Chapter 7 - The Iron BoundsFor three weeks, the routine inside the high granite walls of Vance Manor remained unbroken, rigid as clockwork.
Every morning at eight o'clock, Julian was escorted to Evangeline’s suite. For two hours, he sat beside her chair, his hand resting against her ankles or knees, breathing slowly, closing his eyes, and channeling thin, steady threads of his Life-Thread into her dead tissues.
To an outside observer, it looked as though nothing were happening. They looked like two quiet children sitting by a winter hearth, speaking in low whispers or listening to the rain beat against the tall glass windows.
But inside, a quiet miracle was unfolding day by day.
By the second week, Evangeline could bend her left knee three inches off the footplate on her own. By the third week, the pale, translucent blue tint in her feet had vanished completely, replaced by a warm, healthy flush of blood circulation.
However, the cost to Julian was undeniable.
Every session left him hollowed out. After two hours of channeling, his temperature would drop drastically, his skin turning ash-grey and translucent. He would stumble back to his room, his heart fluttering erratically in his chest, and sleep for five hours straight, shivering beneath three goose-down blankets despite the roaring fireplace.
Doctor Sterling visited every evening at six PM. Armed with brass calipers, silver pins, and a leather notebook, the doctor measured her reflexes with meticulous, frustrated precision, recording every fraction of an inch of recovered muscle tone while pretending not to notice the small, exhausted ten-year-old boy sitting quietly in the corner of the room.
"It defies all clinical literature, Arthur," Doctor Sterling admitted one evening in the study, pouring himself three fingers of amber brandy as Lord Vance stood by the window. "The nerve conductivity in her lumbar spine is regenerating at an impossible rate. If this continues... she may be standing by spring."
Arthur Vance stood motionless, his heavy hand cradling a crystal tumbler of whiskey. He watched through the glass as two of his armed estate guards walked their midnight patrol across the snow-covered courtyard below.
"And the boy?" Arthur asked, his voice cold and analytical.
"His heart rate drops to forty beats per minute after every session," Sterling warned, taking a sip of brandy. "His pulse is thready, irregular. The child is feeding her his own vitality, Arthur. If you push him too hard or force him to double the sessions, his heart will simply fail during the transfer."
Arthur’s jaw tightened. "Keep him alive, Sterling. Use whatever iron tonics, beef broths, or imported vitamins are necessary. I don't care what it costs."
"He isn't a machine, Arthur," Sterling said softly, looking at the iron lord with a rare moment of genuine concern. "He is a child."
"He is my daughter's legs," Arthur corrected coldly, turning away from the window. "And until she walks through those front doors under her own power, he belongs to this house."
Unknown to both men, Julian was standing in the dark service corridor just outside the study door, holding a silver tray with an empty tea pitcher.
He had heard every word.
May you like
He stood there in his fine wool trousers and silver-buckled boots, feeling the dark, heavy truth of Vance Manor wrap around his throat like a steel collar. He wasn't a guest. He wasn't a hero. He was a resource—a battery to be drained until he was empty, then discarded into the frozen river.
Julian slowly turned around and walked back up the dark stone stairwell toward the tower, his small jaw set in a hard, unyielding line.
Related Stories
