As a society we have benefited so much from successful public health measures that we now have the privilege of declaring that we must not need them anymore
Bitch before enriched flour, neural tube defects like spina bifida were far more common. Even now, spina bifida clinicians and researchers are begging to have salt and maize fortified to reach groups that don’t use as much flour. Before iodized salt, the United States had a fucking GOITER BELT. Eleven years after the introduction of fluoridated water, a city in Michigan found the rate of dental caries among school children dropped a staggering 60%— in an era where tooth decay regularly fucking killed people
I’m literally not even going to start on vaccines, which are among the most successful and robustly studied public health measures in world history
You might say “oh well today we all have access to vitamins and toothpastes and dentists so we don’t need those things in our food supplies” and boy do white people on social media loooove to fucking say that. But here’s the thing: no, people don’t all have easy access to those things. That’s privilege talking yet again
Series summary: Stuck in a life you don’t want, your only way out is a deal with a pirate, and that’s how your journey on a ship of outlaws toward a new life begins.
(This story is set in a fictional past and not in our world. All places and historical elements are invented and not accurate)
They should just bite the bullet and make a female James Bond. Hot, athletic, suave. She wears tuxedos with a somewhat feminine cut, drinks vodka martinis, drives sports cars, and goes by "James", because why not.
Also, because this is incredibly important to Bond for some reason, she needs to be an incredibly predatory, womanizing lesbian. Some perfectly happy married straight woman needs to become gay by the end of the movie.
We live in the future, and we can admit that all of the cool things that a Male James Bond can do are things a Female James Bond can do. But at all costs, we need to avoid making this thing feel "woke" of self-aware. If Female Bond is not exactly as toxic and awesome as any of the male ones, we will have failed, and might as well be making another franchise.
Paramount's absolute dog shit marketing is astounding. Multiple times now I have seen diehard fans say they had no idea there was a movie in the works, let alone being released this year until the leak. How is Avatar the Last Airbender, the show so widely and consistently acclaimed to be the best show of its generation as to be a set in stone fact, with the literal most iconic heel-face turn arc in television history, also the most consistently bungled by it's distributors???? Are they allergic to money???
For more than two centuries, the women of the Goodwin family have been blamed for every inconvenience that touches their small Massachusetts town. Gossip and superstition trace back to the Salem witch trials, when women were hunted for the magic said to run in their veins. Maria, the first in the bloodline known to wield that power, became the town’s cautionary tale, and every strange occurrence since has been laid at her descendants’ feet. Now you and your sister, Clementine, are the newest Goodwin women; the latest witches the town whispers about whenever the lights go out.
Maria was a beautiful woman, brimming with love, whimsy, and talent. Her list of lovers was long, and far too many of them wore wedding bands that belonged to other women, women who now sat on the hanging committee with vengeance in their eyes. If not for the magic running quietly through her blood, she would have been dead long before the sun reached its peak that day. As they sentenced her for the crime of being born with power, they shoved her from the platform, a coarse rope biting into the soft skin of her throat.
To their horror, Maria did not fall. She drifted.
She floated gently toward the ground like a feather on an unseen breeze, her skirts billowing, her bare feet kissing the dirt without so much as a scratch. The crowd gasped, crossing themselves, some falling to their knees, and in that single breathless moment, rumor hardened into certainty: Maria Goodwin was a witch. Within the hour, the decision was made. If they could not hang her, they would banish her to one of Massachusetts’ many islands, where the ocean winds might do what their rope could not.
With her unborn child growing heavy inside her belly, Maria stood at the edge of the island’s rocky shore and waited for the sound of oars cutting through the dark water. She waited for her lover to rescue her, to appear like a promise finally kept. But as the days bled into weeks, so did her hope. No lantern bobbed on the horizon. No familiar voice called her name. The only reply was the endless hiss of the tide.
Alone and hollowed by betrayal, Maria reached for the only thing that had never abandoned her: her magic. In a moment of despair, she wove a spell around her heart, whispering words that would ensure she would never again feel the agony of love. It was meant to be a shield, a small mercy she granted herself.
But pain has a way of curdling into something darker. As her bitterness grew and the child inside her kicked against her ribs like a reminder, the spell twisted, turning sharp where it should have been soft. What began as protection became a curse, one that would cling to her bloodline, binding itself to the name Goodwin. From that night on, any man who dared to love a Goodwin woman would find his devotion answered not with happily-ever-after, but with heartache, ruin, or worse. The curse did not care which; it only demanded a price.
That’s how the Goodwin sisters ended up living with their aunts Eithel and Margret in the crooked, yellow Victorian house at the edge of town, where the streetlights never seemed to reach. Your mother died of a broken heart when your father paid the ultimate price for the curse, and the town, of course, said they’d seen it coming all along.
You, thirteen months older than Clementine, fit neatly into the role of eldest. Quiet and reserved, you are never one to seek out trouble. Clementine is the opposite, with fiery orange hair and a temper to match. Different as you are, the two of you are a bonded pair, and neither can imagine surviving without the other.
And survive you both did.
There wasn’t a single day you and your sister weren’t tormented by the kids at school who snickered behind cupped hands and scrawled witch across your locker, or by the townsfolk who crossed the street rather than pass you, their conversations dropping to a hush as you walked by. In classrooms, in grocery aisles, even in church pews, their fear clung to you like a second skin, a constant reminder that in this town, being a Goodwin was a crime all its own.
One night, while you and Clementine are hunched over the kitchen table, working through simple spells and stirring glittering liquid in the family cauldron, there’s a sharp knock at the back door.
“Just keep doing your spells, girls. We’ll be right back,” Aunt Eithel says, wiping her hands on her apron as she moves toward the sound.
You and Clementine trade a look. No one ever comes calling after dark.
Peeking around the corner, you see your aunts framed in the French doors that look out over the backyard. On the porch stands a woman you don’t recognize; hair wild, lipstick smeared, clutching her handbag like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Even from here, you can tell she’s been crying.
“Get the book,” says Eithel, her voice gone low and serious.
“Get the dove,” Margaret answers, already moving toward the pantry.
As they open the door and usher the woman inside, they turn on you and Clementine with matching looks.
“Upstairs. Bed,” Margaret orders. “Now.”
They shoo you both toward the staircase, herding you away from the kitchen and the stranger who smells like perfume and rain. But as sneaky as little girls can be, you and Clementine don’t go far. Instead, you creep back down to the top step and press yourselves against the banister, peering through the gaps to watch the chaos unfold below.
“I don’t want anyone else,” the woman sobs, voice cracking on every other word. “I want him so much I can’t think about anything else. I can’t sleep. He has to leave his wife. He has to leave her now.”
Her words drift up the stairwell like smoke, sweet and poisonous, and you feel Clementine’s fingers slide into yours. Down in the kitchen, your aunts exchange a look of pity and weariness.
“Perhaps you might find one better suited,” says Margaret gently.
“I don’t want anyone else!” the woman cries. “He is all I can think about. Why else in hell would I be here?”
With a tired sigh, Margaret tells Eithel to take the money. Then she places a white dove in the woman’s hands, along with a long, gleaming pin.
The woman stares down at the bird, her eyes gone glassy. “I want him to want me so much he can’t stand it,” she whispers.
You and Clementine both gasp, your breath catching in unison. You bury your face against her shoulder as, below you, the woman drives the pin into the dove’s heart. The sharp, startled flutter of wings is over in an instant, but the sound of it seems to echo up the stairs and lodge in your chest, a memory you know will never quite let you go.
“I hope I never fall in love. I hope I never fall in love,” you whisper to yourself, the words tumbling out again and again until they sound more like a spell than a wish.
Clementine only smiles, eyes still shining with reflected candlelight. “I can’t wait to fall in love,” she says.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Not even a week later, you are in the house’s built-in greenhouse, conjuring up a spell of your own. Moonlight filters through the glass panes, turning the rows of plants silver. One by one, you pluck white rose petals from different blossoms and drop them into a chipped porcelain bowl.
“He will hear my call a mile away,” you murmur, the words fogging the glass as you lean over the bowl. “He will whistle my favorite song.”
Clementine slips in quietly and leans against the doorframe, watching you for a moment before she speaks. “What are you doing?”
“I’m summoning a true love spell called Amas Veritas,” you say, plucking another petal and letting it flutter down like a tiny surrender flag. “He can flip pancakes into the air. He’ll be extremely kind, and his favorite shape will be a star. His eyes will be as brown as melted chocolate. And he’ll have the voice of an angel.”
“I thought you never wanted to fall in love,” Clementine says, eyebrows lifting as she steps closer, her bare feet silent on the cool tile.
“That’s the point.” You pinch off another petal, a little more sharply this time. “The guy I dreamed of doesn’t exist. If he doesn’t exist, I’ll never die of a broken heart.”
On the deck railing, you set the bowl down. The petals tremble, then lift; first one, then another; spiraling up in a slow, graceful dance. You and Clementine clutch each other’s arms as the petals rise higher, swirling out of the bowl and into the open air, drawn upward as if the moon itself is breathing them in.
They drift toward the sky in a shimmering, pale ribbon, stretching thinner and thinner until they are nothing but white specks against the dark.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
At nineteen and eighteen, you and Clementine stood on the edge of everything you’d ever known. Clementine had found herself a boyfriend and, with him, a way off the island. The two of you were in your shared attic room, the air thick with summer heat and the smell of old wood and salt from the sea.
Clementine was half hanging out the window, half inside, her hips braced against the sill as she craned toward the night. The street below was quiet, the town already shuttered and sleeping, but she watched it as if it might suddenly open up and offer her a way out.
“Do you love him?” you ask from your bed, knees drawn to your chest.
“What?” Clementine glances back at you, only half listening, her fingers drumming against the peeling paint.
“Do you love him enough to marry him?”
She huffs a laugh, a sharp, humorless sound. “Be for real, y/n, what’s enough?” she says, turning back to the dark horizon. “I hate it here. I just want to get out of this stuffy town and go to a place where no one has ever heard of us.”
