65. Chapter 65

Chapter 65

C yril had no memory of leaving the dining room, but she was back in bed the next time she was treated to a moment of consciousness.

The room was dim and quiet , but it was fucking hot .

Or maybe she was the one that was hot, because Runa’s fingers felt like ice when they brushed over her forehead and swept her hair back. Her skin felt flushed and sticky, and…gods.

That was the fucking Queen of Reykr at her bedside, fussing over her .

Cyril might’ve marveled at the notion, or at least thanked the woman, but that searing ache pulled through her chest again and stole her breath.

“You’re in pain still…” Runa said softly.

A statement, not a question, but Cyril nodded anyway.

Beside her, the mattress dipped as Runa sat down.

“Is it your leg?” she asked Cyril. “Wren said it's mended well, but maybe…”

Whatever Runa mused was lost amidst the furious rushing of Cyril's heart in her ears. That uncomfortable flush was working its way through her body again and the tether in her chest was just pulling tighter and tighter.

It was happening again.

She couldn’t breathe .

She rolled, curling up in a fetal position in hopes it might ease some of the tension. But it was fruitless. The pressure just kept building.

Those cold hands cupped her face, and the queen swore.

“She’s so hot, Dion. Let me—”

“No.” Dion’s voice carried gentleness, but still had a finality to it. “Cyr, you need to calm down. Take a deep breath, slow and—”

“My chest hurts,” she whined.

“Your chest?” Dion asked, but Runa was already filling Cyril’s vision and easing back the blankets.

“Show me where,” she said.

Cyril shifted back enough to press her hand low on her sternum. The pain eased a bit as she gulped down a few full lungs of air. Runa brushed her fingers over the back of Cyril’s hand.

“ Oh …I see. Well—” The queen gave her an empathetic smile. “That should ease a bit every day, and you’ll feel much better once Mika is home. But you need to rest as much as you can until then, and try to stay calm, for both of your sake.”

The last thing Cyril wanted to think about right now was Mikael.

Of course, she would feel better when he was home. She didn’t need Runa telling her that. Just hearing his name made her chest ache a bit more.

“And if you’re alright with it, Cyril…” Runa exchanged a glance with her uncle, and he gave a resigned nod. “I’m going to help you sleep. No nightmares, okay? Just rest. I’ll get the kitchens to make something easy for you to eat, and wake you up in a bit. We can figure out some kind of schedule, but I think you should be asleep more often than not for a few days.”

Cyril didn’t have it in her to think or protest or do anything other than nod.

Runa’s hands touched her temples. She felt cold, then she felt nothing.

For the next few days, Cyril didn’t spend more than an hour or two at a time out of Runa’s sedation. She wasn’t sure if she could be more grateful for the queen’s particular flavor of magic.

Little more than mild aches lingered in her leg and her chest, now. And of all the bruises splattered across her body, only a ring of yellowish-green clung to her throat.

Honestly, without the pink, scarred flesh wrapping around her waist and a gruesome recount from Wren, Cyril would have doubted that she had almost been disemboweled the week before.

When she joked about owing Gunner a thanks for making sure her insides stayed inside, Dion and Runa didn’t find it as funny as she did.

But it was the truth, and humor felt like her most significant return to form yet.

A visit with any of the King's Guard just wasn’t something Cyril was confident she could handle yet. Even the few times Wren, Dion, and Runa all occupied her room, talking all at once, proved to be more taxing than Cyril cared to admit.

Normal, apparently, for her head injury, but still annoying as fuck.

It came as a relief that the spritely moon-fae man Runa hired from the city to come and deal with Cyril’s hacked-off hair didn’t ask questions. He took one long, apprehensive look at her before he set about his task in total silence.

Dion and Runa both watched on with tentative curiosity as he worked, trimming and snipping away at Cyril’s hair until it was even again. The ends didn’t even skim the tops of her shoulders.

After the man left as quietly as he came, it was Dion who loosed a breath and said, “And we thought you looked like her before.”

A cursory look in the mirror hanging near her bedroom door told Cyril she had indeed become the spitting image of her mother.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

It didn’t help that she was still so fucking exhausted.

Whether it was a side-effect of the sleep Runa kept putting her in to stave off the nightmares and panic, or she was still in the thick of recovery, she didn’t know. But it took a concerted effort to travel back to where Dion and Runa were sitting by the fire.

She didn’t even stifle her groan as she dropped back onto the sofa and curled up against the arm. Dion pointed at the teapot on the table, but Cyril shook her head.

Food and drink were still iffy, almost as iffy as the entire notion of Dion waiting on her hand and fucking foot, as he had every hour she had been awake. Her fatigue was making her far more tolerant than she was sure she should be of him.

“It looks good, Cyril, it really does,” Runa supplied with a wistful smile that she didn’t feel like reading too far into. Cyril just gave her an awkward thanks and settled under the blanket that Dion draped over her. “And I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for certain, but it looks like Mikael and the others will be back in the morning. Quite early, I believe.”

