The Sound of Water

Clang! The savage ring of steel on steel shattered the midnight stillness of the training yard.

"Your Highness! Thank the gods I'm a genius! A moment later and I'd have been split in two while I was still alive!"

Naz roared, his voice torn raw with fury.

"Your Highness, please—no further than this!"

Ilya's blade came crashing toward him again.

The knights stamped where they stood, helpless, watching the two locked edges shiver against each other.

"Captain!"

The moment Naz began to give ground, the knights who had been hesitating drew. Two of them charged Ilya at once, only to drop with blood streaming down their forearms.

"Evelynn."

Ilya started forward, dragging his bloodstained sword so the point scraped along behind him.

The whispering that never ceased in his skull and in his ears. The terrible heat, as if it meant to burn his whole body to ash. If he drank that woman's blood, every last wretched thing would vanish, and a peaceful night would come.

But she cried so hard that night. And I...

"Damn it, the Annex—that's where the lady is. After him, now!"

Naz shouted, shaking, and the knights scrambled after the Archduke.

Evelynn had only just coaxed the fretting child to sleep and was about to lie down herself when an uninvited guest arrived. Ilya came in dragging a sword thick with blood, and the sight of him was grotesque.

"Not even a greeting for the husband you haven't seen in so long?"

The face made of sharp lines had grown still gaunter since she last saw it. The skin beneath his eyes was black; he looked desperately tired. Blood smeared here and there only finished the ruin of those handsome features.

He had been so cruel, and now he had come back looking like this. The sight took the strength out of her.

"Your face is badly worn. You must have been busy."

"Do something. Anything."

He whispered it in a voice cracked nearly to pieces.

Evelynn bowed her head and fidgeted with both hands. What was she supposed to do? There were so many knights. She could hardly draw blood by stabbing him here.

Then the sword in Ilya's hand caught her eye. She crossed to him quickly and stood before him, and when she laid her own hand over the one gripping the blade, he flinched.

She set her thumb to the edge. The keen steel opened a deep cut from nothing more than a brief graze.

"Ah—it hurts."

The knights watching from a few paces off gasped, the breath catching in their throats.

To seize the Archduke's sword hand without a moment's hesitation... They had been agonizing all this time over whether they would have to draw if their lord turned on his wife.

Evelynn lifted her wounded hand toward the face of the man in front of her. Ilya caught her wrist and drew his head back. His dark brows climbed, as if the gesture offended him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The finger dripping blood came into his view. Only then did he seem to understand. A hollow ha escaped him, the sound of air leaving a punctured thing.

The grip on her wrist loosened, and a pale, slender finger touched his cheek. It traced the sharp line of his face and stopped at the corner of his tightly closed mouth. With a soft, breathy little laugh, the finger slipped between his lips.

Watching her husband take her finger into his mouth, she felt the blood rush to her whole face. As if to see whether the bleeding had stopped, he pressed his lips to the tip.

"I'm losing my mind. If I'd known you had a talent like this, I'd have taken you to the battlefield... my lovely wife."

He flung the sword in his hand to the floor as he spoke, and Evelynn's heart dropped with a thud.

She had cried so hard, and still, fool that she was... She hated her own heart for hammering the moment she looked at him.

The knights who had been watching flushed red to the ears and turned, all of them, toward Naz. Naz shook his head, slowly, again and again.

"All of you, out. I want to be alone with my wife."

The knights poured away like an ebbing tide.

Evelynn could not bring herself to look at her husband's face, so she kept her eyes on his chest. Afraid of the pain that would come any moment, she squeezed her eyes shut.

"...It's loud."

At the sound, as if he were muttering to himself, she cautiously opened her eyes. She lifted her head a little, and what she saw was a brow knotted tight.

"Loud... that sound."

She looked hurriedly around her, but there was nothing.

"What do you hear?"

He gave no answer. He brought one hand up beside his ear. Over her husband's twisted face, the image of her young son laid itself. Newborn Liber had screamed as if he were being torn apart whenever he fussed before sleep, and he scratched at his ears so fiercely that she had once bound his hands tight in cloth.

It was ringing in his ears. And I never even knew. The child who had wailed himself raw overlapped the man before her. She had hated him so much, and yet, faced with him suffering right in front of her, her heart went soft.

She brought both hands to Ilya's ears, closed her eyes, and gathered her focus.

When Liber was in pain, what did I do? If I can't make it go away... I can cover it with something else.

"Water."