She pushes the window open wider, letting in a rush of cool air that ruffles the curtains and lifts a strand of her fiery hair. For a moment, she looks like she might climb right out and let the night swallow her whole.
“You think he’s really your way out?” you ask softly.
“I think he’s a boat when all we’ve ever had is the shore,” she says. “I don’t care if it’s love. I just want to leave before this place squeezes the life out of us.”
You watch her silhouette in the window, the girl who once whispered that she couldn’t wait to fall in love. Now, you’re not sure if she’s running toward him or away from everything else. Either way, the island suddenly feels smaller than it ever has before.
“I feel like I’ll never see you again,” you half-whispered, the words barely crossing the space between your bed and the open window.
“Of course you’ll see me again,” she said at once, like it was the easiest promise in the world. “I promise. We’ll grow old together, just you and me, living in a big house with cats. So many cats, they’ll be knocking things off every surface.” A soft laugh slipped out of her. “I bet we’ll even die on the same day.”
“Swear?” Your voice cracked on the single word.
“Swear.”
She pushed herself away from the window and crossed the room, the old floorboards sighing under her bare feet. The night wind followed her in, curling around her ankles, tugging at the loose strands of her fiery hair. She sank down beside you on the bed, close enough that your shoulders touched, close enough that you could smell the salt still clinging to her skin.
Without a word, she reached up and pulled the pin from her hair. The bright metal caught the lamplight as she turned it between her fingers, something wild and certain in her eyes.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
You hesitated only a second before holding it out.
She drew the point of the pin across her own palm first. You watched the sharp intake of her breath, the thin line of red that bloomed across her skin. Then she took your hand in hers and did the same to you, gentler, but not gentle enough to spare you the sting.
A bead of blood welled up in each of your palms. She pressed your hand to hers, skin to skin, red to red, fingers lacing together so tightly there was no telling where you ended, and she began.
“My blood,” she said, holding your gaze.
“My blood,” you echoed, your throat tight.
“Our blood,” you said together.
You curled your fingers more firmly around hers, feeling the warm slip of your mingled blood, the sting of the cut already fading beneath the fiercer ache in your chest.
“Don’t forget,” you whispered.
“I couldn’t forget you if I tried,” she said.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Years have passed.
You stayed in the small town and carved out a life for yourself among people who still cross themselves when you walk by. They may never fully trust a Goodwin, but they know where to go when they need something only you can provide. Your name is on the dusty gold letters above the shop window on Main Street: a narrow little storefront overflowing with herbs and potted plants, drying bundles of lavender in the window, glass jars of roots and petals lining the walls. Nothing grand, just a cramped herb and plant shop that smells like earth and citrus peel, where the bell over the door rings all day, and the floorboards are worn smooth by cautious footsteps.
For the ones who are brave, or desperate enough, the back shelves hold more than chamomile and thyme. Quietly, discreetly, you sell spells and elixirs: charms for luck, sachets to ward off nightmares, tinctures for courage. People who would never say your name in daylight still find their way to your door when something in their lives begins to unravel.
This afternoon, between customers, you sit behind the counter with a letter from the post office propped open beside the register. Clementine’s looping handwriting spills across the page, all ink blots and exclamation points.
She is living her best life, or at least that’s how she tells it. Right now she’s in Miami, Florida, partying until dawn, sending you descriptions of neon lights and salt-slicked skin, of music that rattles through her ribs and makes her feel endless. She writes about the ocean being warm even at night, about dancing barefoot on balconies, about how no one there has ever heard of the Goodwins or their cursed little town.
This time, there’s a new man she’s obsessed with, “the guy of the month,” as she calls him, half joking, half not. She gushes about how he makes her laugh, how he orders for her at restaurants, how he kisses like he means every word he never quite says. She lists his favorite songs, the way he wears his watch, and the stupid nickname he’s already given her.
You trace one of her hearts in the margin with the tip of your finger and try to picture her: Clementine in some crowded Miami bar, orange hair catching the colored lights, her laughter bright enough to drown out any whisper of a curse.
The shop bell jingles, and you fold the letter carefully, slipping it back into its envelope. You tuck it under the ledger, close to the little dish of protective salt you keep by the till.
“Just a minute,” you call, smoothing your apron as you stand.
You step out from behind the counter, the soft creak of the floorboards grounding you, until your gaze lifts, and your footing nearly falters.
By the blooming lavender stands a man unlike any customer you’ve ever had. He is tall, easily over six feet, broad-shouldered, and impossible to ignore as he seems to dwarf your crowded shelves. Ink curls over every inch of visible skin, from his throat down past his wrists, each tattoo as intricate and deliberate as brushstrokes on a canvas.
His hair is a rich chocolate brown, falling in soft waves to the nape of his neck. For a heartbeat, you can only stare.
He is beautiful.
As if feeling your eyes on him, he turns. Your breath catches. Up close, he’s even more devastating, all sharp lines and soft edges in ways that make your pulse skip.
Heat rises in your cheeks. You clear your throat, forcing your hand to move, tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear as you try to remember how to speak.
“Hi,” you manage, your voice a little too quiet in the small, lavender-scented shop.
He gives you a warm smile. “Hi,” he says.
“What brings you in today?” you ask, remembering you need to stay professional.
“I’m visiting some friends in the area and decided to check out the local shops. You’ve got a nice place here.”
You blush and duck your head, murmuring a quiet, “Thank you.”
“What’s this?” he asks, pointing at the hanging bundle.
“It’s eucalyptus,” you explain. “You hang it in your shower, and the steam releases the plant’s essential oils. It helps with anxiety and calming your nerves.”
“So, you mentioned you’re not from around here. How did you meet your friend, if you don’t mind me asking? Most people who live here don’t tend to venture out and meet outsiders.”
He lets out a small laugh.
“My buddy Bryan just got a small vacation home here. He invited me and some others up for a couple of weeks to relax and fish. Nothing too exciting.”
“Well, welcome to my little town. I hope it treats you well,” you say with a shy smile.
“Thank you,” he replies, before something over your shoulder catches his eye. He drifts toward a display, drawn to the different varieties of plant pots you’ve arranged there. His hand settles on a ceramic planter with yellow stars scattered across its surface, like a tiny slice of starry night.
“This is beautiful,” he says. “I know it’s silly, but stars are my favorite shape. I love anything with stars on it.”
For some reason, his words echo in your mind, striking a chord you can’t quite name. Stars are my favorite shape. The phrase tugs at something buried deep, like a thread pulled taut inside your chest.
You shove the strange feeling aside, forcing yourself to focus on him instead of the way your heart is suddenly beating too fast. When he looks back at you, really looks, the air between you seems to narrow. You feel yourself melting under the warmth of his gaze, lost in eyes the exact shade of melted chocolate.
Up close, you notice the faint crinkle at their corners when he smiles, the way his lashes cast soft shadows on his cheekbones. You catch the scent of his cologne; clean, a little woodsy, and it mixes with the lavender and eucalyptus until you’re not sure which part of the dizziness is magic and which part is just him.
You wet your lips, fingers fidgeting with the edge of your apron as you search for something, anything clever to say, but all you can think is that it feels like you’ve been waiting a very long time for someone with eyes like his.
“Do you, uh…like plants?” you manage, wincing at yourself the second the words leave your mouth.
His smile widens, slow and amused, and somehow, that only makes your pulse stutter harder.
“Yes, I like plants. That’s one of the reasons I came in here,” he teases.
You let out a small laugh, the sound a little breathier than you’d like. “Good. I’d hate to think you wandered in here by accident. The ferns are very sensitive about rejection.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, glancing at the nearest fern as if it might be listening. “Wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings. I’ve actually managed to keep a few things alive back home.”
“What kind of houseplants?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
“Mostly succulents. Low commitment, hard to kill. Kind of like me.”
You arch a brow. “Hard to kill, or low commitment?”
“Depends who you ask,” he says, that slow smile tugging at his mouth again. “But I’ve never had a plant complain.”
You shake your head, fighting another smile as you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Well, if you’re looking to upgrade from succulents, I might be able to set you up with something a little more challenging.”
He leans his hip against the display, closer now, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him. “Yeah?” he says. “Think you can trust me with something that requires actual responsibility?”
You meet his gaze, your pulse thudding in your throat. “I guess we’ll just have to find out what you can handle.”
“I’m Noah, by the way,” he says softly, a small smile tugging at his lips.
You give him your name, and he repeats it back to you, rolling it over his tongue. Somehow, it sounds sweeter coming from his mouth than it ever has before.
He grabs the starry pot, cradling it carefully in his tattooed hands, and you both walk to the register. The quiet shuffle of your footsteps on the worn floorboards and the soft clink of glass jars feel louder than they should. As you ring up his pot, he glances around, curious, and his gaze snags on the shadowed back of the shop where the elixirs are kept.
“What’s all that?” he asks.
Your stomach gives a little jolt.
“Oh, it’s just dried ingredients and whatnot. Nothing too important,” you rush out, hoping your voice sounds more casual than you feel.
He lingers, eyes still fixed on the shelves of bottles and bundles, as if he can sense there’s more to them than you’re willing to admit. You force your hands to stay steady while you wrap the pot, pretending not to notice the way his attention sharpens.
In your head, you’re praying he doesn’t ask too many questions, praying he doesn’t look too closely at the labels, at the sigils burned into the wood, at the faint shimmer that sometimes clings to the glass when the light hits it just right.
You slide the finished package toward him and offer what you hope is an easy smile, trying to guide his focus back to safe, ordinary things.
“Just supplies,” you add lightly. “Herbal stuff. For people who like to experiment with tea blends and bath soaks.”
His eyes return to you, warm and interested, like he’s not quite ready to leave just yet.
“Maybe I’ll ask you for recommendations on my next bath soaking night,” he jokes, mouth curving into an easy grin.
You bark out a surprised laugh, then soften into a smile, nodding your head. “Anytime,” you say, a little more shyly than you mean to.
He lets his fingers drum once against the wrapped pot, then gives you a small, almost reluctant wave. “Guess I’ll see you around,” he adds, like it’s less of a question and more of a quiet hope.
