Through a creeping white haze, Aurelie saw Shaelyn's chest heave with great effort to inhale a whistling breath. Her arms were slumped at her sides, just like Aurelie's.
The numbness started in her toes and crept up her calves. Now, if she didn't look down to find her body still there, she would have thought it disappeared. She felt paralyzed, too weak to even lift a finger.
Aurelie had called for the guards but with the extended forces that Valice needed around her, very few of them roamed within the castle walls.
Spit rolled up her mouth faster than she could swallow it. A lurch of vomit rocked her forward. Unable to cling to the chair for support with her weakened arms, she tumbled down head first onto the floor and landed next to the slimy, green liquid that had just come from her stomach.
Death loomed, or it felt like it did, but Aurelie felt no fear. Deep in her gut, she knew that she would live. The scales had not broken through her flesh, and the numbness grew worse by the second, creeping up her shoulders so that she could no longer move her neck, but she was sure still.
"You wasted your life," she whispered to Shaelyn in a dry voice. She heard a hoarse exhale, but no words followed. Her poison must have absorbed faster, for she knew Shaelyn wanted to say something. Aurelie took a deep throaty breath, "Your memory will be weaved into history as that of a jealous traitor. People will deface your grave, and spit upon it for generations to come, and that's if I want you remembered." Her head spun on the verge of losing consciousness, but she fought against the darkness that crawled over her eyes to say her say. "I hope there is an afterlife so that the seed of what you did today keeps growingâand sucking down on your conscience as its sun and water. If my child dies, I'll seek you there."
The door opened, slamming against the wall, and swinging back to the sender. "I'm too late," a familiar voice called. Aurelie placed a face to the voice, heart-shaped and dark, but her mind wandered around the letter K and refused to press further in its exhaustion.
"Aurelie," the woman said, suddenly beside her, "can you hear me? Aurelie, it is Karah." Time and sound seemed muddled. She blinked and found herself in the hall held up by strong arms that were followed by a herd of jumbled footsteps.
There were voices mumbling and hands touching her face, then her ankles. Blurred figures moved in and out of sight. A sudden loud cry made her raise her neck to see the source. But when she did, the white curtains of the infirmary surrounded her in an empty corner by the window.
A striking pain tore through her stomach as if someone had thrown a thorny ball inside her and it knocked from one side to the other unable to come to a stop. She cried out and the curtains opened almost instantly.
Vera peeked in and called for someone. Her eyes moved down Aurelie's legs and widened. The curtains swung closed again as she left.
Aurelie's thighs felt moistened by thick liquid. She would look if she could only lift her neck. Her skin itched where the liquid gathered and began to dry. An empty pain in her chest arose with the realization of what was happening, but the lightning strike that suddenly burst through her pelvis dulled it, forcing all focus to itself.
Agony crept up her stomach and spread to the bone.
Vomit rose in her throat again with vigorous force, and Aurelie with little time to react, turned her head to the side as he stomach contracted, pushing out the poison. The slimy bile poured down her neck, heating her for a moment, and then slowed, moving at a slug-like pace and leaving behind a sticky coat from her neck, all the way to the back of her shoulder.
Vera came in pulling Karah by the arm, and carrying towels. Aurelie met Karah's gaze for a second and a thick blackness spread from the corners of her eyes. You said you'd come when I needed you. You lied.
Aurelie felt the pat of a rough towel between her legs and allowed a single tear to roll down her cheek. The soft touch of a finger pressed against her cheek, and wiped upward, clearing the wet trail.
Get her out! She wanted to scream, feeling the grasp of death within herself still. What remained inside was dead, unmovingâunseeing. She felt empty while still filled, and the thought of it carried ire within her.
*****
The cold walls of the Dream Realm surrounded her. Not this again. How much torment could she take before crumbling into herself and fading entirely?
The moon shone through the squared window once more, and Kirin sat in his chair, but the chains were missing.
