Chapter 5 Relapse

SERAPHINA

Aldric does not take Maren's head.

Aldous moves faster. He shoves Maren sideways, and the blade catches air. The sword comes down again in a sweeping arc, and two guards throw themselves at Aldric's sword arm at Aldous's command, hauling back with their full weight. A third guard joins, and then a fourth, and the sword is wrenched free.

That is when Aldric truly loses himself.

He becomes something else. I hear a sound that is not a growl nor a scream, but occupies the register between them, and then I hear what is underneath that sound. Kill them! Kill them all! None of them deserves to breathe! Worthless! Worthless! Every last one of them!

His shirt tears at the shoulder seam. The muscle beneath it is expanding, the proportions of his body shifting in increments. His neck thickens. His knuckles darken. For one disorienting moment I think I can see the ghost of scales along his forearm. Is he turning into a dragon?

I am frozen. Terrified. Also, against every instinct I possess, deeply, helplessly fascinated.

Aldous's arm cuts across my vision. He barks a single order to the guards flanking us, and then Verna and I are being herded out, and the chaos diminishes inside.

Mira arrives within minutes, and without going in at all, she seems to already know what happened. She takes us to a room I have not seen yet, with two narrow beds already occupied by two women sitting up and watching the door.

"Aura," Mira announces, gesturing to the one on the left, a slight girl with a watchful face. "Hima." The other, broader-shouldered and darker-eyed. "The king's having an episode. Tonight, the four of you will keep watch together. Aura and Hima will explain what is required."

She pauses at the threshold and fixes each of us in turn with a look that communicates, without any ambiguity, that the events of the courtyard have never existed.

Then she is gone.

Verna and I settle into the room, then start probing Aura and Hima for details.

They have been here less than a year, which surprises me. I had assumed their composure meant experience, but it turns out composure in Dragonhold is only a product of sustained, low-grade dread that has simply run out of new forms to take. Hima tells us this calmly. Aura adds that they are still afraid every single night. She does not seem embarrassed by this admission.

The briefing is short. Just stand beside the king's bed. Do not speak unless spoken to. If he sleeps, you may eventually sit. If he does not sleep, you stand until he does.

Aldous meets us outside the king's chamber at some point deep into the evening. He tells us the king collapsed in the garden from relapse, that the physician has examined him and found rest is all he needs. He informs us to take good care of him, and then he leaves.

The four of us take up positions along the wall and do not move.

Aldric sleeps. This is, by every indication, the best possible outcome.

Somewhere past the middle of the night, we stop standing. Hima slides down the wall first, drawing her knees up and resting her head back. Aura follows. Verna, who has barely spoken since the courtyard, curls onto her side on the floor and is asleep within minutes. I sit with my back against the cold stone, and suddenly, I hear a voice.

Too hot.

I surface out of a shallow, uncomfortable sleep before I have consciously decided to. The room has lightened. The window shows the pale grey that comes before actual dawn. On the bed, Aldric is turning over, pulling the coverlet aside, turning again.

Too hot. Why is it always this hot? Why can't anyone in this castle manage a single temperature correctly?

I look at the other three. They are still asleep.

I lean over and shake Aura's shoulder, then Hima's. Verna startles awake on her own at the sound. "The king seems warm," I tell them. "We should fan him."

Three pairs of eyes stare at me with identical expressions of incredulity.

"Don't be clever," Hima murmurs. "You'll only draw attention to yourself."

"He's restless," Aura adds. "Just wait. He'll settle."

Verna says nothing, but her look says it's a bad idea.

I consider my options. He wakes up uncomfortable and finds four women asleep on his floor, or he wakes up uncomfortable and finds someone doing something about it. The first outcome requires no imagination to project forward. The second might go poorly in its own ways, but it has a higher ceiling.

I find a fan on the side table, a flat paddle of stretched leather on a wooden handle, and cross the room.

I position myself at an appropriate remove from the bed, and begin to fan.

His eyes open immediately. "What are you doing?"

My heart performs something acrobatic. "Would you like some air, my king?"

He studies me for a moment, then he gives a single nod.

I fan. He settles. The tension in his shoulders releases, and then his thoughts arrive again, less jagged: Better.

He is quiet for a while. I maintain a steady rhythm and try to be as close to invisible as it is possible to be. Then a voice arrives. "How long have I been asleep?"

I hear the question first as thought rather than sound, and wait for the rest of it to land in his mind.

Why isn't she answering? I thought she had some sense. Can't even respond to a direct question.

I realize that he has asked it out loud.

"Since yesterday afternoon, my king," I tell him, the words coming out slightly faster than I intend. "You returned from the garden and retired shortly after." That is what Aldous said.

He accepts this, but his mind is a whirlwind. I was in the courtyard. I was walking. And then... How did I get here? I don't remember anything.

He doesn't remember anything? He doesn't remember trying to kill Maren? It seems like when he was in a frenzy wanting to kill, he was in a different state from now.

I think about the old Verna, thrown from the window because she touched him. I think about Maren, who kissed his hand and triggered something. Both times, a woman made contact she had not been invited to make, and, whatever lives underneath Aldric's composure rose up to answer it.

The conclusion assembles itself without much effort: he does not want to be touched. More than that, he does not want to be approached. He does not want the performance of affection. Every woman who has tried it has paid for it. I have survived this long because I have not tried it.

Which means my continued survival has a relatively simple architecture. I do not touch him. I do not flatter him. I am a cook, and if I can maintain that, I might actually reach ten years.

I am still building this structure in my head when his voice cuts across my thinking.

"What are you contemplating so intently?"