You lift your hand in return. “Yeah. See you,” you manage.
The bell over the door chimes as he steps out into the street, sunlight spilling in around his shoulders before the door falls shut behind him. For a heartbeat, his reflection lingers in the glass, a faint ghost of broad shoulders and starry ceramic, and then he’s just another figure moving past your window.
The shop feels too still once he’s gone, just the familiar creak of old wood and the soft rustle of dried herbs shifting in a draft. You stand there for a moment with your hand still half-raised, staring at the empty doorway like you can will him to walk back through it.
Then you catch yourself, shake your head, and drop your arm. He’s just a customer. A very handsome, very charming customer with eyes like melted chocolate and a starry pot tucked under his arm.
You hope to the gods above that Noah doesn’t mingle too much with the locals. It’s a selfish thought, but you can’t help it. Once people hear the stories, once they realize who you are, what you are, they start to look at you differently. The warmth drains out of their smiles. They find excuses not to come back.
You wouldn’t want him to start avoiding you as the others do.
You move back behind the counter on autopilot, fingertips trailing along glass jars and worn wood, the familiar textures grounding you. Outside, voices rise and fall as people pass by, none of them daring to step inside. You straighten a stack of seed packets that doesn’t really need straightening and pretend the quiet doesn’t bother you.
warnings: mentions of illness/poison effects, hurt/comfort, prince noah is a cutie, scene of an animal in distress (but they are unharmed!), fainting, medical examinations, pregnancy
word count: 15.3k
chapter 10 || ‘dethrone’ masterlist
In the four days since Margaret had collapsed on the floor of the dining hall, Elysande had done very little other than sit at her friend’s bedside and pray for a miracle. She could not do anything other than that, for even sleeping in one of the wooden chairs by the bed only brought visions of blood streaming from Margaret’s nose and the reminder of convulsions that had threatened to take the maiden’s life. So instead, Elysande simply sat and waited, forgoing food and sleep and all those things she needed in favour of waiting and praying.
Elysande had never considered herself much of a religious person, but prayers were becoming the only thing she could offer Margaret. She recited ones she had heard the woman herself murmur under her breath, hoping that perhaps the familiarity would bring her back to the world. The attempt was futile and to no result, but it did not deter her attempts.
Margaret still had not opened her eyes.
The medical wing of the palace was quieter than Elysande had expected it to be. In the stories she had read as a child and fantasies she had created in her mind, infirmaries were always places full of constant activity, physicians running to and fro and patients most likely crying in agony. She had been lucky to have the privilege of before being treated in her own quarters, so she had expected to find her first infirmary experience determined by unruly chaos.
Instead, she found stillness and silence. A peculiar, sobering peace that felt almost oppressive in its perseverance.
The only other beds in use were occupied by soldiers who had sustained minor injuries during training exercises, their wounds wrapped in clean bandages and half asleep from sedatives that could be spared to keep them drowsy. One young man near the door had broken his arm in a fall from horseback, and another had taken a training sword to the ribs with enough force to crack several of them. Elysande had heard the physicians speaking to them in passing, but none of the patients ever tried to engage her in conversation. They were surely just as unused to royalty being present in an infirmary as Elysande was to being in one.
The rest of the beds sat empty, sheets undisturbed as they waited for occupants that would hopefully never come. The medical wing could accommodate two dozen patients if necessary, but it rarely saw more than a handful at any given time. The palace was a relatively safe place, all things considered. Accidents happened, illnesses struck, but true emergencies were rare.
Until now.
Margaret's bed was positioned near the window, where pale afternoon sunlight filtered through the glass and cast gentle patterns across the floor. Elysande had requested the placement herself, insisting upon it despite the physicians' protests that the location was less convenient for their monitoring. She did not care about convenience; she cared about Margaret, and Margaret had always loved the sunlight.
She would often sit by the window in Elysande's chambers whenever she was engaged in a more minor task of her duties such as fixing an unruly thread on one of the Princess’ gowns. The light always bounced off of her skin, and on particularly bright days when the sun had managed to break through the frosty clouds of endless snowfall, Margaret would even let out small purrs of satisfaction at the feeling of light against her body.
Elysande thought she deserved to wake to sunlight, at the very least. And now the weather was turning warmer, or at least as warm as it would get in Belgrave (for the frost never truly disappeared), the sunlight had become more common. They had to enjoy it whilst it lasted, for the colder months fast approached just as quickly as they had appeared.
That was if she woke at all.
Elysande sat in a chair beside the bed, her body folded in on itself in a position that had long since ceased to be comfortable but which she could not bring herself to abandon. Her knees were drawn up toward her chest, arms wrapped around them as she rested her chin on her kneecaps. She had barely moved from this position in days, leaving only when the most basic necessities demanded it and returning as quickly as she could manage each time. Other than that, all she could really do was stare. She had no proper medical knowledge that had not been taken from centuries-old books, so her sole activity in these quarters had been reduced to watching.
Noah had brought her fresh clothes at some point during the second day, cosy things in muted colours that were much more convenient for sitting long hours than the corseted piece she had previously been in. She had changed into them more to appease him than out of any real concern for her own comfort, requiring a little help from her husband when her hands fumbled at the laces. The blue gown was ruined anyway, stained with something that might have been wine but was most likely blood.
Although it had not been a priority of hers, food had still been placed in front of her at regular intervals, brought by servants whose faces she did not bother to fully register. Her appetite remained as absent as it had been for weeks, perhaps even more so now that the source of her nausea had been joined by a grief so profound it left no room for hunger. Most of the meals had been taken away barely touched, the servants exchanging worried glances that Elysande pretended not to notice. She only took a few bites at a time purely to placate her unconscious friend, who would have usually been the first to prompt her to eat.
She knew she looked terrible. She could feel it in the way every inch of her body felt heavy, from her head to her toes. Her hair hung limp and unwashed around her face, escaping from whatever arrangement Eliza had attempted that morning whilst they both sat in a mournful silence.
But none of the appearance-specific concerns mattered. Nothing mattered except the woman lying dormant in the bed before her, chest rising and falling in weak breaths that were the only indication she was still among the living. Elysande and Eliza alike spent more time than they liked to admit counting the seconds between breaths to make sure they were not slowing any more than they already had.
Margaret looked smaller than Elysande had ever seen her. The woman who had commanded rooms with her mere presence now seemed lessened somehow. The bedclothes swallowed her frame, making her appear virtually childlike, and her face had taken on a greying colour that gave away just how hard her body was working in the battle of survival.
The physicians had done everything they could. Elysande had watched them work in those first frantic hours, forcing antidotes down Margaret's throat and applying poultices to her chest as they muttered to each other in the hushed tones of professionals facing a crisis. On the first day, they shared that they had counteracted the worst effects of the poison and done all they could. Now it was simply a matter of waiting and letting her body heal itself, hoping that the damage had not been too severe.
Hoping was all any of them could do. Hope, and wait, and pray that the gods Margaret believed in might give her the strength to open her eyes again.
Eliza sat on Margaret's other side, perched on a wooden stool that she had dragged over from somewhere and refused to relinquish despite offers of more comfortable seating. The young handmaiden's usually bright eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed with exhaustion, her complexion nearly as pale as Margaret’s own. She had been almost as consistent a visitor as the Princess herself, leaving only to fetch supplies or relay messages before hurrying back to her vigil with the same determination to which she faced everything.
She held one of Margaret's hands in both of her own, her thumbs tracing gentle patterns across the knuckles in a ceaseless, rhythmic motion. It was a comfort, Elysande suspected, as much for Eliza as for Margaret. Something to do with her hands, some small action she could take when everything else felt so terrifyingly beyond her control.
It hurt Elysande to look at Eliza for much longer than a second.
Her other handmaiden was still so young to be experiencing so much distress. When Elysande had first arrived, she had considered Eliza to be no more than eighteen, and her assumptions had been correct. In a conversation during early days, she had managed to learn that her handmaiden's eighteenth birthday was just a month before Noah’s upcoming thirtieth. If Elysande watched her for too long, she would break with apologies over causing someone so youthful such distress so early in her life. It was all her fault after all. Had Margaret and Eliza not been assigned to her, Margaret would not be lying half dead in a hospital bed.
Near the door, Noah and Joakim stood in quiet conversation, their voices quiet enough that Elysande could not make out the respective words. She did not try to listen, for she had learnt early on that eavesdropping on their discussions only added to her burden, piling more information onto a mind already struggling beneath the weight of what it carried. It was better for her own sanity to let them handle the practicalities of the political manoeuvring that had become necessary in the wake of what had happened.
It was better (and easier) to focus on Margaret and leave the rest to people who were still capable of functioning.
A fragment of their conversation drifted toward her nonetheless, carried either in the air or a momentary lapse in their careful discretion. Something about the kitchen staff, about Florian dismissing the regular servants in the days leading up to the banquet. From what she gathered, Nicholas had apparently arranged safe haven for those who had been displaced.
The pieces had come together gradually over the past four days, assembled through sections of overheard conversation and the occasional direct update from Noah when he deemed her mentally capable of receiving information. Florian had planned the poisoning carefully, replacing the trusted kitchen staff with his own people to ensure that the tainted food would reach her plate without interference from anyone loyal to his son, but that had always been obvious. The poison itself had been identified as coming from a white snakeroot plant, a rare and expensive flower that was not grown anywhere in the gardens. Florian must have imported it to avoid a trail that led back to him.
Not that it mattered, for they all knew who was truly responsible.
Through it all, the information and the tears, the constant reminder that it was meant for her made Elysande's stomach lurch, and she found herself more often than not with her face against her knees, breathing slowly through the waves of nausea that accompanied such a thought.
This was her fault. All of it. Margaret was here because Elysande had let her taste her food in some feeble attempt to protect her own existence. Of course that was not how Margaret would see it, but Elysande was being consumed by guilt nonetheless.
"My love?"
Noah's voice cut through the haze of her thoughts, delicate but insistent in a way that told her this was not the first time he had spoken, and she had simply blocked out his other attempts to gain her attention. She had not noticed him approaching, had not registered the end of his conversation with Joakim or the soft sound of his footsteps crossing the stone floor. He stood beside her chair now, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder so tenderly it threatened to make her cry on the spot.
