Beautiful Torture *Book Two of the Beautiful series*

6) Lord Ossis

In the bed lay a man, withered and bent with age that seemed beyond him.

There was nothing particularly fantastical about him, nor malicious as she had feared. He was not some twisted creature, deft and hideous, but neither was he a gleaming picture of vigor and health that men so often were in the prime years of their life. He was simply there–his bone white hair resting orderly just above his shoulders, a trim beard to match. Dressed in a comfortable night shift with the blankets pulled up around his waist, he could have been any average lord grown old and tired from the toll ruling can demand. Lucy could have believed it, believed she had been summoned by nothing more than that, if not for the strange, vacant look in his doe brown eyes.

The look made her flinch away. And when she turned, seeking some sort of explanation from Austran, she flinched again to find a servant boy standing not an arms length behind her. His skin was brown and warm with a square jaw and snub nose. His dark glowing eyes met hers, and a feeling like ice clawed along her spine. She stumbled away, bumping into the nightstand, shattering the delicate wash bowl that had rested there. In the mess of glass and water, she gripped for the largest jagged piece and brandished it at the man like a knife, not caring how it sliced her palm, even as the little splatters of blood fell in scarlet ribbons onto the floor between them.

"What is this? What are you?" She demanded in her shaken voice. Though she wanted to look to Austran, she did not dare rip her eyes away from the strange servant boy.

"Be still, child," the servant boy said. The words echoed within themselves, overlapping as though two people were speaking from the same vessel. In all her years, Lucy had never heard something so completely unnerving.

"Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream. The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man—So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd to his great heart none other than a God..." his lips moved and that same overlapping voice poured out, coiling and binding something within Lucy that she could not explain or understand. She let her confusion cloud her face. Felt the broken shard within her burning palm hesitate, lowering.

"I-I do not understand," she trembled.

The servant gave her a wicked smile. One that suggested he had just told her some marvelous inside joke. A secret kept between two friends. "Forgive me," he said, "I am not accustomed anymore to speaking with charming creatures such as yourself. There was only Austran left to keep me company."

Lucy's muscles coiled like wrapping snakes. Her chin tilted back and brow coaxed up toward the stone ceiling. Blood pooled from the slice on her palm. Already, a sizable puddle lay at her feet, weakening her. She had hardly consider herself a charming creature in this state. But inside, the spindles were turning, subconsciously repeating his strange words. Knitting the pieces together like a tear in fabric that needed mending.

"L-lord Ossis?" She stammered, looking between the servant and the vacant eyed lord filling the large bed beside them.

His smile widened with delight.

<><><>

When Lucy opened her eyes, it was to a different room entirely. This one far less grand, but warmer and somehow more comforting. She blinked gray clouds away from her vision and peered at shelves upon shelves of books lining the walls, took in the modest hearth, the long chaise she was sprawled over, and finally the servant boy seated in the chair across from her–a coffee table set between them. Upon it sat a tiny feast of bread, fruit, and cheese. A dainty teapot with two cups and all of the proper fixings.