Page 48 of Antiletum

I’m mindless, opening drawers and cabinets. Looking behind books on the shelf. Not bothering to put things back how I found them.

Rain splats against the ceiling—a low, melancholy melody.

Intentions in coming in here were wholly innocent.

For a brief moment, I was planning out where I would place my belongings, dispersing them seamlessly right along Val’s: my heels tucked into an alcove next to his boots, sitting abandoned like he’s merely in the other room, not miles and miles away. A stack of my favorite books on the marble topped bedside table, waiting for me, an unused mirror of the one littered with Val’s items. Complete with an empty glass for water, a single dagger, a sketch pad and charcoal carefully laid across it.

I’m mesmerized by the openness of his personal items. Particularly, the notepad.

Terrifying curiosity demands that I look at whatever he’s captured. Slowly, I stop at the table, veins of black snaked through white stone, my heart pounding in my throat. Sickeningly. With eyes closed, I pick up the pad. Let the charcoal roll to the floor with a clatter. My stomach cinches tighter, lids slide open, and a startled gasp works past my lips.

Drawn on the off-white paper is a perfect rendering of the headdress I wore for my wedding. Flowers and all. Sketched by a loving hand that put hours of thought into the adornment. Little notes decorate the margins in messy, nearly illegible scrawl.

Val drew this.

Not only did he admit to being an artist, but I can smell his dead skin cells still clinging to the paper.

He probably did it after your wedding,I rationalize in a panic.There wouldn’t have been time for him to design this before.

Certainly not this meticulously.

The flowers could be a coincidence. Always intended to be used. Probably for Rainah. Val’s gifts could have been required to create something so beautiful for the future heads of the faction. Not even growers can cultivate a garden quite like we can, batting death away.

My own explanations don’t settle me, deep inside intrinsically knowing that things are amiss. That this drawing, the garden, they’re tied to whatever secrets of Val’s Rainah wanted me to be wary of.

How completely arrogant of him. Leaving the drawing out where I could easily find it. As if he wanted me to. As if he wanted me to know that perhaps he was aware of what lay ahead for us, long before I did.

You don’t even know me.

I know enough.

The encounter, the subtle connotations batter against my skull.

It’s not out of the realm of possibilities that Val’s father could have been in talks with Parliament, a marriage sanctioned between us before the demise of Rainah and her betrothed, of Val’s father and brother.

Par for the course with everything in my life, I was just the last to learn.

If that’s the case, why hasn’t Val told me?Some might say it’s destiny.In a way, I suppose he did. But I was too naive to listen.

Angrily, I yank open his bedside drawer. A glass jar rolls around, five or six clear caplets clinking inside. Pulling it out, I have to know what kind of medication Val would keep so close. I yank off the cork stopper with my teeth, biting far more harshly than necessary, then spit it across the room.

The little pills spill out in my hand; I inspect them closer. Sniffing. Barely an inhale blasts my senses with the unpleasant aroma of loamy earth and something bitter. Astringent. Nearly antiseptic.

Antiletum.

Of course, I knew Val kept personal, illegal stores. But I was unaware ofantiletumpills. Only the salve to be applied to affected areas of necrosis after overly intense practicing.

I wonder…

Would taking one of these pills before using too much magic, or (better yet) practicing without your bonded pair, prevent your price from ever presenting?

Opportunity seizes me like a lightning strike. Storm drumming louder outside, I crash throughout the room more frantically, flinging items aside. There has to be a handheld mirror around here somewhere. It doesn’t take long to locate exactly what I need; my heart races like the wings of a hummingbird, surely about to give out.

Without a thought, I pop one of theantiletumpills in my mouth—swallow it whole. It slides down my throat easily, only leaving the faintest unpleasant taste. Clamped in my other hand is the mirror, ebony wood handle crushed in my fist.

Deos, please let this work.

I’ve never been fully successful in conversing with the dead through a mirror. Only when I raise a body. Last time, I only summoned Rainah just enough to conjure a faint image, silently waving to me with an opaque hand. All my other attempts have failed completely, not a soul answering my call. I don’t know what to expect now.