Reshina
Fire flared across my neck as I woke, blinking rapidly in the soft light. I was in my room below ground. Heat radiated from my wound, burning my skin. I traced my fingers across the bite, surprised to find the bandage gone.
“How much does it hurt?”
The voice was Arthur’s and with more blinking, his form took shape. He sat on a chair beside my bed, his head resting on his fist with over a day’s worth of hair growth stubbled over his chin. His brow furrowed, his mouth upturned into a frown, and his gaze…something akin to sorrow crossed it.
I pulled myself upright, pressing at the tender bite that had somehow not healed over in my sleep. “It is painful,” I rasped. I brought my hand to my mouth, my tongue dry and solidly foul.
Arthur rose, offering a cup to my lips. I tried to swat him away and take it for myself, but my hands shook, so I accepted his help in frustrated silence.
When I’d had a few gulps, he took it from my lips to refill. “You’ve been asleep for two days.”
I closed my eyes, promising myself it would be for just a moment. “That’s not possible,” I managed to speak, reaching for the cup of water again.
After he helped me take more sips, I slumped back down into the bed, altogether exhausted and in such confusion, the blissful ignorance of sleep drew me closer.
“Reshina,” he whispered somewhere near my face.
“Hmm?”
“You cannot fall back to sleep. I need you to eat, then you can rest some more.”
I lifted my hand, feeling for him. With a dreamy hum, I remembered this face. It was the same one from my dream of heat and ice and skin. I traced a finger down his nose, following the soft curve, the dip above his lips.
“Reshina,” he repeated, this time with a sigh and a press of his cheek into my palm.
“It doesn’t hurt when I sleep,” I mumbled, dropping my hand and drifting back to the fading black.
I woke again with no pain at all, though there was a heaviness across my body.
Arthur breathed against my skin, the heat tracing over my wound and soothing it with each puff of air.
He slept with his forehead pressed to my temple, his arm draped across my belly, fingers tucked around my waist. It was warm and comfortable.
A place I could stay for a little while before he woke and I had to pull away again.
It wasn’t that I cared for him.
It was that the bite of loneliness over six hundred years was a bite he could soothe in that moment, holding onto me as if we were lovers. As if we knew the intimacies of each other and had taken a moment to say through our bodies, you are not alone.
I watched as his light lashes flickered, his eyes opening slowly, finding mine. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t move, didn’t release me. He just stared. And I stared right back.
The clattering wheels of a teacart slid into the room, along with the clink of a porcelain cup on a saucer. Arthur was the first to break the trance between us, rising from the bed and stepping away to join Piffle somewhere in the middle of the enormous room.
I attempted to do the same, but couldn’t manage any more than to pull myself up higher on my pillow, exhausted from the tips of my fingers to my toes in the effort.
Arthur and Piffle whispered together near the foot of my bed, but I could not make out their words as I began to drift again.
“Mistress,” Piffle whispered near my head. “I’ve made some broth to soothe your stomach and regain your strength. Can you sit up just a little more?”
I shook my head with effort. “Where…” my voice caught in my throat. “Where is Arthur?”
“Gone, Mistress. The Beast has not been let out for three days and…he is struggling to contain him. Take just a sip for me.”
He held a spoon at my lips and I opened my mouth. A warm broth, salty and ripe with roasted garlic, trickled across my tongue. I took several more spoonfuls, listening to Piffle’s explanation of how worried he’d been and how many gowns he’d made.
“Another is a green silk. Leftover fabric from these sheets! I draped this one so it falls across your waist and gathers at your hip with a cascade of shiny black beads I found at the Heartstone market last year.”
“Piffle,” I croaked, able to lift myself a little higher in the bed. “What time is it?”
“POCKET WATCH!” he hollered, shifting into a golden circle and chain complete with eyes and a mouth.
An endearing grin tugged at my lips as I picked him up, pushing on the clasp to read the time. “It’s nearly midnight.”
He popped back into a fae and took the bowl and spoon back to the cart. “Yes, much to do, much to do,” he muttered, clattering the dishes.
After he helped me to the washing room, where I managed to scrub my face and rinse my mouth, I slowly got back into bed, turning on my side.
My body was sore and the broth had begun to lull me to sleep again.
My wound throbbed, but not nearly as much as it had days before.
I supposed I had Arthur to both blame and thank for that.
“I will see you in the morning,” I murmured. “Thank you for your help. Could you—” I cut myself off, deciding not to ask for Arthur to return.
“Mistress?”
“Never mind. Goodnight, Piffle.”
“Goodnight, Goddess So Sublime,” he whispered, leaving the room and leaving me to fade into the dark once more.