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The average age for soulmate appearances was twelve. The day of Tarvek's birthday, Violetta had tried to stay awake with him, but she ended up falling asleep on his bed while he stared at his wrists, as if his name would appear at the stroke of midnight. It hadn't. He had started wearing cuffs the next day anyway.
A year later, just over two months after he turned thirteen, Violetta heard a scream of pain come from Tarvek's rooms. That wasn't unusual, but the screaming didn’t stop, which definitely was. Tarvek was a useless daydreamer, but he had paid attention to their lessons long enough to learn how to suck it up and deal with the pain.
She knew what had happened as soon as she opened his door. He'd fallen off his chair and onto the floor, clutching at his left wrist like it was the only way to keep his life in his body. The soul shredder smoked gently into the wood of his desk.
She locked the door behind her and set one of his more basic death traps, the kind that would kill an amateur spy but just slow everyone else down. Then she shoved Tarvek up straight and pried his wrist out of his grip. His bit his lip so hard it started bleeding, trying and failing to suppress another screaming fit. It was his own fault for trying to do it himself. There was a reason you were supposed to let your smoke knight scar you, and it wasn't to strengthen the bonds between lord and vassal.
The name was only mostly covered, which wasn't surprising, considering. She was actually begrudgingly impressed. Most people got stopped by the pain before they could get even half the strike through done. She could make out some of the letters: a G for the given name, a U to start the last one, and a few pointed tops that could be anything from an h to a b.
"Get up, I need to finish it," she said, hauling him up and back into the chair. He screamed more when she pinned his arm to the desk tried to pull away, but he was weak from the pain. Her strikethrough was large enough to cover the tops of the letters this time. The skin came away raw and red, but (more importantly) bare.
"Other one," Tarvek whimpered, his fingers grazing her wrist as she moved to put the soul shredder away. He peeled his right arm out from his chin and bared the wrist for her. Her eyebrows were already raised, with how rare multiple soulmates are, but the name itself was worse.
Agatha Heterodyne, it read.
"Shit," Violetta said. And then, "Alright, give it here."
The pain must have been worse with each strike through, because this time when she pressed the shredder to his skin he screamed loud enough to wake the dead. On really bad nights, the girls in the chapel could be heard out on the castle grounds. She wouldn't be surprised if they could hear Tarvek out on the walls.
She held it still for a little longer than strictly necessary, but she wanted to be thorough. Needed to be. If the prince found out, it would ruin everything. Even more than it already had.
His wrist had started leaking blood a little when she finally pulled away, kind of like a watery cheese. She bandaged them for him, to prevent infection. Left first, then right. He kept his face pressed against the desk, breathing raggedly.
"Thank you," he said when she finished. He sounded like he'd been gargling with caltrops.
"You should have called me, idiot."
She let him lean on her as he stood up, but his knees buckled halfway to the bed and she ended up rolling him onto it. He was still breathing hard and sweating from the pain, but it didn't sound like there was a knife in his ribs anymore.
She perched on the head board, one hand on the bedpost as she leaned over him. He tried to cover his eyes with an arm and whimpered with pain as he let it drop back down onto the bed.
"What was the other one?" she asked.
"Not a noble," he said. "I didn’t recognize the surname. Probably a future spark."
Lie. If it had just been some nobody he would've burned the Heterodyne girl first.
"What's his name?" she asked. There'd been a tiny curve of a second g before the U. "Georgi?"
"Gil," Tarvek said. It sounded fake. Knowing Tarvek, that meant it was probably true.
"Which one is worse?"
Tarvek breathed out heavily, almost a sigh. He knew she wasn't asking about the pain. "They're both in danger, but she's dangerous. Just for existing."
No claim that “Gil” was harmless. Interesting, since it was a name he claimed not to recognize.
"I'll keep an eye out, alright?" she said. Tarvek muttered an agreement, and she leaned down and pressed her boot against his shoulder. "And if you find them, you better tell me."
"Of course," Tarvek lied with a weary sigh. "Can you tell my tutor that I won't be able to meet him this afternoon?"
"I'll even tell your dad," she said, hopping off the headboard. She set three more death traps, enough to slow down even a serious assassin long enough for someone actually competent to make it to Tarvek's room.
Then she left to go find Auntie Margolotta to make her tell the prince, because like hell was Violetta going to do it.