She had spent so many tears over the past four days that she found she had no more to spare over such minute details.
"We should return to our chambers," Noah added after Elysande’s vision had centred on him. His thumb traced small circles against the fabric of her dress as he addressed her. "You need to rest."
"No." The word came out flat, accompanied by the turn of her head back to her friend’s form as she slammed the door shut on any possibility of argument.
Noah's hand only tightened slightly on her shoulder, but it was more of an attempt to ground her than a display of frustration. Still, she could feel the tension that permeated every digit as he fought to restrain his own will. He had been patient with her these past four days, more patient than she deserved, but she could sense that patience beginning to fray at the edges. Again, it had not turned into frustration over her dismissal, but more a sympathy mixed with that unending fear.
"Elysande, you are far too exposed here," Noah tried again after a moment’s silence, his tone still gentle but with an edge of something more formidable beneath. "The medical wing is not secure. After what happened, we cannot take the risk of–"
"I will not leave her."
"Joakim and Eliza are here. They will send word the moment anything changes, but you cannot keep doing this to yourself. You have barely slept in four days, you have not eaten anything of substance, and you are running yourself into the ground which will not help her recover any faster–"
"I will not leave her!" The words ripped from Elysande’s throat with a level of volume that surprised even her, her throat sore from days of disuse and verging on the brink of hysteria. They bounced around the medical wing and shattered the careful quiet that had enveloped the space. The soldiers in nearby beds stirred at the sound, their drugged sleep disturbed by the sudden outburst, and even Eliza looked up from Margaret's hand with wide, startled eyes.
Elysande did not care. She could not bring herself to care about decorum or the discomfort of strangers. Nothing mattered except the woman lying unconscious before her.
Noah was silent for another long moment. She could feel him weighing his options, trying to determine the best approach, calculating whether pushing harder would break through her resistance or simply shatter her entirely.
When he moved, it was more careful than before, with the deliberate caution of someone approaching an unknown animal that might bolt or bite at any sudden movement. He circled around to the front of her chair, lowering himself into a crouch so that he was at her eye level and his face filled her field of vision to force her into acknowledging his presence.
"Please." His voice was barely a whisper, splintered with weariness and worry and a sorrow that mirrored her own. "Please, Elysande. I cannot watch you destroy yourself like this."
Something in his words momentarily broke through the armour she had constructed around herself, finding a gap in the defences she had thought impenetrable. Her eyes burned, her throat tightened, and for a moment she thought the tears she had believed she had exhausted might return after all.
But still, she shook her head in denial. "I cannot leave her. I will not. So do not ask me to."
Noah closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, she saw a resolve there that had not been present before. There was an awkwardness there too, as if apologising for something that had not happened yet.
Slowly, Noah pressed one kiss to the left set of knuckles, and another to the right. Then, he straightened from his crouch, rose to his full height, and his hands found her wrists with a gentleness that did not connect with his obvious intent.
"Forgive me," was all he managed before he pulled.
The pressure was not forceful, not aggressive, just enough of an insistent power to draw her upwards and separate her from the chair that had become her prison.
Elysande resisted immediately when she realised what was happening, to which Noah only held her there half suspended in the air.
"Please." Noah's voice broke on the repetition, a man reaching the end of his endurance in complete devastation. "Please, please, please. You need to sleep. You need to eat. You need to take care of yourself, because I cannot do this without you, and if you collapse from exhaustion–"
"Unhand me!" Elysande twisted against his grip, trying to wrench her wrists free, but he held firm. His fingers remained as soft as they could around her arms as to not hurt her, but he refused to release her still.
"Elysande, I am begging you–"
"Get off of me!" She was truly struggling now, her body moving of its own accord as she fought against his hold. Noah stayed as temperate as he could in his efforts, but with her refusal, he was forced to increase the strength with which he held her. Elysande’s feet scrabbled against the floor searching for purchase, and her arms strained against his grip with all the might she could muster until they threatened to pull from their sockets. "I will not–"
"You have to rest!" Noah had her on her feet despite her protests, and in order to avoid hurting her he immediately wrapped his arms around her thrashing form instead of holding her arms. His voice had taken on a desperate, pleading quality that she had never heard from him before, even in all of their arguments. "You need your strength, you need to take care of yourself, you need–"
"Do not tell me what I need!" Her hands came up, swatting at his chest, his shoulders, anywhere she could reach as he dragged her along the polished floor. The blows she landed held no real force behind them, entirely ineffective against his trained body, but she could not seem to stop. There was a frantic energy pouring out of her now, seeking any outlet it could find. "Do not tell me what I need when she is lying there because of me! When she took poison that was meant for me! When I was too much of a coward to–"
"I am begging you, stop!" Noah practically hiccuped through a cry she had not realised he was holding in. It did not deter her just yet, too consumed by wild concern. "Please. Please, my love. Please stop. Please let me help you. Please do not make me watch you fall apart like this."
"Let me go!" Elysande was hitting at his chest now, her fists making contact again and again with the solid muscle beneath his shirt. Each blow was punctuated by a word, by a sob, by a gasp of air that did not seem sufficient enough to fill her lungs. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me–she is dying because of me, do you not understand? She is dying because I–because of me–because–"
The fight flushed out of her all at once.
One moment she was struggling and flailing, desperate to break free from his hold and return to her seat at Margaret's side. The next moment, she had collapsed, her legs having given out beneath her as a sob tore through her chest with enough force to mimic a shattering rib. Noah caught her before she could hit the ground, his arms tightening around her as he lowered them both to the cold stone floor to avoid a fall.
Elysande clung to his shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric as if it were the only thing anchoring her to reality, and now she wept. She wept with her whole body, great heaving sobs that shook her frame and left her gasping for air.
She wept for Margaret, for her home, for the constant unending fear that she lived with… She wept for all of it, every terrible thing that had happened since she had arrived in Belgrave nine months ago; every moment of terror and paranoia and guilt that had been building inside her for ages with no outlet and no relief.
Noah held her through it all, arms tight around her with his face buried in her hair. She could feel his own tears dampening the top of her head, could hear the ragged quality of his breathing as he fought to maintain his composure and failed. He was falling apart too; he had been holding himself together for her sake, carrying his own fear and exhaustion and worry in silence so that he could support her through hers.
And now he had crumbled right alongside her, both of them broken on the floor of the medical wing, clinging to each other because there was nothing else to cling to.
The two of them stayed like that for what felt like hours, crying until there were no tears left to cry. Elysande was vaguely aware of movement around them; Eliza rising from her stool and hovering uncertainly nearby, Joakim stepping closer to ensure safety and quick interference should it be necessary. But neither of them were needed to interrupt. They simply waited, bearing witness to a grief that had needed to be released before it could begin to heal.
Eventually, the sobs subsided. Elysande's breathing evened out, her body going entirely limp against Noah's chest as exhaustion finally claimed what it was owed.
It was quiet. So quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat.
And then came a voice, weak and flimsy, but unmistakably familiar.
"I do hope those tears are not for me, Your Highness."
Elysande's head snapped up so fast she nearly collided with Noah's chin.
Margaret was watching them with eyes that were glassy and unfocused, heavy with fatigue and whatever remnants of illness still lingered in her system. Her face was pale, far paler than it should have been, and she looked as though the simple act of speaking had cost her what little strength she possessed. Her lips were dry and cracked, her hair limp and tangled against the pillow, her whole appearance a far cry from the composed, elegant woman Elysande had come to know.
But she was awake. She was conscious. Her eyes were open and fixed on Elysande with something that might have been amusement if she had possessed the energy for such an emotion.
She was alive.
For a moment, no one dared to even breathe. The shock of it seemed to have frozen everyone in place as though any sudden movement might send them tumbling back into the nightmare of the past four days.
Then Elysande moved, scrambling to her feet with utter gracelessness. Her legs tangled beneath her in her haste, hands slipping against the floor as she pushed herself upwards, her whole body trembling with an urgency that bordered on frantic. She practically galloped to the bedside, stumbling over her own feet in her desperation to close the distance, and collapsed into the same chair as she reached for Margaret with desperate need.
Her voice came out as a croak when she tried to speak, rough from crying and thick with emotion that threatened to overwhelm her all over again. "Margaret, oh gods, you are awake, you are here, you are–"
"I am rather difficult to kill, it seems." Margaret's attempt at humour was undermined by the weakness of her voice and the way her eyelids fluttered as though staying open required tremendous effort. But she managed a small smile, barely more than a twitch of her lips, but it was the most beautiful thing Elysande had ever seen. "Though I confess the experience was not one I am eager to repeat."
A sound escaped Elysande's throat, something between a laugh and a sob, and she brought Margaret's hand to her face, pressing it against her cheek as if the contact alone could confirm that this was real.
"I am so sorry." The words tumbled out in a rush, propelled by guilt that had been festering for four days with no outlet beyond the boundaries of her own mind. "This is all because of me. You were poisoned because of me, because I was too much of a coward to simply–"
"Your Highness." Margaret's voice was firm despite its weakness, cutting through Elysande's rambling with the same no-nonsense efficiency she brought to everything. Even half-dead from poison, she managed to project an authority that the Princess found herself unable to argue with. "I knew the risks when I appointed myself your taster. I understood what I was doing. I made a choice, a deliberate choice, to put myself between you and danger. That was my decision, not yours." Her fingers twitched against Elysande's cheek where her hand was being gripped like a lifeline. "Do not insult me by taking credit for my own choices."
"But you almost died–"
"Almost." The word was so bold in its simplicity that it managed to cease Elysande’s hitched breathing all at once. "I am still here, and I can assure you I would do it again. A thousand times over, if that was what it took to keep you safe. You must know that by now."
A fresh wave of tears spilt down Elysande's cheeks, but these were different from the ones that had come before. These were not tears of grief or guilt or exhaustion like she had become so acquainted with recently. These were tears of relief and gratitude, of love for the woman lying in the bed before her who had nearly given everything to protect her.