"Thank God you're still here," she said softly, looking up at the cracks in the wall that stood out in a darker black, making the dark walls almost look grey. "I guess that's my fault. I'm sorry." Her lip quivered, but the sting of tears didn't burn into her eyes. They had dried up, she guessed.
He sat leaned over in his chair with his elbows resting just up from the curve of his knees and his fingers crossed.
He didn't look up, and the emptiness of his rejection weakened her right at the knees. Thinking of what had been happening to her body shook her entirely off balance, and she collapsed, knees sinking into the cement beside his hair.
"I'll not let go," she whispered. "Damn you! You're not leaving me!" A crack formed in the wall behind him, tearing through the wall from the ceiling all the way down to the window. A light shone through, and Aurelie forced her eyes up to look at it. Her mouth opened slightly, and eyes faded into thought while the light burnt into them. Little cracks spread outward, until the whole wall was lit in a ray of light, crawling out and after each other like the lines of a web. She gasped quietly, coming to a painful conclusion of what they meant.
In an explosion of rock, the wall behind him flew outward. The rocks floated outside, robbed of gravity, and moonlight brightened the room as its body took up half the sky.
"Kirin!" she screamed. Whatever was happening wasn't under her control. The realm must have sensed her weakness and acted on its own. "Are you really such a coward?" She felt rage boil up inside her.
Do you know about her? Well . . . suppose it doesn't matter now. She's gone.
He stood abruptly, startling her into taking a step back and inhaling a quick bitter breath.
"This is no way to live." He looked back at the ruins of the wall as they floated outside, and then back at her.
"It's temporary." Aurelie's insides turned." She swallowed back tears. "I'll find you."
"You don't understand the pain I'm in."
"Kirin, I'm sorry." She could no longer keep the tears from falling. Having him here just made it worse. Because he would not stay. She left him drift already. The walls around them broke. The realm was fading and with it Kirin too would go.
"I don't need you to be sorry," he said bitterly, "I need you to let go!"
"Kirin," she said softly, "I'd sooner give you my own life" She looked up through her brows, empty of all contents that she once thought made her human.
His brows dipped down, shaping more shadows of the light blue eyes. He crossed the room in two quick steps and pulled her into his arms.
Aurelie fell into his embrace so that only his arms kept her upright. His smell did not exist here, but he did. Her fingers grasped onto the soft, damp fabric of his shirt, and she pulled herself even closer.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too." She exhaled slowly, keeping her breath even, and pushed herself out his grasp. She took his face into her hands, feeling the prick of his stubble that hadn't grown since the day he was taken, and made him turn to the light so that she could see the exact shade of his icy, blue eyes.
"Where are they keeping you?" she asked. "Maybe if you describe the place, I'll recognize it."
His hands wrapped around her throat and pressed down. She didn't think it was possible here, but he was hurting her. Her skin burned as his fingers dug into it. "Let go," he said again.
The chair behind him moved forward, knocking him off of his feet, and pulling her down with him.
Aurelie felt the control of the Dream Realm come back to her. Scorching ropes crawled around him like snakes, pulling his arms back away from her neck.
"Let go!" the scream sounded as if it had hurt his throat.
"I love you."
Aurelie dropped to her knees in front of his chair and pulled him back into her embrace. She dragged her hands up his neck, her fingers clasping strands of his hair. "I can't lose you," she said, and kissed his cheek twice, before pulling back slightly and looking at his face.
Her hands sunk down, and the remaining particles glinted in the moonlight before floating out to meet the others. The ceiling cracked, and chunks of it came down. Aurelie clapped her hands together, and at the sound, the walls came back together and all the light from the outside was shut out.
Only the sound of Kirin's heavy breathing sounded in the dark room.
"I'll find you."
*****
Her eyes opened to an empty room once more. The slimy coat of vomit on her neck had been cleaned, and a dry pillow lay under her head. The drift in and out of consciousness spared her the details, but imagination filled whatever had gone missing in the process of sleep.
