Her instincts proved accurate. Louvaen discovered Ballard in the cell he’d occupied when she first arrived at Ketach Tor. The room had been scrubbed clean, and fresh straw carpeted the floor. Someone had left a stack of neatly folded blankets against one wall. Ballard stood inside, a length of chain coiled around his forearm. He braced his weight and pulled, testing the bracket that attached the chain to the stone blocks.
She hovered inside the doorway and prayed her voice didn’t quiver as much as her insides did. “Will it hold?”
He didn’t startle at her presence. The chain clattered into the straw. “It should. If it doesn’t, I’d still have to kick or claw my way out, and Ambrose will have the door so ensorcelled, I’d challenge a dragon to gnaw its way through.” He turned to face her, and Louvaen bit back a gasp. His earlier pallor had worsened, and shadows carved gaunt hollows beneath his cheekbones and eyes. Those were the least of his troubles. His pupils were no longer round; they glittered elliptical and black in irises as bright as saffron moons. The pathways of scars etched into his face shifted, crawling under the skin until they mapped new roads over his nose and into his hairline.
“Behold the beast, my beauty.” He grinned, flashing incisors grown more curved and pointed. His mirth never touched that reptilian gaze.
Louvaen breathed slowly and locked her knees against the urge to flee. Here stood a predator of terrifying aspect, a being unnamed and unknown. She could weather the sight of fangs, writhing scars, even the serpent’s eyes, but if he flicked a forked tongue at her she’d lose the last speck of courage she possessed and succumb to the bone-deep revulsion every creature that walked on legs had for those which slithered on their bellies.
Ballard’s mocking grin dimmed. He raised an eyebrow at her continued silence. “I must truly be grotesque to render the outspoken Louvaen Duenda speechless.”
She crossed her arms and adopted a severe expression. “I looked like you once. The morning after Thomas and I attended Beatrice Cooper’s handfasting, and the wine flowed a little too freely. Thomas hurled himself out of the bed in fright at his first sight of me.”
His empty smile disappeared altogether. “You’re amused by this?”
“No one here is laughing, my lord.” She reached for his hand, holding tight when he tried to pull away from her. The tips of his claws scraped her knuckles. “I’m not laughing, and I’m not running. I won’t lie either. You’re a chilling sight to behold. I’ve had nightmares of monsters prettier than you.” She stepped closer and raised her other hand to thread her fingers through his hair. This time he didn’t flinch away. “But you’re still you under all this flux nonsense. Only a fool of a woman would run from such an extraordinary man, and I am no fool, Ballard de Sauveterre.”
To her relief, he closed his eyes and enfolded her in a tentative embrace. She went willingly, hugging him close and resting her head on his shoulder. He felt the same as before, smelled the same. If she closed her eyes, she pictured him as he was the previous night—still scarred but so much more human. The pointed claws drawing designs on her back through her dress reminded her this new day brought a grimmer reality.
“You shouldn’t be alone down here,” she said. “I’ll bring my spinning wheel and keep you company.”
He stiffened and shrugged out of her arms. She didn’t think he could appear any bleaker than he already did, but he managed. “I don’t want you here, Louvaen,” he said flatly.
Louvaen bristled, stung by his abrupt refusal. “Why not? I’ve seen you in the midst of the flux before.”
He shook his head as a wry smile curved his mouth. “No you haven’t. That was ebb tide when the worst was over.”
She remembered the filthy cell and the hunched beast screeching its torment to the walls. Everything within her recoiled at the knowledge that greater suffering awaited him. She fidgeted with the laces on his tunic. “My affections for you will remain the same, Ballard.” She’d nursed Thomas through the horrors of the plague—the task had left scars of its own inside her. “I’m not a weak spirit.”
He stroked her arm from shoulder to wrist. “No, you aren’t, but I’m not human during the flux’s peak. And I still have some shred of pride.” Remnants of the shame he’d revealed the night before flickered in his yellow eyes. “This is for me, Louvaen, not you. I beg your indulgence.”
Louvaen thought her eyes would pop out of her head from the effort it took not to cry. She latched onto anger instead and let it burn. This curse no one would talk about was a treacherous thing, inflicting not only pain and madness but robbing its victim of dignity. She fisted her hands in her skirts and took deep breaths until the tight bands inside her chest loosened, and she could speak without gasping. “You have been very generous with the warming pan lately, my lord,” she teased gently. “I think it only fair I grant you this indulgence. But don’t get used to it,” she said in her sternest voice.
He took her into his arms a second time and bent his head. Louvaen closed her eyes, relief surging through her when he brushed her bottom lip with his still very human tongue. They held each other for several minutes, trading kisses and soft endearments.
Finally, Ballard set her from him and gestured to the stairs. “Time for you to go upstairs, my beauty.” The black claws that could easily slice her to ribbons sketched butterfly patterns down her neck and over her collarbones. “I’ve a comfortable cell, and Magda will bring me dinner later.” He patted his flat stomach. “I’ll be in no danger of starving.”
Louvaen grasped his hand and kissed his bony knuckles. “You’ll call for me if you need me?”
“No.”
She glared. “Ballard...”
He glared back. “I won’t know you, woman. I’ll be lucky if I can garble out words instead of growls.” He returned her gesture and kissed her hand before unclasping her fingers and retreating farther into the cell. “If you want to succor me, help the others with Gavin.” His eyes flared like newly lit torches. “My son is why I breathe, Louvaen.” He turned away from her. She stood there for several moments, staring at his back before leaving him to his solitude.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She found Magda at the kitchen hearth, turning a spit of meat. The cook indicated two pitchers on a nearby table with her chin. “Ale or cyser?”
Louvaen fished a goblet from one of the cupboards lining the walls. “Both,” she said.
The rest of the day moved at a crawl. By evening, Louvaen’s mood had blackened, and she listened so intently for any sound from the well room her ears began to ring. The atmosphere at supper had all the joviality of mourners in a graveyard. Ambrose stared off into the distance, worrying his lower lip between thumb and forefinger while his food grew cold. Cinnia, eyes almost swollen shut with tears, sniffled so often that Louvaen had to switch places with her on the bench so Magda, annoyed, wouldn’t stab her with her eating knife. Clarimond and Joan had wisely chosen to eat by the hearth and away from the tension hanging around the others thicker than the stew no one was eating.
Only Louvaen came to the solar afterwards, and only because she didn’t want to cart her spinning wheel back to her chambers. She spun far into the night, with the clack of the treadle keeping her company. The room had grown so dark that she guided the flax onto the flyer using a practiced touch instead of sight. At dawn, the first agonized screams from the well room drifted throughout the castle, and her fingers began to bleed. She continued spinning, teeth clenched and fingers burning, until Cinnia entered the solar with a torch in hand. The light clasp on her shoulder brought her out of her stupor. She lowered her foot from the treadle, vaguely aware of a numbness in her calf and thigh. The spinning wheel slowed and finally creaked to a stop.
Cinnia set the torch into a nearby bracket and crouched down by Louvaen’s knees. “You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?” She grasped her sister’s wrist and raised her hand to the wavering light. Blood slid down her fingers to run between her knuckles and coat her palm, streaming from the countless lacerations abrading her fingertips. “Oh Lou,” Cinnia crooned in an anguished voice. “I’d hoped never to see this again. Why didn’t you stop?”
Louvaen shrugged. “I didn’t notice.” The distaff was nearly empty and the spindle nearly full—not with linen thread spun from the basket of flax tow at her feet, but with wire as fine as thread and sharp enough to slice flesh. The last time she’d spun flax into steel, Thomas had lay dying in their bed.