"You are an impossible woman," Elysande managed through her tears, the words shaking with emotion.
"I learned from the best," Margaret replied, and though her voice was frail, there was an undeniable warmth in it. Her eyes drifted past Elysande to where Joakim stood frozen near the foot of the bed.
Margaret’s expression shifted as she looked at him, softening in a way that Elysande had only glimpsed in stolen moments and private glances. Something passed between them, something tender and intimate that had no place for observers, and Elysande felt suddenly as though she were intruding on a moment that was not meant for her.
"Although I suspect there is someone else who might like a word with me," Margaret said quietly, her eyes still fixed on Joakim. "If you would not mind sharing, Your Highness."
Elysande looked over her shoulder at Joakim, clocked the way he was staring at Margaret as though she were a miracle made flesh, and could not deny them any more time. As much as she wanted to steal any further moment possible with her handmaiden, she knew it was kinder to allow her friends their peace.
"Of course." Elysande forced herself to release Margaret’s hand with great effort, pressing one final kiss to her knuckles before relinquishing her hold. She rose from the chair on unsteady legs, her body swaying slightly as blood rushed to limbs that had been tight with anxiety for far too long. "Take all the time you need."
She stepped back from the bed, allowing Joakim to take her place at Margaret's side. He abandoned his usual grace in favour of something halting and uncertain, as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing. He seemed afraid that if he moved too quickly, the vision before him would dissolve and he would wake to find himself still trapped in the agony of waiting.
When he reached the bedside, he sank into the chair Elysande had vacated, his hand reaching for Margaret's without a moment’s break. She could see how his fingers trembled as they wrapped around hers, a small detail so intimate in its execution.
Noah's arm slipped around Elysande's waist, drawing her gently away from the bed to give them privacy. She leaned into him gratefully, her body too exhausted to support itself any longer, and let him guide her toward the door of the medical wing. Eliza followed at a respectful distance, her own face wet with tears of relief.
Behind them, she heard Joakim's voice, rough and broken, whispering words too soft for anyone else to hear. And Margaret's response, weak but equally warm, carried with it the promise that she was going to be alright.
Elysande had to believe it herself otherwise she would succumb to the insanity that threatened to drown them all.
–
With the month that passed since Margaret’s awakening, she grew stronger with every day. By then, she was no longer bedridden, though she had not yet returned to her duties. She instead spent most of her time resting in the servants' quarters under the watchful eye of whomever Joakim had assigned to guard her that day. The physicians had been clear that she needed time, for her body had obviously endured significant trauma and rushing her recovery would only set her back further. Margaret, predictably, had argued against such coddling, insisting that she was perfectly capable of resuming at least some of her responsibilities. But for once, she had been overruled by a coalition of people who cared about her too much to let her stubbornness win.
So Margaret rested, however reluctantly, and Elysande visited her whenever she could manage it. They would sit together in Margaret's small but comfortable room, talking and gossiping as they had in the early days of their acquaintance before everything had become so terribly complex.
During their visits, Margaret would update her on the rumours circulating among the servants, the petty dramas and romantic entanglements that made up the fabric of palace life below stairs: who had been caught sneaking out after curfew, which footman had developed an obvious infatuation with which chambermaid, and what the kitchen staff really thought about the new menu that had been implemented in the wake of the poisoning. It was entirely inconsequential gossip, the kind of thing that should have seemed trivial given everything they were facing.
It was also exactly what Elysande needed.
She would share what news she could from the council meetings in return, carefully edited to avoid the most distressing details, and they would laugh together over cups of tea that Eliza always seemed to have ready at exactly the right moment. Sometimes Joakim would stop by during these visits, apparently to check on Margaret's security but fooling absolutely no one. He would hover near the door, pretending not to listen to their conversation, and Margaret would pretend not to notice his constant looming, and Elysande would pretend not to notice either of them pretending.
It was a comfortable fiction, and one she was happy to maintain.
There were less than two months until the coronation, the days counting down with alarming speed. A welcome escalation, of course, considering it was a light at the end of the tunnel to see visions of Noah taking the throne and Florian’s reign finally coming to an end. Elysande tried to focus on that, but some days the light seemed impossibly distant.
Some days, she could not see it at all.
She had barely left the palace since the banquet. The assassination attempt had shaken her more deeply than she wanted to admit, even to herself. If she had been avoiding public spaces and declining invitations to events before, she was doing tenfold now, armed with a whole litter of new excuses to stay within the relative safety of her chambers.
It was not a sustainable way to live, she knew that the way one knows oxygen is necessary to sustain life. She could not hide forever, cowering behind walls and locked doors as an escape. But the alternative, the idea of walking through the palace with a target painted on her back, was a more terrifying concept than her heart could bear.
Noah had noticed, of course. He noticed everything about her these days, watching her with attention that was equal parts touching and alarming. He had tried to coax her out of her self-imposed isolation in small ways, suggesting walks in the gardens or visits to the library, or even offering for them to take a meal in one of the smaller, more private dining rooms. But she had rebuffed each attempt with excuses that grew thinner and more transparent by the day: she was tired, she was not feeling well, she had correspondence to attend to, she simply was not in the mood.
The excuses were running out, and they both knew it.
Until that morning, when Noah had suggested a ride.
"You need fresh air," he had said over breakfast taken at the small table in their quarters. Unlike his other attempts, this request was phrased in a way that told her he would not be easily dissuaded to drop the subject this time. "You need to get out of these walls, even if only for an hour. The weather is fine, the routes have been scouted, and we will have Nicholas and Joakim with us the entire time. You will be perfectly safe."
Elysande had, of course, opened her mouth to offer another excuse, some variation on the same tired themes she had been using for weeks, but he had cut her off before she could speak with a perfectly timed incentive she could not ignore so easily.
"Caliban misses you." She could see in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was doing playing at such a thread. "Nick says he has been restless in the stables, looking for you every time someone enters. He does not understand why you have stopped coming to see him. He thinks you have abandoned him."
The mention of Caliban was a calculated move, and they both knew it. Her gelding had quickly become one of her greatest comforts outside of her friends and husband. They had met on that very second day in Belgrave, the first ride that she and her betrothed at the time had taken. Of course, the ride had not ended pleasantly considering the then-Noah’s words, but Caliban had on the other hand been a perfect gentleman. That bond had only grown since then. With him, it was easier. Caliban did not care about politics or assassination attempts or the schemes of kings. He only cared about apples and scratches.
The thought of him waiting for her, confused by her absence and looking for her every time the stable doors opened, only to be disappointed again and again, had struck against the right nerve in her chest; the one that she could not ignore.
So Elysande had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, and allowed Noah to guide her down to the stables where Nick finished tacking up Caliban for their ride. She did not even chastise Noah for his assumptions that she would agree, for some of the crippling anxiety was already leaving her chest just from seeing her horse’s muzzle poking out the stall entrance.
Caliban looked magnificent as always, chestnut coat shining from the thorough grooming Nick had clearly given him in anticipation of her visit. His mane had been brushed until it shone, his hooves polished, and his tack cleaned and oiled until the leather was practically reflective. Nick had outdone himself, and she reminded herself that she must thank him properly later.
The gelding’s ears pricked forward when he saw her approach, swivelling toward her with a disregard for everything else in his vicinity (which had nearly sent Nick flying across the stable). Caliban let out a soft whinny of recognition, and Elysande realised then exactly how much she had missed him. Perhaps more than she had allowed herself to acknowledge, too caught up in her own fear to remember that there were still good things in her life worth holding onto.
"There is my handsome boy," she jumped in without missing a beat as she reached up to stroke his nose. Caliban leaned into her touch with a contented sigh, his breath dancing against her skin. For a moment, standing there with her horse, the weight on her shoulders felt almost bearable.
"He has been a pest in his want to see you," Nick said with a grin, glancing up from where he had returned to tightening the girth. "Every time I come in to feed him, he looks past me like he is expecting someone else. Very insulting, I must say. I thought we had something special, Caliban and I."
Elysande laughed, the sound surprising her with its genuineness. It had been so long since she had laughed like that, without it being forced to appease another. "I am sure he appreciates you in his own way."
"His own way involves biting my sleeve and refusing to let go until I produce a carrot," Nick replied dryly, giving the girth one final tug before stepping back to admire his handiwork. "He is utterly shameless about it. No dignity whatsoever. I blame his upbringing."
"The upbringing you were responsible for?" Elysande reached into her pocket to produce the apple she had brought from breakfast, keeping it hidden in her palm for the moment.
"Then I blame him being spoiled rotten by a certain princess who shall remain nameless." Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "I cannot imagine who might be responsible for teaching him that humans are simply mobile treat dispensers."
Caliban, as if sensing the presence of food and the content of the conversation, stretched his neck toward Elysande with unbridled eagerness. She laughed again and produced the apple, holding it flat on her palm as he devoured it all at once.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Ever nonchalant in such a topic, Elysande wiped her now-sticky hand on her riding clothes.
Nick snorted, pausing only momentarily to work at untangling a section of the mane he had missed. "Of course you do not. You also never tack him up yourself, do you? Always leaving it to the professionals."
"I try to!" Elysande protested, falsely flabbergasted over such an accusation. "Every time I offer, you shoo me away like I am some sort of incompetent child who cannot be trusted with a simple saddle."
"Because you are royalty, Your Highness." Nick fixed her with an expression of exaggerated patience that gave away his true affections. "Royalty does not tack up their own horses. It is unseemly. It upsets the natural order of things. Next you will be wanting to muck out your own stalls, and then where will we be?"
"You are just as bad as my husband," she accused, and Noah, who had been quietly checking the girth on his own horse nearby, let out a bark of laughter that echoed through the stable.
"I resent that comparison," he called over, leading Jolie toward them and stopping just short of the stable. The mare immediately stretched out her muzzle in Caliban’s direction to greet her friend. "I am far worse than Nick. If it were up to me you would not even have to concern yourself with lifting your hands. I would have dedicated staff for moving each limb."
