Page 85 of At the Mercy of Midnight
The feeling subsided, but a lingering ache remained. He rubbed at the centre of his chest.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He took a step closer, struck by an overwhelming desire to hold her, to take that pain away. “Winslow…”
She held a hand up and shook her head, stopping his advance. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”
He stopped, reaching up to grip at the edge of the fireplace, needing something to stabilise him.
“You’ve…been quite subdued since seeing your parents at the conference.”
Her eyes snapped to him. “So?”
Silas hesitated before voicing the concern that had niggled at him since seeing the runes.
“Did they…was it them?”
She shook her head with denial, but fear and pain sliced across his chest through their bond.
“You don’t have to protect them,” Silas urged.
She was quiet for a long time before her eyes fell shut, letting out a sigh of resignation. Amelia turned away, facing the cold fireplace, arms hugging around her middle.
“They were scientists first, and parents…last,” she said in a voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear.
Something sunk inside of him at the admission.
Her parents.
They marked her, forced magic into her veins, forced her to beobedient.
He swallowed his rage, sorrow, and disgust.
She let out a bitter laugh, meeting his eyes. “I can feel your pity,” she said before looking away again. “I was fourteen when they started with the intellect rune. They had actually convinced me it was a good idea, that it would lead to me becoming one of the greatest scholars in Aethrial, that I would solve all the lands problems. They said it would make me great…and I wanted so badly to please them. I let them.”
Silas held in his horror, trying to control his reaction so she didn’t have to feel it.
“It took perhaps six months of them activating the rune every day, for me to realise the toll it was taking on me. I would go into a kind of stupor, the magic propelling me, absorbing information rapidly, conducting experiments no fourteen-year-old had any business participating in. But I would wake with headaches, my nose begun to bleed, and I slowly became sick. When it was activated, my body only cared for the pursuit of knowledge, not eating, or hydrating correctly. I felt like a puppet, something my parents had created for their own desires with no care for my own.”
She paused, inhaling shakily. Turning away from the fireplace, she moved to the armchair, sinking into it. Amelia stared down at her fingers.
“I told them I didn’t want to do it anymore, that I didn’t want them to activate the rune. I tried to convince them that I could be good enough on my own, that I didn’t need it to…”
She trailed off, voice hitching and hiding her face from him. Silas forced himself to be still instead of falling at her feet to comfort her.
“That was when they forced the ‘obedience’ rune on me,” she said, voice trembling. Her hand brushed angrily at her face, swiping a tear away. His heart felt like it was breaking for her. “When they activated both runes, I had no choices, everything I was stripped away. I…I don’t remember much between the ages of fifteen and seventeen.”
Silas swore roughly, her confession so much worse than he had expected.
“It was Halpert who noticed there was something wrong with me,” she muttered. “He barely knew me, but he could tell I wasn’t normal. He confronted my parents, and they denied everything.”
Silas felt a surge of newfound respect for Halpert.
“With the obedience rune activated, I was forced to not say anything, to keep the runes to myself. With Halpert watching closely, they felt less comfortable activating them every day. Eventually, I gained enough control to run away. I went to East Town to regain my bearings, and a friend kept me hidden until I…I don’t know, became myself again, I suppose. I didn’t go back for nearly a year.
“When I did return, I was still terrified of them. But I was eighteen and I wanted my life back. I still wanted to dedicate my life to science, just on my own terms. I threatened to ruin their careers if they came near me again. They started working in a smaller university north, with only brief trips back to Ivory City, and up until now I’ve always managed to avoid them. We haven’t spoken directly in almost ten years.”
She picked at her nails, the room descending into silence.
