Chapter 35
ALEK
Pain.
It lanced down my throat, startling me awake.
The cough that poured from me was staggering. It was mind-fucking, and I curled into myself, the agony inside my body nearly too much to wrap my head around.
My throat was bleeding, literally, torn to ribbons by all the coughing and agonizing enough for me to squeeze my eyes shut as I tried to slowly and carefully swallow.
PAIN—big mistake that I regretted immediately. But all I could do was wait until it passed. Until it subsided enough for me to unclench, one muscle at a time.
I blinked my eyes back open but not much came into focus. It was like cotton was fielding my vision in tones of white and gray, like the color had been bled from the room.
Feloré. My thoughts immediately rushed to him, but I couldn’t smell anything or feel anything. I couldn’t even fucking see.
I rubbed my eyes, squinting around my room. It was possibly evening outside. Those were maybe beams of a setting sun? Had I been asleep that long?
I wet my lips. “Felor—”
A piercing throb thrashed down my throat, and I flinched back, gritting my teeth, hunching my spine because there was no other choice but to remain very still until it eased.
“Shh, don’t try to speak,” said the sweetest human voice I’d ever heard, and it dissolved my heart. “I’m right here, my prince. I’m right by your side.”
I patted around for his hand, smoothing my fingers down his arms until I found it, where I curled his fingers inside mine.
“Do as I say, okay? Close your eyes.” His voice was soothing but underscored in fear. Like he was frightened by whatever he saw. “Try to keep them closed.”
My eyes stung, watering as I did my best. I flinched at the wet warmth of something sponging against one of my eyelids. Then I realized it was a washcloth, and he was wiping gently downward.
The muscles of my face relaxed as he continued, dipping it into whatever basin he had in here and softly sponging my other eye, slow and methodical.
“Is that any better?” he asked, cupping my face. There was so much worry behind his words that I wanted to reassure him that there was nothing to be fearful of. “Try again. Try to look at me.”
I clutched my palms over his, squinting as I blinked my eyes open. The light felt like it was pressing into my skull as his outline came into focus first—a blur of strong angles and sweeping lashes and colorful copper hair.
Then his face came into focus. Gradually.
His eyes. His nose. The curve of his cupid’s bow. And finally, the whole picture.
Backlit from the windows, he looked like some sort of a divine creature with the white in his hair rolling over the red like a fiery, tunneled wave. My heart bloomed at the sight of him. Pride swelled in my chest. Mine. My human.
I parted my lips to tell him how I couldn’t wait to see the sunlight in his hair, but the pain in my throat nagged at me like a schoolmaster.
So, I smiled instead as I silently mouthed, “Hello, Snow Fox.”
He blinked. His expression was ashen and confused. It was filled with so much distress that my smile slowly faded. I’d only just reached out to palm his cheek when I noticed it.
My fingernails. My knuckles and the creases in my hands—they were caked in sticky red.
But it wasn’t just my hand. It was both of them. It was my forearms, shoulders, and chest.
“It’s blood,” he said. “You’re coughing up blood, Alek.”
I…was. Or, I had been. The faint sting of copper in my mouth was further proof. I’d never done that before. I’d never spent so much time projected outside of my body to the point where I was truly distanced, shielded from whatever horrors my body was suffering so that I could stay there with him.
Because I wasn’t about to fucking leave. Not when it had been one of the greatest gifts ever given to me.
Last night, I got to experience something I never thought I’d get.
I got to be the reason he shattered. Me.
And then I got to be the reason he was pieced back together, one little bit at a time.
Yes, there was a heaviness in my bones today that I couldn’t ignore.
Yes, there would be consequences to pay, but consequences be dammed, I knew what I was doing.
If only I wasn’t a prisoner of my shredded throat, I would explain it to him. Explain how I did not regret one second.
But I couldn’t. So, I offered him my most heartfelt smile and shrugged.
His eyes grew even wider and somehow more tormented as he bolted forward, cupping my face in his hand. “Alek. Fucking Alek, did you not hear me? Do you not understand how perilous this is? You’re coughing up blood. Blood.”
I nodded.
“Then why are you not angry?”
I searched his gaze, silently mouthing, “Why would I be?”
“Because,” he nearly shouted. “Because this is unfair. You should be angry, Alek. At me. At life. At the fact that the very thing that makes you so special is the same thing that will kill you.”
Oh, Snow Fox. Oh, I felt the pain buried in his words.
“We have to get you help,” he said, suddenly sober, pushing himself from the bed. “If you won’t take me, then another human. We’ll find you another human right now. Come on. Get up.”
I stared at him, slowing my blinking, letting the line of my lips soften. He knew what I was thinking without my needing to say it. Which was why he cursed under his breath.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” he said, and I could almost swear, his sweet voice cracked as he sat heavily onto the bed. “You were supposed to do it. You weren’t supposed to get hurt, Alek. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
I shook my head, beckoning him closer with my fingertips.
“I am sorry, Prince,” he whispered, and that time, his voice did crack. Just like his eyes got a little glassy. “I have brought you that much closer to death’s door.”