"It is true," Nick confirmed with mock seriousness. "He is absolutely terrible. An utter nightmare to work for. I do not know how any of us tolerate him. The only reason I stay is because the horses deserve better than to be abandoned to his care."
"The sacrifices you make," Noah agreed with an exaggerated pat to his friend’s shoulder. "Truly, your dedication is an inspiration to us all."
The easy jesting felt good, normal in a way that so little of her life had been lately. For a moment, standing in the stables with her husband laughing nearby and her horse nuzzling at her pocket for more treats, Elysande could almost forget the shadow that had hung over her for months. She could almost pretend that she was just a woman preparing for a pleasant ride with her husband, with nothing more pressing to worry about than whether she had brought enough apples to keep the favour of her horse.
Almost.
Joakim and Nicholas entered the stables then, both dressed for riding and armed like men who had come to expect trouble even when they hoped for none. Swords hung at their hips, partially concealed by their cloaks but visible enough to anyone who knew what to look for. Their presence and subsequent armoury was a precaution that had become standard in recent weeks, one more reminder that nothing in her life was simple anymore.
"Ready when you are, Your Highness," Nicholas said with a small bow.
Elysande nodded, giving Caliban one last pat before turning to face the saddle. "Shall we, my love?" she asked the horse, reaching for the pommel to pull herself up.
The moment her hand touched the leather, Caliban jolted away.
It was so sudden and completely unexpected that Elysande was forced to catch herself from stumbling forward, her hand grasping at empty air where the saddle had been a moment before. She nearly lost her footing entirely, managing to steady herself at the last moment with an ungraceful hop.
Caliban had danced backwards several steps, hooves clattering against the floor of the stable with a staccato rhythm. His ears, which had been pricked forward in friendly alertness just moments ago, were now pinned flat against his head. His eyes had gone wide, showing the whites in a way that denoted genuine distress.
Elysande frowned, confusion replacing the momentary fear his movement had sparked. "What on earth is wrong with you?"
Slowly, she approached him again, her hand extended in the familiar gesture she had used a thousand times before. He had never shied away from her, not once in all the months she had been acquainted with him. Elysande had ridden a lot of horses in her time, and still Caliban was by far the steadiest, calm in situations that would have spooked lesser animals. He had not even startled when a pistol had been fired once when they passed the training grounds.
She reached for the saddle again, her movements slower this time to allow him a moment to figure out her intent so as not to startle him further. But, just like before, the moment her fingers brushed the leather, Caliban backed away, this time tossing his head with a curt whinny that reverberated in the space.
"Easy, boy." Nick had moved to Caliban's head, taking hold of the reins to steady him. He gave a placating pat to the side of the gelding’s neck. "Easy now. What has gotten into you?"
But Caliban was not listening to Nick any more than he was listening to Elysande. He continued to shift and dance, his body moving in constant, agitated motion, refusing to stand still long enough for anyone to approach the saddle. His snorts had taken on a higher pitch, and his ears kept swivelling back and forth as he warred between allowing them to comfort him and continuing his melodrama.
"Let me try," Elysande said, moving toward his head. She had always been able to calm him before, surely this time would be no different.
She positioned herself directly in front of him so that his view was consumed by her, reaching up with both hands to cup his face with palms resting against the clipped fur of his cheeks. His skin was clammy with sweat, she noticed, but she did not let it deter her from the gentle, calming strokes of attention she gave him.
"Hey," she murmured, pitching her voice low and soothing. "It is just me, Caliban. You know me. There is nothing to be afraid of."
She stroked his nose in patterns that had always ceased any concerns of the past, although these were usually food related. Gradually, almost reluctantly, the tension began to drain from his body. His ears were the first sign of calming as they began to relax, swivelling forward as they attuned to the sound of her voice.
"There we go," she said softly, relief washing through her. "That is better, is it not? There is nothing to be afraid of. We are just going for a ride, same as always. Just a nice, easy ride through the countryside. You like rides, remember?"
She waited another moment, making absolutely sure he was fully calm before attempting anything else. His eyes had lost that wild, panicked look, and returned to their usual soft brown. He even leaned into her touch now, whatever had spooked him seeming to have passed.
"Good boy," she murmured, pressing a kiss to his nose. "My brave, brave boy. Now, shall we try this again?"
She moved back toward the saddle for the third time, giving him every opportunity to object. When he remained still, she felt a surge of relief. Whatever had caused his earlier panic, it seemed to be over now.
Her hand closed around the pommel. Her foot lifted toward the stirrup. She prepared to pull herself up.
That was when Caliban exploded.
There was no other word for it. One moment he was standing still, apparently calm, and the next he was rearing back with a violent scream that sounded terrifyingly human in its passion. His front hooves left the ground entirely, pawing at the air as though fighting off some invisible attacker, and his whole body twisted with a force that sent Nick staggering backwards as the reins ripped through his hands.
"Caliban!" Elysande scrambled backwards, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
The gelding was beyond hearing her, and even further beyond responding to any familiar voice. He was in the grip of terror stronger than her influence, some innate animal instinct that had overridden every bit of training he had ever received. His hooves struck the ground with a rattling force that vibrated the stone beneath them, and the panicked whinnies that left his snout were more like cries.
Nick was trying to grab the reins, but Caliban was moving too erratically, thrashing in unpredictable patterns that made any approach wholly dangerous. One of his hooves caught a water bucket, sending it flying across the stable and startling the other horses into their own chorus of nervous huffs.
Noah was at Elysande's side in an instant, his hand closing around her arm and pulling her back from the chaos. "Stay back," he ordered, his voice tight with concern. "Until we know what is wrong with him–"
Nicholas hummed knowingly, already moving toward the thrashing horse with the enthusiasm of a man who could recognise signs of danger when he saw them. "Something has spooked him."
Noah released Elysande and moved around Caliban's side, approaching from the opposite direction. "Nick, can you get hold of his head? If we can keep him still for just a moment–"
"I am trying!" Nick had managed to grab one of the trailing reins, but Caliban's incessant flailing made it nearly impossible to get a proper grip. "He will not–I cannot–"
Noah reached for the saddle, perhaps intending to steady it, perhaps trying to find whatever had upset the horse so badly.
Caliban knocked into him with the full force of his considerable weight.
Noah stumbled backwards, somehow managing to keep to his feet despite the force exerted on him, and Caliban slammed sideways into the wooden wall of his stall. The impact was enormous, the entire scaffolding seeming to rattle under impact. The sound was accompanied by a loud snap, not of wood or of bone, but of something fabric.
Then, the stirrup on the near side of the saddle simply fell away.
It clattered to the ground with a deafening clang as the metal collided with stone first, bouncing once against the ground before rolling to land in a pool of water from the overturned bucket. Everyone froze, including Caliban, who had suddenly gone still as though the breaking of the stirrup had released him from whatever compulsion had propelled his panic.
The gelding stood there as he had before, sides heaving with exertion and coat dark with sweat. But the wild terror in his eyes had faded as his ears swivelled forward again, and he turned his head to look at Elysande with an expression that seemed to say see. As if asking whether she finally saw what he had been trying to tell her.
"What in the–" Nick bent down to retrieve the fallen stirrup, his brow furrowed in confusion. He turned it over in his hands, examining the leather strap that should have held it securely to the saddle, and Elysande watched as his expression shifted from confusion to something much, much more concerned. "Nicholas…" All the easy humour from earlier had vanished entirely, replaced by this strange mix of fear and uncertainty.
Nicholas took the hint and crossed to him in two quick strides, taking the stirrup from Nick's outstretched hands. He examined it closely, using every inch of attention to determine exactly what he was looking at.
Elysande knew the outcome before he opened his mouth.
"This was tampered with," Nicholas held the stirrup up in the air for everyone to see. "The leather has been cut almost all the way through in multiple places, then stitched back together to hide the damage. The work is rushed, yes, but it would have been invisible to anyone who was not looking for it. It would have held for mounting, perhaps even for the first few minutes of riding. But the moment any real stress was applied; a jump, a sudden turn, even a brisk canter..."
Nicholas did not need to finish that sentence for the implications were more than clear. A fall from horseback at speed could be fatal, or at the very least severely injurious. Broken bones, crushed ribs, a skull cracked against a rock. And with a stirrup designed to fail at the worst possible moment, there would have been no way to catch herself or control the descent. Elysande would have hit the ground hard, unable to break her fall, and the horse, spooked by her sudden tumble from his back, might well have trampled her in his panic.
It was exactly what they had been caught discussing that night. A tragic incident. Perhaps a fall from her horse? She does enjoy riding, I understand. Such a dangerous hobby for a young princess. And they were correct, it would have looked like an accident. The kind of accident that happened sometimes with animals no matter how well-trained they were. No one would have suspected foul play, and no one would have known that someone had crept into the stables and methodically sabotaged her saddle, turning her beloved horse into an unwitting instrument of her death.
If not for Caliban.
Elysande turned to look at her horse, who was standing quietly now, as the realisation of exactly what had happened washed over her. The poor creature looked exhausted, entirely wrung out from the effort of his hysterical warning, but his eyes almost seemed to be refusing to leave her. "He would not let me mount because he knew something was wrong with the saddle…"
"He was warning you," Nicholas confirmed, and there was wonder in his voice now, obviously still mixed with the fury that had been there since he had examined the stirrup. "He must have seen the assailant sneak in and tamper with his tack."
Elysande moved toward Caliban faster than she had ever moved in her life. He raised his head as she approached, those same intelligent eyes still so diligently fixed on her, and when she threw her arms around his neck, he stood perfectly still, allowing the embrace as though he understood exactly what it meant.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you. You wonderful, brave, clever, impossible horse.” She kissed the fur that lined his neck fervently, and Caliban pushed his head into the touch until he could nose at her in his own reassuring way. He seemed to wrap himself around her body in a return of the hug, telling her something; she was certain of it.
The others had gathered around now, their faces a mixture of horror and outrage and uncontrolled awe. Nick was patting Caliban's flank with a newfound force of respect, his earlier teasing completely forgotten.