Cyril’s back went rigid, and she felt a familiar ache in her chest.

“ Tomorrow morning?”

She had refused to let herself think about it during her brief hours of consciousness over the last few days, but she missed the insufferable, arrogant prince.

So, so much.

Runa nodded, and she looked so damn happy.

“Tomorrow morning, and I’m sure he’ll come see you as soon as he can. All the families will have made it back too, so we’ll be going ahead with the pyres after sundown.” Runa brushed off her robes as she stood. “I should go be with Astor for now though. Do you want me to help you sleep now, or should I come back later?”

A few months ago, the idea of someone entering her mind and manipulating her like that would have been the most off putting thing Cyril had ever heard. Even though most people had magic running through their blood, the southern states regarded it with such unease. A thing to be neither seen nor heard.

Not the case in Reykr.

It was as casual of a gesture as Runa offering her a glass of water.

“No, thank you, I…I’d like to try things on my own tonight.”

Truthfully, if Mika was going to be home in the morning, Cyril wanted as clear of a head as possible. And it wasn’t like Runa could tuck her in and knock her out every night for the rest of her life, anyway.

Runa looked at her hesitantly.

“Alright. But you know if you change your mind…”

“I know where to find you.” Cyril smiled. “How is Astor doing?”

The long pause Runa took was telling.

“The illness in his blood is mostly cleared now, so I’m relieved about that.” She smiled sadly at Cyril. “Given the circumstances though, I would not say he is doing well.” And how could he be? All roads pointed to his wife being the catalyst for at least a dozen senseless and brutal deaths. “I’ll tell him you asked after him, though. It’ll mean a lot. He’s asked about you too, you know.”

“He has?” Cyril blinked. A log in the fireplace cracked, and she flinched.

“Often, actually.” Warmth settled back into Runa’s face that Cyril was relieved to see. Stress was not a look the queen wore well. “He sees how Mikael looks at you, and how you keep Mikael in check. Astor has a vested interest in seeing you make a full recovery.”

A stifled noise left Dion that sounded awfully like a laugh, and Cyril couldn’t help her smile.

Runa offered them both a quiet goodbye before she slipped out of the room. Cyril waited until she was sure the queen would be well out of earshot to turn and look at Dion.

“I feel terrible for Astor. How long has…” She had to choose her words carefully here. “How long ago did he marry Reyna?”

Dion blew out a slow breath, his attention turned on the fire.

“Mm… How old is Mikael? I remember Runa being pregnant and terribly sick at the wedding.”

“He’s…”

Cyril swallowed.

Fucking hells.

She was certain she asked him this at some point.

“He’s twenty…twenty- seven …I think?”

“You think ? Oh, Cyr.” Dion laughed. “Well, if that is the case, then they’ve been married twenty-seven years this winter. Which, I think, is an awfully long time to be married to someone and not know what they are capable of.”

He’d taken the thought right out of her head.

“It’s sort of sad too,” Dion continued, “that this all seems to be borne of some woefully misguided desperation. It’s baffling how fucked up the purists’ beliefs still are, even after all these years.”

His sigh was palpable.

“Have you heard anything?” Cyril asked hesitantly. “About her , or…”

“Unfortunately not. The peninsula is warded as all hells, and they’ve refused Ezra’s outreach for communication. There’s talk about using Reyna’s sister’s body as some sort of bargaining chip, but I’m not sure that anyone wants to resort to that yet.” Dion shrugged half-heartedly and sighed. “I also admittedly have done little work as of late”—he glanced at her with a raised brow—“but I’m sure I’d know if anything major came up.”

It was hard not to feel a slight twinge of shame, that she’d let herself become his burden again, even though she swore to herself that any semblance of a relationship they had was over.

Maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted.

Or maybe she was just desperate for comfort.

But it was strange to see Dion sitting beside her so casually, with a mug of tea clasped between his hands and half-smiles lifting his tired face. She hadn’t seen this version of him in such a long time.

“I’m okay if you want to do some work, you know,” she said, instead of the other half-dozen things in her head that might upset the peace. “I’ll have to be alone and awake at some point, and I feel alright today.”

She genuinely did. This was the longest she’d been awake since the day she panicked and things weren’t back to normal by any means, but far better than they were. Light and sound were tolerable now, and those were remarkable improvements.

Dion seemed to wage some internal battle as he looked back at the fire.

“I have a disgusting amount of paperwork to sift through.” A hearty, resigned sigh left him and he stood. Cyril didn’t even want to imagine the sort of administrative nightmare this all had become. “Send someone for me though, if you change your mind. I’ll just be holed up in one of the offices.”

“I will, don’t—oh fuck right off .” Cyril swatted at Dion as he stepped past her and ruffled the absolute hell out of her hair.

He laughed the entire way to the door.