday sitting in an upholstered chair next to Emilia’s bedside. I drifted in and out of sleep, jerking awake whenever my chin dipped to my chest. Hamen had departed late last night, returning to his house in Bellcrest proper where he lived with Emilia’s mother and brothers. He didn’t want his wife to hear the news about their daughter from a runner. Delphine had attempted to coax me into retiring to my own bed, but I had no intentions of leaving Emilia’s side.

Not when her condition was my fault.

Eventually, morning light began its slow creep into the room. Emilia’s bed was parallel to the window, and the early sun shone directly onto her pillow. Usually, this woke her in time to attend to her own needs before setting out my clothing for the day. But now, despite the gold glow of morning haloing her head, she remained insensible to the passage of time. She looked even more fragile than she had the night before. Veins on her closed eyelids bruised blue against her pallid skin, and her chest rose and fell with a raspy wheeze.

I wiped the sweat from Emilia’s brow with a damp cloth, then adjusted the curtain. St least the glare wouldn’t be in her eyes if she woke. Whenshe woke. With her face once again cast in shadow, her complexion appeared less ashen, creating a comforting illusion that she had just overslept.

I heard a knock at the door but didn’t bother rising from my seat. The door creaked open, and Theo entered.

“I heard what happened.” He leaned down and examined my face searchingly. “You look awful. Have you been here all night?”

I shrugged.

“You should get some sleep. She’s not going anywhere.”

I glared, my tired eyes unable to fully focus on his features. “She might.”

My brother winced, comprehending the meaning behind my short answer. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he apologized. “Only that she’ll still be right next door. Let one of the maids stay with her—they’ll fetch you if there’s any change.”

I shook my head.

Theo sighed. “Tru, you need to rest. I’ll hire a doctor to watch over her if you like.”

“No.” A doctor wouldn’t be able to do anything I couldn’t at this point. Not against aspswort poisoning. Delphine had done everything possible. Now, all we could do was wait. I wouldn’t let Emilia wait alone.

Theo voiced several more objections that I tuned out. Eventually, he heaved an exasperated sigh and left. Shortly after, two servants arrived carrying a thin feather mattress. They rearranged the furniture in order to create a space large enough to lay it down next to Emilia’s bed. A cart laden with tea service and a bowl of fresh fruit soon followed.

The food I didn’t touch, but I did lay down on the mattress sometime after the sun reached its zenith outside the window. I napped in brief, broken intervals, frequently rising to remoisten the towel on Emilia’s fevered brow. When a chambermaid arrived change out the thick cotton swaddling around Emilia’s hips that kept the bed from being soiled, she was aghast to discover I’d already preformed the task. After that, no more than an hour passed without a member of the castle staff twice coming in to make sure I hadn’t preformed any duties they believed beneath my station.

Letty stopped by that evening. She brought me a change of clothes and a plateful of cherry tarts, which joined the untouched fare Theo had ordered on the cart.

“Tru, you’ve been here for almost an entire day. You must be dreadfully concerned, I understand, but you need to take care of yourself as well,” she said. “You’re still wearing the same dress.”

I looked down. The beautiful gown from last night was nigh unrecognizable, the violet silk crushed and wrinkled. A breeze from the window tickled my arm, through a tear that now ran up the length of one lace sleeve.

Letty knelt beside my chair and placed her hand on my knee. Weariness prevented me from shoving it off. I wanted to grab her and shake until her secrets fell like apples from a tree. I wanted to force her to tell the truth: to confess that she was responsible for Emilia’s poisoning. That everything was her fault. Instead, I kept my attention focused on Emilia. If I ignored Letty, she would leave. Because without proof, my accusations were worthless.

“Lady Vitrula has gone mad,” the court would say. “Why, she claimed her own sister attempted to poison her!” Perhaps they would conclude that I had poisoned Emilia myself in my insanity. Perhaps punishment for this crime would be my next death sentence. In a way, I deserved the conviction.

A drop of wetness splashed the back of my hand. Against my will, I looked down at Letty.

She was crying. Not the loud, hiccupping sobs that I’d come to associate with her usual attempts to appear innocent, but tears streamed silently down her cheeks.

I yanked my hand away.

Her head jerked up. She touched her face, then looked at her hand as if surprised by its dampness. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize. It’s only, you care so deeply. I didn’t—I never—” She sighed and took a moment to collect herself before looking me in the eyes. “I didn’t realize how much you cared. I’m truly sorry your maidservant is sick.”