"Good boy," Nick said quietly, his hand stroking down Caliban's side with genuine reverence. "Very, very good boy. You are getting all the apples you could ever want from now on. Every single day, as many as you can eat. I promise you that."
"We need to investigate," Nicholas, ever the pragmatist, spoke up, his voice tight with an anger that Elysande had rarely heard from someone so composed. "Someone accessed this stable and tampered with this saddle. It cannot have been long ago, or the damage would have been noticed during grooming. There will be a trail, there must be."
Joakim nodded along, the two of them falling into conspiracy with a terrifying ease that gave away how much of their lives had been consumed by this recently. "I will question the stable hands. Someone must have seen something, or know who was in here last night or this morning. If anyone is hiding information–"
"They will not hide it for long," Nicholas finished grimly. "Not when they understand what is at stake."
They were already making plans, already moving into action, their minds focused on investigation and retribution and the endless work of keeping her safe. Elysande heard their words as though from a great distance, their voices fading in and out but she could not bear to hone in any further.
With great effort, she stepped back from Caliban, one hand coming up to rest against her forehead. The stable seemed to tilt around her, the edges of her vision going fuzzy in a way that she distantly recognised as concerning? Or at least, not normal. She could feel her heart vibrating through her fingertips, and there was a strange ringing in her ears that had not been there a moment ago.
"I cannot do this anymore." The words did not sound like they were coming from her throat, but the sudden silence of the men around her told that they must be. "The fear. The constant looking over my shoulder. The knowledge that someone is always trying to–" She broke off, pressing her hand harder against her forehead as though she could physically hold herself together. “This will not end until either he or I are dead and I cannot…”
Noah was at her side instantly as she trailed off. "Breathe," he soothed, worry evident in his eyes although he did his best to not allow it to seep into his voice. "You are safe, Caliban made certain of that. You are alive."
"This time, yes." Even despite all of her past worries, Elysande had never been so brash. Each and every time Noah had been doubting her safety, she had been the one quick to remind him that she would get through it. But she was not certain she could continue that pretense any longer. "Nothing happened this time. But what about next time? And the time after that? How many more attempts will there be before one of them finally succeeds? How many more people will be hurt protecting me?"
Noah could sense her growing panic, the way her voice began to waver in distress, and his hand had found her waist in an instant. It was funny really, the way they had swapped roles so suddenly in terms of belief in survival. Or at least it would have been, had Elysande been able to focus on much else other than the ringing in her ears and the blurring of her vision. "We will find a way. The coronation is less than two months away. We just have to survive until then, and once I am king and Florian no longer has the power of the crown behind him–"
Elysande did not hear the rest of his sentence.
The world tilted sideways without warning, the ground rushing up to meet her as her legs very simply stopped working beneath her. She was aware of movement around her, voices raised in sudden alarm, of someone shouting her name with a panic that seemed out of proportion to what was happening. She tried to speak, tried to tell them she was fine, that she just needed a moment to collect herself, that there was no need for such concern.
The words would not come. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged.
Strong arms caught her before she could hit the stable floor, gathering her against a body. She could hear her name being called, fierce and frightened, but the sound was distorted as though coming from a great distance or through deep water.
Elysande tried desperately to open her eyes, willing her body to cooperate, but the darkness at the edges of her vision was creeping inward with inexorable patience.
The last thing she registered before consciousness slipped away entirely was Noah's voice, fuelled by terror, calling for help.
Then there was nothing at all.
–
When Elysande came to again, it was to the familiar setting of her bed, but the unfamiliarity of too many people in her space.
She blinked slowly, her mind sluggish and uncooperative as it tried to piece together how she had gotten here. The last thing she remembered was the stable and then... nothing. A vast, empty nothing that stretched from the moment her legs had given out to this moment, lying in her own bed with afternoon light streaming through the windows and what appeared to be half the palace crowded into her chambers. She was in her own bed, in her own chambers, surrounded by her own things. That much was certain.
Everything else was considerably less clear, her vision and mind alike still a tad hazy.
Noah was there, of course, seated in a chair pulled so close to the bedside that his knees were practically touching the mattress. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, purple smudges that spoke of hours spent awake and anxious, and his hair was dishevelled in a way that suggested he had been running his hands through it repeatedly. How long ago had she collapsed? Hours? Days? She could not tell from looking at him, could not gauge the passage of time from the evidence of his exhaustion.
Nicholas stood near the fireplace, arms crossed over his chest and his features as similarly taut as her husband’s. Every few moments his gaze would flick toward the bed before returning to whatever middle distance he had been contemplating.
Joakim had positioned himself by the door with his regular vigilance, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword in a gesture that had become so habitual Elysande doubted he even noticed it anymore. Even he looked more tense than usual, which was saying something for a man whose default state seemed to be stress.
Eliza hovered near the foot of the bed, her hands twisted together in front of her in that nervous gesture she employed when she was trying not to cry, as she so often had recently. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, suggesting she had already lost that battle at least once, and her lower lip trembled slightly even as she tried to keep a semblance of calm.
There was also a man Elysande did not immediately recognise, an older gentleman with grey hair that had receded rather significantly from his forehead but kind eyes that did not match so many others in the palace. He was currently bent over a leather bag, arranging various instruments and bottles that clinked softly against each other as he sorted through them. He must be a physician, she thought vaguely as her mind returned to reality. How many royal physicians were there, she wondered, that there were still men among them that she did not recognise? Until now, apparently, his particular services had not been required for her personally.
"Your Highness!" Eliza's realisation that she was awake was punctuated by a high pitched half shriek, half gasp. That was all it took to disrupt the fragile stillness in the air as everyone moved at once.
Noah was on his feet instantly, not that he could get much closer to her, the chair scraping back against the floor as he ditched it in his urgency. It took less than a second for his hand to find hers where it rested against the covers. "Thank the gods. How do you feel? Are you in pain? Do you need anything? Water? Food? Should I send for more pillows? The physician said you might be disoriented when you woke, that we should not overwhelm you with too many questions, but I need to know that you are alright, I need to hear you say–"
"Noah." Her voice came out rough and scratchy as though she had not used it in some time. She tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as the room spun alarmingly around her, sending her straight back down against the pillows. Noah was there in an instant of course, helping her adjust the cushions behind her head until she was propped up enough to look at him without turning her head too much. "I am... I think I am alright. Just confused… What happened? How did I get here?"
"You collapsed in the stables," Noah explained immediately. The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other as he hustled to explain. Her sudden pallour had clearly caused him a great deal of concern, for he was practically thrumming with anxiety. "You just... you went down without warning. One moment you were standing there, talking about the fear and how you could not take it anymore, and the next your eyes rolled back and your legs gave out. I barely caught you before you hit the ground. We brought you back here immediately and sent for the physician. That was nearly five hours ago. You have been unconscious ever since."
That was a startling realisation, that she had lost five hours to that empty darkness. During which Noah, ever attentive, had clearly been sitting by her bedside, watching her breathe and waiting for her to wake up. It was not the greatest deal of time, sure, but it was enough that she ached on behalf of his concern.
The memories came back slowly, fragmented but present. The tampered stirrup, the leather cut almost through and then crudely stitched back together. Caliban's frantic warning, his refusal to let her mount, his desperate movement that had seemed like madness until it became clear he was trying to save her life. The overwhelming fear that had crashed over her as she realised just how close she had come to death yet again. Another attempt. Another near miss. Another reminder that Florian would never stop trying to kill her until the deed was well and truly done.
It was evident why the darkness had claimed her.
"I am sorry," her free hand came up to rub at her eyes. They were dry and sore, perhaps from hours of unexpected lack of use. "I did not mean to frighten everyone. I just felt so overwhelmed, and then everything went dark, and I could not..."
"You have nothing to apologise for." It was Nicholas who spoke from his position by the fireplace, staring her down as if willing her to believe his comfort.
Noah lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss against the back of it as he added his own dismissal of her apology. "You have been under impossible strain for months. The fear, the assassination attempts, Margaret's poisoning, and now this business with the saddle... it is a wonder you did not collapse sooner.”
“If anything, we should be apologising to you for not noticing how close you were to breaking." Joakim huffed out, perhaps an attempt at playfulness laced deeply below layers of concern.
The physician cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention away from the bedside reunion. He had finished arranging his instruments and was now approaching the bed with the calm demeanor of a man who had dealt with royal patients before and knew how to navigate the delicate politics involved. His bag remained open on the table nearby, its contents neatly organised and ready for use.
"If I may, Your Highnesses," he said, inclining his head respectfully toward both of them. "I should like to examine the Princess more thoroughly, now that she is conscious. The fainting spell was concerning, and I wish to determine its cause and ensure there are no underlying conditions that require immediate treatment."
Noah hesitated, his hand still wrapped around Elysande's as though he had forgotten how to let go. His eyes moved from the physician to Elysande and back again, clearly torn between his desperate need to stay by her side and his understanding that the physician needed space to work if he wanted answers he so desperately craved.
Nicholas crossed the room to place a hand on his friend’s shoulder. "Let him do his work," he offered quietly. "The sooner we know what caused this, the sooner we can address it. Standing here hovering will not help anyone, least of all your wife."
For a moment, Elysande thought Noah might refuse. His grip on her hand flexed for just a moment, and she could see the internal battle playing out across features she had come to know so well. The desire to protect, to stay close, to never let her out of his sight again was warring with the rational understanding that he was being unreasonable.
Finally, and incredibly reluctantly, he nodded. He leaned down to press the briefest of kisses to her lips before he forced himself to pull away.
The physician stepped forward.
What followed was perhaps the most thorough medical examination Elysande had ever endured in her life.
He was professional throughout, like one would expect in such a role, and Elysande was grateful for how he explained each step before he took it. He checked her pulse, pressing his fingers against the inside of her wrist and counting silently with his eyes fixed on a small pocket watch. He examined her eyes, tilting her head toward the light from the window and peering at them with his tongue stuck slightly between his teeth in an expression that under better circumstances may have made her laugh. He listened to her breathing, pressing his ear against her chest and back in turn, asking her to inhale and exhale on command.
