Chapter 137: Unbearable noise
The moment Lucrezia crossed the threshold of her chamber, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.
The corridor was colder than she remembered.
A thin draft swept through the narrow passage, slipping beneath the hem of her nightdress and brushing against her bare ankles. The torches mounted along the walls burned with their usual pale flames, casting elongated shadows over the stone floor. Beyond the arched windows, the night stretched over Blackvale in an endless expanse of darkness, the distant mountains swallowed by mist.
It should have been quiet.
At this hour, most of the castle had surrendered to sleep. The servants would have retreated to their quarters, the guards would have taken their positions along the various passages, and the lords who occupied the eastern wing would have long since withdrawn behind their doors.
Yet Lucrezia could hear everything.
The faint rush of water travelling through the pipes beneath the castle. The gentle crackle of flames in the nearest wall sconce. The distant groan of an old wooden door opening somewhere below. The soft, almost imperceptible whisper of fabric as someone turned in their sleep behind a closed door.
And beneath it all, the voices. So many voices.
They came from everywhere and nowhere, overlapping until she could no longer distinguish one from another.
A man muttering something in his sleep. A woman whispering a prayer. Two guards speaking in hushed tones at the far end of a staircase, their words carried through the stone as though they stood directly beside her.
Someone coughing. Someone laughing. Someone thinking.
Lucrezia stopped.
Her fingers curled against her palms.
No.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that when she opened them again, the world would have returned to its proper proportions.
It did not. The sounds only grew sharper.
She could hear the faint friction of her own nightdress against her thighs, the uneven rhythm of her breathing, and the tiny click her tongue made against the roof of her mouth when she swallowed.
It was unbearable.
She had never known that silence could become something a person desperately needed. Before the attack at the fair, she had scarcely paid attention to the ordinary noises surrounding her. She had lived among the sounds of Blackvale without considering how many of them existed beyond her awareness.
Now, there was no escaping them.
Even the walls seemed to have lost their ability to keep anything concealed. She could hear people through them. She could hear things she had no business hearing.
And the most terrifying part was that she could not make herself stop.
Lucrezia pressed both hands against her ears. It did nothing.
A sharp breath escaped her. "Please." The word was barely audible, even to herself.
She did not know whom she was begging.
Perhaps the gods who had allowed her to become this way. Perhaps whatever strange, terrible force had awakened inside her after the fair. Or perhaps she was simply pleading with her own body, hoping it would remember that it belonged to her.
She had never asked for any of this.
She had not asked to be born with something forbidden running through her veins. She had not asked to be hidden behind another woman’s name, nor had she asked to be delivered into the hands of a creature whose very existence inspired fear.
And she certainly had not asked for the power that now seemed determined to tear its way out of her.
Lucrezia opened her eyes. The empty and dimly illuminated corridor stretched ahead. She needed air. That was all.
If she could find somewhere away from the chambers, away from the servants and the guards and the incessant noise, perhaps she could gather herself enough to understand what was happening.
Perhaps the power would settle. Perhaps she could return to her room before Nalia raised the alarm.
The thought of Nalia brought a fresh knot of dread to her stomach.
Her maid had seen the state of the chamber after she awoke. She had seen the destruction, the overturned furniture, the strange marks that had appeared across the stone, and whatever else Lucrezia had been too disoriented to notice.
She had also seen her face—a face without the disguise of Lady Anastasia.
That alone was dangerous enough.
If Nalia began asking questions, Lucrezia would have to answer them. And if the wrong person heard those answers, if even one person began to suspect that Lady Anastasia was not what she claimed to be—
Her mother.
The thought struck with such force that Lucrezia nearly stumbled.
Her mother was still in her father’s custody.
Everything Lucrezia had endured since arriving in Blackvale had been tied to that single, terrible truth. She could not afford to be discovered. She could not afford to give anyone a reason to investigate her past, to question her blood, or to look too closely at the woman she had been before becoming Vaeron’s wife.
If they discovered that she was a witch, the consequences would extend far beyond her own life.
Her mother would pay for it.
𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
Lucrezia drew a shaky breath and forced herself forward.
One step.
Then another.
She kept her gaze fixed on the floor, concentrating on the movement of her feet, as though the simple act of walking might offer her mind something to hold on to.
It did not.
The sounds followed her. A guard’s heartbeat, the distant scrape of metal against metal, and the rustling of leaves beyond the windows.
She could hear the blood moving through her own body, or perhaps that was merely her imagination, a consequence of the terror gathering in her chest.
No, that was barely a thought. She knew the difference.
There was a strange rhythm beneath her skin, like a faint, persistent thrum that had not been there before the fair. It answered the sounds around her, rising whenever her distress grew and retreating whenever she managed to calm herself.
It was as though something inside her was listening. Even worse, waiting. Exactly how she felt in her dream. And every time she lost control, it came a little closer to the surface.