I nodded, unable to summon an appropriate response. Should I accuse her? Laugh at her audacity? Yet Letty genuinely appeared sorrowful. Perhaps the poisoning had been arranged by her accomplice. After all, what did I know about him, other than he wasn’t Timons and he sometimes wore ruby cufflinks to a murder? Maybe he was the mastermind behind my many deaths, and Letty little more than an unwitting pawn who had finally glimpsed his true nature.

Or maybe I just desperate to believe that some good remained in my former best friend.

Letty hugged me and left. Time passed—hours or minutes, I couldn’t say. Delphine came by with another teapot, this time filled only with water. Unlike Theo and Letty, she didn’t attempt to convince me to leave, having exhausted her arguments last night. We recast the previous night’s spells order to get Emilia to swallow.
 “Her reflexes should return in a few days.” Delphine set the half-full kettle on the nightstand. “We’ll continue to help her drink in the meantime: most aspswort victims die of dehydration before the poison shuts down their organs.”

Her calm pronouncement made my stomach clench. Of course, Delphine knew aspswort had poisoned Emilia. She had concocted the treatment. I was an idiot for not realizing it—though in my fugue state, I hadn’t noticed much of anything these last twenty-four hours. But enough wherewithal remained that I realized the knowledge placed her in danger. Who knew how the poisoner’s behavior would escalate if they thought they were in jeopardy of being caught? Not to mention Theo’s anger should he discover I’d been the intended target. I had enough to worry about without having to deal with unpredictable behavior, whether from my brother or from my murderer.

“Should anyone ask,” I said, “let them know that Emilia’s poisoning was accidental. She mistook scraps that Cook laced to kill pests for edible leftovers in the kitchen.”

The sorceress stopped halfway through the doorway, my view of her back making it impossible to evaluate her reaction. “Aspswort is not used to kill rats.”

“They needn’t be told the type of poison. Only that Emilia’s condition was accidental.”

Delphine turned. Concern knit her brow. “I had hoped for your maid to recover before having this conversation with you, but—”

I held up a hand to halt her midsentence. “Consider this an order from your future queen,” I said firmly. Then, in a softer voice, “Please.”

She opened her mouth to protest but closed it realizing from my quivering chin that I was on the verge of tears. Her compressed lips let me know that she was by no means happy to abide by my command, even if she currently refrained from arguing. Any other day, I wouldn’t have dared to issue Delphine an order. But, for their own safety, others couldn’t become involved.

Night fell. I cast a ward upon the door to alert me if anyone entered, but still was unable to sleep. The sun rose once again. Emilia remained unchanged.

****

“Your brother is worried.”

Xander’s blunt statement should have invoked guilt. But my heart was too numb.

“You’ve imprisoned yourself in this room for nearly a week. You won’t leave, hardly eat. You don’t look like you’re sleeping.” He placed his hands on my shoulders in an effort to make me meet his eyes. “Even when her parents came, you refused to let them visit their daughter alone.”

I licked chapped lips. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain,” he said. “Your maid was poisoned. Instead of acting afraid since you were the intended target, you behave as if this were your fault.”

My head snapped up. “Delphine told you. Does my brother know?”

If Theo knew, it was only a matter of time before he did something rash. Before he got himself killed. After Theo’s body had been lost in battle during my father’s rebellion, we’d been forced to bury an empty casket. An occupied one would be no easier.

“Theo hasn’t figured it out. As you requested, my mother told everyone that your maid ate something contaminated with rat poison. Almost everyone,” he amended after my pointed glare his way. “She’s concerned.” He ran a hand over his short red hair. “We’re both concerned.”

Renewed fear swept over me at his words: people who cared about me tended to end up as collateral. I stared blankly down at Emilia’s pale face as scenes from my past lives replayed themselves in my memory. The details were hazy, constructed more from my journal entries than actual recollections. But the emotions lingered, as agonizingly sharp as if the events had only just occurred. Beneath my deliberately placid façade, grief and terror scraped me raw.

Xander interpreted my silence as an invitation to continue. “Neither of us comprehend your reaction. You refuse to hand off your vigil to the hired nursemaid, while neglecting your other duties. You’ve ceased lessons with my mother and stopped attending Council meetings.”

“Emilia needs me.”

“Does she?” he demanded. “Are you the only person capable of changing bedsheets? Do you have the medical training to best look after her needs? What makes you so necessary?”

“You don’t understand.” I owed it to Emilia to be besides her—to keep her safe, even if I had so frequently failed at protecting myself. I added defensively, “The nurse comes daily to monitor her condition.”

“It would be better if he remained the entire day. That is, after all, what your brother pays him to do. Instead, you treat his presence as an imposition.”