I used strength I didn’t have to reach out and grab his wrist, hauling him into me where I palmed his face and pressed our foreheads together.
With him this near, it was easy to project into his mind, You have brought me that much closer to YOU.
He startled when it hit him, but I held him tight.
Not even death, darling. Not even death can take that from me.
He pinched his lips together, eyes watery and beyond beautiful, and oh, how I wished I could ease his troubled heart. If I could, I would burrow inside until I found the thread responsible for so much pain, and then I would pull until he unraveled in my hands.
He jumped when three sharp knocks sounded at the door.
My senses were far from acute in my current state, but it’d be impossible to miss the panic leaching through the door before he even had a chance to yell, “Prince, it’s me. It’s Lucc.”
Feloré glanced at me. Me, who couldn’t talk. Me, who could barely move. I did not wish to see him. It was going to do nothing to lessen his concern for me, but if there was news from Amara, this was it. I tipped my chin toward the door, and Feloré rushed to it.
Lucc acknowledged him with a confused look, then shot past him, inside my chambers, where he halted cold.
He blinked at me like he didn’t recognize me. Like I was a ghost sitting in the Prince of Novithia’s bed, covered in the prince’s blood.
His head shook, lips nearly trembling, like he had a hundred different questions, but he didn’t speak, just stared. I didn’t need a mirror to know why.
I pointed to the desk, motioning for something to write with. He blinked hard as if lifting himself from a daze. Then he rushed to the desk and returned with a pen and my journal opened to a blank page.
The creamy white of the paper looked so clean in contrast to my filthy hands as I wrote:
News from Amara?
Lucc was eyeing me, the same concern as Feloré upon his brow as I twisted the journal to him, but he forced himself to read it. He cleared his throat and said, “Yes. That is why I’m here. Amara wanted me to tell you that she has the human’s brother in her possession.”
Feloré’s eyes got huge. He was nearly out of breath as he asked, “What? Are you sure?”
“She was looking for you,” Lucc answered him with a nod. “And she found him instead.”
Feloré gushed in relief, a hand pressed against his chest.
“Neopal has been tasked with locating his whereabouts,” Lucc continued. “So, if he has not been here today, that is why. He has started a palace-wide search.”
Feloré twisted to me, gaze probing my face for reassurance.
The thought of anyone finding a thing Amara did not want them to find made me smirk. I scribbled onto the page and twisted it around for him to read: They won’t find him.
The look of relief on his face was enough to melt me.
“Tonight,” Lucc continued, addressing Feloré, “in three hours’ time, she will come. She said to keep a window open and a fire burning. She will hide you and your brother on the back of the wine merchant’s cart, where you will start the journey to Doctor Barrion’s.”
“Doctor Barrion?” Feloré asked, hope budding in his tone. “Alek. Isn’t that your doctor?”
My sweet Snow Fox. I nodded, but it wasn’t going to be the answer he wanted.
“You’ll come with us then,” Feloré said, eyes rounding. “Yes. That is the answer. If she can get me out of the palace, then she can get you out of it. You said your doctor can help you.”
Lucc and I exchanged a look. We were so attuned with each other that I could tell exactly what he was thinking. Getting them out of the palace and getting me out of it were two entirely separate challenges.
What was probably a half dozen soldiers looking for his brother would transform into an entire army if I went missing.
Not to mention, I had no business getting on that cart. The three-day journey to Barrion’s was difficult for someone who could move and talk. I would be starting a journey I wouldn’t be able to finish.
I hadn’t noticed how Lucc’s eyes had gotten a little watery. A little pinkened. I gave him a subtle, cautionary look. One that said, You say nothing.
He was a good attendant, and an even better vultus, so he pinched his lips together. And he said nothing.
I offered Feloré a weak smile, whispering without using my voice, “It is a good plan.”
His heart quickened, like a spot inside it was brightening.
“Thank you for everything you do, Lucc,” I whispered, the sound barely there. “You are dismissed.”
The look on his face was pitiful as he pinned his arms behind his back and bowed deeply. “If you do not need my services for a while, just know, it has been an honor to serve you, Prince.”
With that, he was gone, wiping his eyes only as the door was shutting behind him.
“What do we need?” Feloré asked. His hope was blooming all around him, as golden as a rising sun. “Do we need to bring anything with us?”
“Let us worry about it later,” I whispered, the sound so scratchy and awful.
“But—”
“There is plenty of time.” I was so weak that even smiling hurt.
He hesitated by the armoire.
“Will you come to me, darling?” I asked, extending a hand. “Please? Just for a moment.”
There was something so marvelous about the way he crawled into my bed and nestled against me.
Inside my arms, my Snow Fox fit perfectly. He tucked himself in tight against my body as if to make an imprint, like a palm pressed into wet sand.
It was the first time I ever had the thought: This… This is what arms are for.
“How is this?” he asked, snuggling against my weakly twitching torso.
Torture, I thought, grinning as I buried my nose in his hair. Beautiful, fucking torture.