Shaelyn had failed but did not do so empty-handed. Weakness tugged her eyes back down. They felt swollen, though Aurelie did not remember crying.
The curtains moved once more, but her eyes had yet to rid themselves of the haze, and she could only see the vague figure of a light-haired man standing by the foot of her bed. He bent to pick up a chair, and swung it closer to the bed, setting it down and sitting simultaneously.
The heat of his hand briefly trailed past her armsâthe numbness had dwindledâbefore his fingers crawled between hers and held tightly, almost bringing the numbness right back to its earlier potency.
Aurelie turned her head, looking at the furrow between his eyebrows, but unable to focus on his face.
"Valice turned wild, that's how we knew something was wrong," Daerious' voice came from the blurred face. "Don't worry though, somehow Niendry managed to calm her. But, I guess you have other things on your mind nowâGod, Aurelie . . . I'm so sorry."
A touch of rough skin, dried by the change of seasons, caressed her cheek. She moved her face to press against the warm, prickly fingers and closed her eyes.
Whether all emotion had left her, she did not know, but it sure felt like it. The anger turned into the frustration of being bound to the bed, and sadness faded. Perhaps, emotions were like muscles, once you lifted a log long and often enough, it started to feel like a twig.
"I didn't think her able . . . I clarified why I was leaving her. Did not even mention your name until she asked. I don't know why she did it. If I knew . . ."
She heard another set of footsteps and opened her eyes to a bold figure, with a long grey beard highlighted by strips of white at the side, recognizing it as Orken. His hand fell on Daerious' shoulder and he remained silent behind him, standing in solidarity.
Speaking seemed futile, little needed to be said, and even less wanted to be. She felt as if she had lost Kirin for the second time.
"Orken," her voice was hoarse and her throat felt raw, "how much will my tiaras sell for?"
He raised a brow in Daerious' direction.
"Look at me," she ordered, "I'm the one that's talking."
"I've never bought one, princess," he said quite genuinely and if she wasn't recovering for being poisoned, she'd laugh, "I've not the slightest idea."
"How many of your spies will it buy us?"
Orken's posture relaxed slightly. "How many do you want?"
"All of them."
Her eyes drifted into the space between the two of them and lost focus on the shadowed curve of the curtain. The ball was three days away, that is, if it was even the same day still. She could swear that she opened her eyes to darkness twice, but then again, she could be sure of nothing.
*****
The next morning, her tongue pasted to her pallet and she desperately searched for something to moisten her dried and raspy throat without making any sound to attract attention. She also had a strange craving for red meat. The thought of biting into a thick steak made her mouth water.
As if by some cosmic joke, the curtain swung open right when Aurelie lifted her head off the pillow and stole away any chance of pretending to be asleep to avoid whoever came to visit. She had succeeded in doing this to three people already, one of them being Michael and the other the King. Their smells gave them away.
The last person in the world she expected to see standing in the doorway with a handful of fresh flowers, and a saddened expression that had usually been an animalistic rage. Nina combed back her blonde hair with her fingers and came to set the flowers down on a little table by Aurelie's bed.
The brief wave of the curtain revealed the silver arms of two guards on the other side. Back to being stalked, fantastic.
"Came to finish me off."
"No, I came to find out if there was anything I could do. They said . . . you lost a child." A glint of a tear layered in her eyes.
Aurelie sighed. "No, but thank you. I appreciate the concern." Of course, her voice did not substantiate her statement.
"I'm sorry she died." Nina's strong jaw clenched in anger. "I'd have liked to see it dragged on a little longer."
"I wouldn't." Aurelie's crystal expression did not change, her face mimicking the cold, lifeless cloud clutching to her mind and heart. "I'm too weak to smear her along the walls of this castle."
A pang of pain ran through Nina's features but faded instantly with a shake of the head. "Of course." She nodded. "I'll leave you to rest." She turned back for a second with words that hung on the ends of her opened mouth. "Tell you what, Princess, if tomorrow comes and you're still standing on your two feet, I'll know why he chose you."