Chapter 76 Memories

Chapter 76 Memories
Beatris

I opened my eyes and found myself standing before the mansion.

Not Crimson Hill as I knew it now, but an older version of it, brighter and lighter, before grief had settled into the stone. The gardens had not yet grown wild. The windows gave back the sun instead of swallowing it. The whole place looked as though it still believed in happiness.

Alexander came down the front steps smiling.
Not the careful curve of his mouth I had grown used to. Not that practiced softness he wore when he wanted something from me.

This smile was alive. It reached his eyes and changed his whole face. Before I could think, before I could even breathe properly, he reached me and swept me off my feet.

A laugh burst out of me.

"Alexander!"

He held me against him as if I weighed nothing, one arm beneath my knees, the other around my back.

"You were hiding."

"I was not hiding."

"You were. I looked for you in the garden, in the west hall, and in the music room."

I smiled at him, smiled with a softness I could feel in my bones and hated for how natural it was.

"you found me."

"I always will."

The words should have sounded playful. Instead, they landed with the weight of something said too many times to still be called flirting.

He set me down slowly, but his hands lingered at my waist.

"You smell like roses," I said.

"You say that every time I come from the garden."

He laughed again, quieter this time, and pressed his forehead briefly against mine.

For one aching second, I let myself feel it. The peace. The warmth.
The way this version of him looked at me as though the rest of the world existed only in relation to my breath.

Then the world shifted.

Not all at once.

The light changed first. The gold of afternoon softened into firelight. The air cooled. The scent of roses faded into linen and cedar and skin.

When I blinked, I was no longer outside. I was in bed with him. Night had folded itself around us. The room glowed with low firelight, and Alexander lay behind me, one arm draped over my waist, his fingers moving lazily through my hair.

My body fit against his as if it belonged there. My head rested beneath his chin. The heat of him soaked through the thin fabric between us.

"You've gone quiet," he murmured.

"I'm thinking."

"That is dangerous."

I smiled against his skin. His hand tightened slightly at my side.

"I want a daughter," I heard myself say.

The words startled even me. Alexander stilled.
Then his mouth brushed the top of my head.

"A daughter?"

"Or a son," I said. "But I think I would like a daughter first."

He shifted just enough that I could tilt my head back and look at him. He was watching me in that quiet, intent way of his, as if I had said something sacred instead of ordinary.

"She would have my eyes," he said.

I laughed softly.

"Then she would be terribly unfortunate."

"No." His thumb brushed my cheek. "She would be unbearable. And I would adore her."

The grief hit me before I understood why. It rose so suddenly behind my ribs that I nearly gasped.

Because none of this had happened.

Because whatever future they had once imagined had died before it could even begin.

I wanted to stay there. To hold onto the scene long enough to believe it had ever been possible. But the warmth was already slipping away. The firelight dimmed. The bed turned cold beneath me.

Then morning came back like a blade. The garden. The hedges. The rustle in the leaves.
Alexander shoving me aside. His body jerking as the first bolt buried itself in his back.

I screamed.

Everything happened too fast and not fast enough. Men breaking through the roses. Another arrow. Blood. Alexander falling to one knee. His voice torn and hoarse as he told me to run. The knife at my throat. I had seen this part before.

But not all.

His mouth at my skin. His teeth sinking in. Again. And again. Not feeding. Giving.
Pouring something into me with every frantic bite, as though he could force life back where death had already taken hold.

Darkness took me.

I jolted upright, still inside the vision.

My body burned from the inside out. My throat felt peeled raw. My skin was slick with sweat. Hunger moved through me so violently it made me shake.

Not for bread. Not for water. Not for anything human.

Blood.

The thought horrified me even before I understood it. I staggered to my feet. The room tilted. I hit the wall to steady myself.

Then I smelled her.

A maid just beyond the doorway, carrying folded linen. The scent hit me like madness, metallic, warm, alive.

She turned. I was on her before she could speak. My hands caught her shoulders. I felt her twist beneath me, heard the linen hit the floor, heard the breath leave her.

Then my mouth was at her throat. Warmth flooded my tongue. My whole body shuddered with relief so violent it felt shameful.
She struggled. Then weakened. Then sagged.

I drank until her skin had gone pale beneath my hands. When I finally let her fall, I stumbled backward and hit the wall, choking on horror.

No, no, no.

I slid to the floor, my hands smeared red, my mouth wet with blood. I had turned.
Alexander had turned me. And I was a monster now too. 

The vision broke again. Another room. Another body.

A man this time, wide eyed and shaking, his prayers dissolving the moment my mouth touched his throat. Then another. Then another. Faces blurred together. Fear, blood, silence. Each feeding left me emptier than before. I could not stop any of it. I could only feel it, every swallow, every weakening heartbeat, every sick, breathless moment after.

Then the world shifted again.

Hands seized me. Ropes. Chains. Crowds.
Voices rose around me, fearful no longer, only furious. Hatred sharpened into righteousness. I saw Alexander beside me, bloodied and snarling, trying to break free.

Then darkness and water. I was inside a cage.
Sinking. In a river or a lake, or some black hole of water swallowed the light above me in trembling silver ribbons. My dress floated around me like dead skin. I clawed at the bars until my fingers split, but still I sank.

Then daylight. Another memory.

Stakes. Knives.
A blade drove into my side and I screamed, and I felt it with all of her and all of me.

Then the ring. A hand seized my left hand and pulled. The ring came off. That same ring.
Eudora's ring. I had worn it all along. It was never just jewelry. It was protection. They pushed me into the sun.

My flesh split and blackened beneath the light. Smoke rose from my arms, my throat, my face. I screamed until my voice broke apart inside me. And through it all, one man stood watching.

Smiling.

Young. Beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Alexander.

He came toward me with a bucket in his hand, slow and unbothered, almost amused by the way I burned.

I could not see his face clearly, not yet, but the smile was enough. Then he threw the water over me.

I jolted upright with a sharp cry.

The chamber beneath Crimson Hill snapped back around me, the stone, the candles, the altar, the red dark liquid in Alexander's cup. My whole body shook so violently I thought my bones might split apart.

My lungs dragged in air as though I had truly been drowning.

Alexander was already in front of me.

"Beatris."

His hand caught my shoulder. I flinched so hard I nearly fell.
He said my name again, quieter now, but I could still see that smile. Still feel the sunlight tearing through my skin. Still taste blood that had not been mine.

And all I could think was Eudora had not died once. She had died again and again. And each time, she had still come back.