“You don’t understand,” I repeated.

“Because you won’t explain!” he bit off.

Xander closed his eyes and took several deep breaths in a blatant attempt to remain composed. He sat gently down on the edge of Emilia’s bed, taking care not to jostle her. “Tru.” His voice was low and coaxing. “What has you so afraid?”

“She wasn’t supposed to eat my breakfast.” The truth rushed forth before I could smother it, my tongue tripping over itself in its haste to confess before my better judgement intervened. “I wasn’t hungry—not that I’d have eaten it anyway because I always knew this could happen. I knew. Don’t you see? I’m always so careful to avoid eating anything I don’t witness being prepared. Yet when Emilia said she would eat my breakfast since I didn’t want it, I didn’t stop her. I didn’t even think to. It’s as if—" I choked back a sob. “As if I valued her life less than my own.”

Xander’s face blurred through a damp fog; my eyes had lost the fight to keep their tears imprisoned and wetness now leaked down my cheeks. “So, it’s my responsibility,” I finished, “to stay and make sure she keeps fighting.”

Instead of responding, Xander drew me onto the bed besides him and wrapped his arms around me as I wept. I cried in a way I hadn’t since Theo’s death, my body heaving with great gasping sobs. Yet my sorrow was too consuming to allow me to feel self-conscious over my undignified blubbering. It felt cathartic to simply stop caring and release some of the hopeless anguish which had held me captive for so long. By the time I calmed down, the front breast of Xander’s jacket was damp with tears and snot. My cheeks burned with humiliation as I pulled away.

He spoke before I could apologize. “I won’t pretend to understand all you said. But I heard enough to know this: you’re under the mistaken impression that the decisions of others are your responsibility. They’re not. Not Emilia’s actions, nor those of whomever tried to poison you.” He lifted my chin upwards to look me directly in the eyes. “None of this is your fault.”

I appreciated his reassurance even as I recognized it as a lie. Empty platitudes meant to assuage my guilt. I’d anticipated the poisoning, having lived (or rather, not lived) through a similar attempt in my sixth death. Despite my knowledge, I hadn’t watched out for Emilia. Only for myself.

I blinked hard to hold back yet more tears that threatened to fall. Curses. I could almost hear Father’s condemnation: tears are for infants and idiots. Right now, I felt like both.

“For the past three years, everything I’ve done has been in order to stay safe.” I looked at Emilia to avoid Xander’s penetrating stare. “I was careful about what I ate. I avoided high places. I strove to keep my behavior above reproach. I learned magic. But none of it matters.” I practically spat out the last sentence. “No matter how much I try or how well I plan, I end up powerless when it really counts. You were right: Emilia doesn’t need me. She would be better off if we’d never met.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant.”

I cut him off. “Nevertheless, I can’t abandon her. I can’t run away.” I swiped the back of my hand across my face, dashing away the lingering remnants of my weakness.

“No one is asking you to run away,” he replied. “But you need to move forward.”

I mutely shook my head. He still didn’t understand. How could he?

Xander stood as if to depart. I tried to quash down an unjustified sense of disappointment—I’d made it clear that I had no intention of leaving. There was no reason for him to stay trapped with me and my regrets. I reached forwards in order to readjust Emilia’s pillow.

Xander’s arms swept beneath my legs and lifted me smoothly off my chair.

I froze. He hadn’t lifted me high enough for me to feel afraid, but an icy rage replaced my previous numbness. How dare he?

“Release me,” I ordered with a glare that had once made a chambermaid burst into tears.

Xander didn’t even pause. He ignored me and instead began to walk towards the door. My fists beat against his chest to no avail, until forced to grab ahold of his jacket in order to avoid slipping through his arms and landing on my tailbone.

My unexpected abduction was even more unexpectedly short lived. Xander deposited me back on my feet as soon as we crossed over the threshold into the hallway. Standing only a meter outside Emilia’s bedroom where we had first begun, I gaped at him in confusion.

“Are you mad?” I stabbed him in the chest with my finger. “How dare you manhandle me as if I were a sack of turnips? I told you that I didn’t want to leave!”

“No,” he corrected. “You said you couldn’t leave.”

My upper lip curled in disbelief. Instead of answering my question, he was arguing semantics?

Xander continued, unphased by my incredulous stare. “You were unable to leave, so I decided to help.” Amber-flecked green eyes bore into mine, willing me to understand his convoluted reasoning. “Now, instead of being trapped, you have a choice. You can go back inside,” he pointed towards Emilia’s room, “and continue to stagnate. Or you can come with me.”