Chapter 76: Scars and Ointment
Chapter 75: Scars and Ointment
Lyria’s POV
I sighed.
"I-I am sorry," I told her. "A-and I do not think my explanation w-will be a good one."
Helen looked at me for a long moment.
Then she sighed too.
"’Tis the usual then," she said, shaking her head, her accent thick and rough. "Figures."
"Y-yes."
She studied me with those brown eyes that had always managed to see considerably more than I intended to show. Then she unfolded her arms and leaned back against the door.
"Ye should just ditch ’em," she said.
I blinked.
"Helen—"
"I mean it." Her voice was flat. "Ditch the whole lot of ’em. Come stay with me. Brianna — me girl — she loves ye. The three of us, we’ll make do."
The thought of Brianna settled in my chest with a warmth I had not been expecting.
Eight years old and thoroughly devoted to bugs.
I smiled despite myself.
"Y-you know I c-cannot do that," I said.
"Why not?"
"B-because there is a reason I am still where I am."
Helen looked at me.
"I don’t understand this reason," she said.
"I kn-know."
"And I don’t understand yer family." She shook her head, the braids shifting over her shoulders with the movement. "Ye’re too good a girl for this, Lyria. Too sweet. They beat ye. They treat ye like ye’re worth nothin’. And still ye stay."
"I c-can c-cope," I told her.
"Coping ain’t living."
I did not have a response to that, so I said nothing.
Helen was quiet for a moment.
Then she straightened from the door.
"Take off yer clothes."
I went still.
"H-Helen, there is no need to—"
"Don’t." Her voice cut across mine sternly. "Don’t ye try that with me. I know what ye’re about to say, and it won’t work."
I looked at her.
"I care about ye," she said simply. "I want to see yer back. I want to know if there are new marks. And if there are, I’ll treat ’em." She moved to the shelf, scanning its contents with a frown on her face. "I will use what little I know to help ye."
I swallowed.
I didn’t want her to see that there were more injuries on my back. Helen was a woman who always got what she wanted. I could not resist her.
And she had already turned from the shelf with a small pot waiting for me.
I nodded, then turned away from her.
I quickly removed my cloak before moving to my clothes underneath. The fabric fell away from my shoulders, and I held it against my front and then undid the bandages around me.
Helen was quiet.
She was always quiet whenever she saw the injuries on my back.
The first time she had seen the injuries, she wept quietly. She had been caught unaware. I had tried to hide it, but she noticed I was sluggish, and I winced in pain whenever I moved. And so, like the mother she was, she demanded I take off my clothes. That was the first time she saw my back.
She had not wept since then.
I heard her breath steady itself with deliberate control.
She had tried to take me to the authorities once.
Twice, actually.
She had spoken about it with the practical urgency of someone who believed that systems existed precisely for situations like this one, and that the correct application of them would produce the correct result.
I had begged her not to.
I had explained, carefully and with more words than I usually committed to anything, that my family did not know I came here. That this entire arrangement existed entirely without their knowledge. That if the wrong person heard the wrong thing, if attention was directed toward me, if questions were asked in the wrong places, everything I was working toward would end before it had the chance to begin.
She had not been satisfied.
But she had listened.
She did not know who my family was.
She had gathered from the fragments I allowed that I belonged to some noble household. One of those families that treated inconvenient children as inconveniences and found no contradiction in it. She knew I was illegitimate. She had worked that much out on her own.
But she did not know I was the King’s daughter. She did not know that the people she was reporting to were the same people who had injured me this way.
And I was going to keep it that way.
Not because I did not trust her. I trusted Helen with most things. But this particular thing was not mine to share safely, and the knowing of it would place her somewhere I could not protect her from.
When I had enough money, I would leave.
I would take my mother and Patricia, and I would go somewhere far from here. And Helen, who had been kinder to me than people with far more obligation had ever managed to be, would gradually stop thinking about the girl with the mask who came through the corner door.
She would forget me.
"Sit," Helen said firmly.
I moved to the nearest chair, sitting with my back toward her.
She opened the pot and then took some with her fingers, rubbing it against the marks.
I did not wince.
The previous day, the same contact would have required active effort to manage. Tonight it was simply sensation—present and noticeable but not insistent. The marks were healing even if it was slow. Perhaps if I wasn’t wolfless, it would be faster, but alas, we can’t all have what we want.
Helen’s hands were steady against my back.
She worked carefully and without speaking, and I was grateful for the silence because there was nothing left to say that had not already been said, and she understood that.
When she finished, she replaced the top on the pot.
She helped to tie the bandages, and then I started redressing.
Helen moved around the chair and stood in front of me, holding out the pot.
I looked at it.
Then I looked at her.
"Use it," she said simply. "Every day. It will help with healing."