A moment later Ilya murmured, staring ahead with unfocused eyes.

Behind her, where she stood facing him, the world was entirely blue. He blinked at the unreal sight before him.

Ah. She was an Illusionist.

A lake? Or the sea? Through the blue water an enormous white creature swam with unhurried grace. Small fins, ill-suited to that sleek, slippery body, worked busily back and forth. Eyes like black buttons curved, and the tight line of its mouth lifted with them. No matter how he looked, the thing seemed to be smiling.

"A monster that lives in the water?"

"It's called a whale. Cute, isn't it? They say they live along the eastern coast."

Her voice was gentle, chiding him for so harsh a word as monster, the way she sounded when she held her little son and whispered to him.

Ilya stared blankly at nothing but her lips. The sound that had been tormenting him was gone, without a trace. Only the burble of water and the voice of the woman before him existed in this place.

The tension left him, and he spoke in a voice gone a shade more languid.

"And why has that thing come out now?"

"If I show him a storybook with a whale in it, he sleeps well. He doesn't even fuss."

She did not say who, but he knew she meant his son.

Fussing. Crying like a demon with every vein in both eyes burst—that was fussing? Something black seemed to rise in his gut.

"Does that brat get like this too? Like me?"

"All children do, when they're little. My nursemaid said she couldn't sleep a wink because of me, either."

He said nothing.

"And he's all right now. Much better than when he was first born."

Looking at the foolish, beaming face of the woman smiling so brightly, he thought he might be sick. You don't know anything. The day you learn that what you bore is a monster, you'll wrap your hands around your son's throat too.

"When he gets a little bigger, he'll run mad. Just like me. All day long, he hears a voice telling him to kill."

The color drained from her face.

He grinned, thin and sharp, at the face of a wife who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.

A long rush of water. The white whale glided closer and stopped before Evelynn as if to shield her. It fixed Ilya with those button-black eyes, and then its enormous tail churned the water hard. Spray crashed over him, and in an instant he was soaked from head to foot. The heat running through every vein in his body went quiet for it. He stared at the whale and shouted.

"Damn it—are you calling that an attack?"

Another fierce burst of spray broke over him. It was nothing but an illusion, and yet the feel of water dripping from his hair was far too vivid.

Ilya swept his wet hair back and glared. The impudent whale whipped its head around and vanished behind Evelynn in a flash. He had thought she would be crying.

"I'm not apologizing. You said something cruel first."

She laughed, bright and girlish. After she had laughed for a long while, Evelynn looked her husband straight in the face.

"Not a monster. He can get better. He will be happy. I know he will."

Ilya could not tell whether the words were meant for him or for the child. But those sprout-soft eyes, brimming with tears, seemed to lay a spell on him.

"Sleep well."

He let the small woman lead him, went obediently to the bed, and lay down. It felt exactly as if he were lying in a world beneath the sea, and yet, strangely, he could breathe just fine. Listening to the quiet sound of water, his eyelids grew heavy. There was no headache that felt as if his brain were turning to pulp, and no whisper at his ear telling him to kill.

A peaceful night came to him.

He blinked, struggling to lift his heavy eyelids, and grinned. Through the blur he saw an unfamiliar ceiling, but anything would have done. His whole body felt light, as if he had been born again. Moved, he stared blankly upward, then turned his head.

A slender woman with pale gold hair braided down over one shoulder. The woman who had given him a peaceful night lay asleep on her stomach.

He settled Evelynn carefully onto the bed and drew the blanket up to her shoulders. She must have been tired; she stirred a little and slept again. He watched her for a long while, then turned away.

Time to go back. Back to where I belong.

He stood a long time with his hand on the latch. Perhaps because it was dawn, a chill crept over him. He glanced toward the bed, then walked to the fireplace, laid in the wood, and only after he had heard the fire catch—tak, tak—did he mutter.

"If she catches a cold, it'd be a nuisance for me."

The books scattered across the small table beside the hearth caught his eye. He picked up a volume bound in worn black leather.

"Dark Illusion Arts..."

He glanced at the sleeping Evelynn.

"This sort of thing doesn't suit you."

"As if a woman who makes water-spouting whales would ever kill anyone..."

He dropped the book as if throwing it. Other volumes, these with gaudy covers, caught his eye.

His face darkened for a moment. He glared at the books on the table and growled.

"How very diligently you're preparing to run."

He threw every volume with a title that grated on him into the fireplace. Watching the flames roar up, he felt, somehow, a little better.