Throughout it all, he maintained a respectful demeanour that did something to ease her discomfort. He was careful to warn her before touching her, to explain what he was looking for and why, and in a way many physicians she had encountered before had not, he managed to treat her as a person rather than simply a body to be examined. It helped, somewhat.
But there was no escaping the fundamental awkwardness of the situation. She was lying in bed in nothing but her nightgown (likely put on her by Eliza, or Noah, or a combination of the two), the covers pulled up to her chest in a useless attempt at modesty, while a man she barely knew poked and prodded at her body. And all the while, her husband and several other people stood awkwardly around the room, trying to pretend they were not present while being very obviously present indeed.
Noah had positioned himself near the window, his back turned to give her some semblance of privacy, but there was still an undeniable strain in his body. Every few moments, he would shift his weight from one foot to the other, as though he was having to physically restrain himself from turning around and intervening. When Elysande let out a small grunt upon a pressure being applied to her chest, she did not miss the small turn of her husband’s head in her direction.
Nicholas and Joakim had done the same, facing the walls as they attempted to feign a casualness they clearly did not feel. Nicholas had found a spot near the fireplace where he could examine the mantelpiece with apparent fascination, while Joakim had turned his attention to the door frame, inspecting it as though checking for structural defects that could have appeared overnight.
Only Eliza remained close, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding Elysande's hand as the physician continued his examination. Her grip was warm and steady, a silent anchor in the sea of awkwardness. She had spent far too much time at bedsides recently, and Elysande made a mental note to command the maiden to take a day off in the coming weeks.
The physician asked a few questions then; nausea, dizziness, appetite, all things synonymous with multiple illnesses he was surely trying to rule out. He hummed with each answer she gave, some of which prompted an onslaught of more questions that she forced herself to answer honestly instead of dismissing. It was the first time she had spoken some of these outloud, and Noah’s head was on a swivel by the end of it.
The old man made one final note, then set down his journal with a sudden compassionate expression on his face. There was still that clinical detachment, of course, but he seemed to have reached some conclusion in his head.
"I see," he said simply. "I should like to conduct one final examination, Your Highness, if you will permit it. It will be somewhat... intrusive, I am afraid, but it is necessary to confirm my suspicions."
Elysande's cheeks flushed with heat as she understood what he was asking. She glanced toward the window where Noah stood with his back turned, toward the walls where Nicholas and Joakim were still pretending to be fascinated by architecture, and felt her embarrassment compound exponentially.
"Is it truly necessary?" she asked, her voice small to give the illusion of privacy.
"I would not ask if it were not," the physician replied just as quietly as she had spoken her own question. "I would like to be certain before I deliver my diagnosis. I would hate to give false hope, or false alarm, based on incomplete information."
Eliza squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I will be right here," she whispered.
Elysande took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Very well. Do what you must."
What followed was the most uncomfortable few minutes of her entire life.
The physician was as gentle as he could be, his touch impersonal in a way that should have made it easier but somehow did not. He explained what he was doing in low, professional tones, words not quite meeting her ears as she took sudden interest in the canopy above her bed that she had studied a thousand times. She tried to think of anything at all besides the current situation, which proved difficult considering the manner of the investigation.
She thought about Aethelgard, about the gardens where she had played as a child and the sound of her mother's laughter echoing through marble halls. She thought about the first time she had met Joakim, which ended in him taking a face full of sand. She thought about Noah and the way he looked at her when he thought she was not watching, about the feeling of his arms around her in the darkness of their shared bed.
She thought about anything and everything except what was happening right now.
And then, mercifully, it was over.
The physician withdrew, moving to the basin of water that Eliza had prepared earlier and washing his hands thoroughly. He dried them on a clean cloth, then returned to his journal, making several more notes with that same precise handwriting.
The silence in the room was deafening. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for the verdict, waiting to learn what had caused the Crown Princess to collapse in the stables and whether it was something to fear.
Noah had turned back around at some point, apparently unable to maintain his pretense of disinterest any longer. Elysande only hoped it had been later rather than sooner.
"Well?" he demanded when the physician did not immediately speak, his patience clearly worn through entirely by now. "What is wrong with her? Why did she collapse? Is she ill? Is there treatment? Tell me something, for gods' sake, do not just stand there making notes while my wife lies in that bed suffering."
The physician finished his notes, taking his time in a way that made Elysande want to scream despite her exhaustion. Finally, he snapped his journal closed, setting it down on his bag as he turned to face them. "I can assure you that Her Royal Highness will be quite alright."
That explanation was clearly not acceptable for Noah, who opened and closed his hands in fists at his side until he managed to force the words out. "Then what is wrong with her? 'Quite alright' does not exactly explain her sudden collapse, and I do not appreciate such a dismissal. If my wife is unwell—"
"Your Highness." The physician held up a placating hand, and by some mercy Noah quietened in his protests. Perhaps it was the strange smile on the physician's face that forced him to mellow out. "The Princess is not unwell in a traditional sense. She is with child."
At those four words, everything fell still. Even the dust mites suspended in the afternoon light seemed to freeze in place as time itself seemed to hold its breath.
Elysande heard the words, processed them, and still could not quite make sense of what they meant. The phrase echoed in her mind, bouncing off the borders of her consciousness without finding purchase or settling into meaning.
With child. A baby. There was a baby. She was with child.
"I beg your pardon?" Noah's voice came out just as strangled as Elysande’s probably would have, barely recognisable as his own.
"Her Highness is expecting a babe." The physician spoke slowly, enunciating each word as though addressing people who might have difficulty understanding simple language. Which, to be fair, they apparently did. "All of her symptoms align with such a diagnosis. The nausea, particularly in the mornings and when confronted with certain strong smells. The fatigue that seems disproportionate to her activities. Sensitivity to certain foods, the cessation of her monthly cycle." He waved a hand in the air as he listed, seeming almost surprised no one had come to such a conclusion before himself. "The physical examination only served to confirm my suspicions. There is no doubt in my mind."
Noah said nothing. He simply stood there, frozen in place, his face utterly blank in a way that would have been comical under any other circumstances. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, but no sound emerged.
Elysande was not faring much better. Her brain had turned to mush, the ringing sensation back but for entirely different reasons now.
All this time, when she had been attributing her symptoms to stress, to fear, to the constant strain of living under threat of assassination...
It was Nicholas who finally broke the silence, his voice cutting through the stunned quiet purely because someone needed to speak. He stepped forward, his movements slightly jerky, lacking their usual fluid grace.
"And you are certain?" he asked, and there was an urgency in his tone that bordered on desperate. "Absolutely, irrevocably certain that she is with child? There can be no mistake, no possibility that you have misread the signs?"
The physician did not flinch under the scrutiny. He met Nicholas's gaze steadily, unshaken by the emotion his diagnosis had caused. If anything, he seemed to stand a little taller, a little straighter, secure in the knowledge he was about to impart. "I would swear my licence on it."
Those words seemed to break whatever spell had held everyone frozen in place.
Eliza burst into tears, happy ones this time, her face crumpling with an emotion too large to contain within the confines of normal expression. She released Elysande's hand only to cover her own mouth, trying and failing to stifle the sobs that were escaping despite her best efforts. Her whole body shook with the force of her crying, tears streaming down her cheeks in rivers that she made no attempt to stem.
Joakim moved toward her almost instinctively, his arm coming around her shoulders, pulling her against his side in a gesture of comfort that seemed automatic. Eliza only turned into him, burying her face against his chest, and he held her there with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his warrior's frame. He seemed similarly taken aback as he stared at Elysande through watery eyes.
Nicholas let out a breath he appeared to have been holding for quite some time, his shoulders sagging with what looked almost like relief. His hand came up to cover his eyes, pressing against them as though trying to hold something in or push something back, and Elysande could have sworn she saw his lips move in what might have been a prayer of thanks. When he lowered his hand, his eyes were suspiciously bright.
And Noah...
Noah moved toward the bed slowly at first, his steps hesitant and uncertain, as though he was not entirely sure his legs would support him through the journey. His eyes were fixed on Elysande's face, filled with a sentiment so plain and overwhelming that she thought he might crumple on the spot.
He stopped at the edge of the bed, his hand reaching out to touch her face, her hair, her shoulder, as though confirming she was real, that this was real, that he had not somehow slipped into a dream from which he would soon wake.
He tried to speak, a few fragmented, disjointed words slipping past his lips, but he could not seem to form the sentence. The words kept getting stuck somewhere between his heart and his mouth, too large and too momentous to squeeze through the narrow channel of speech.
It did not matter, because in the next moment he was moving again, faster now, the hesitation abandoned as something deeper took over. He practically threw himself onto the bed beside her, gathering her into his arms with little care for propriety. He pulled her against his chest as though he could protect her from the entire world simply by holding her close enough.
"A baby," he whispered against her hair, his voice thick with tears he was no longer trying to hide. She could feel the dampness of them against her scalp and the way his whole body shook with the force of feelings too powerful to contain. "We are having a baby. Elysande, we are... there is going to be..."
Elysande could only wrap her arms around him in return, holding on as tightly as she could as her own tears started to fall now, streaming down her cheeks and soaking into his shirt. It felt like a lifeline, a reminder of strength. After everything they had been through, the fear and the danger and the constant threat of death, life had found a way to assert itself. It had clearly been asserting itself all along, quietly growing in the darkness while they fought their battles and nursed their wounds and she dismissed all her symptoms as stress specific.
"I love you," Noah was saying somewhere in the emotional chaos, the words tumbling out in a rush between gasping breaths. "I love you so much. I cannot believe... we are going to…"
"I love you too." Elysande’s voice came out watery as the realisation settled in, similarly overwhelmed and unable to speak. It was muffled, too, against his shoulder where she had pressed her face. "I love you too. I cannot... I did not know. I thought it was just stress, I thought the nausea was fear, I thought..."
"It does not matter." Noah pulled back just enough to look at her face, but he could not bear to let her go entirely. His hands came up to frame her cheeks with a gentle swiping motion, brushing away the moisture that had gathered there (though more tears immediately replaced what he had cleared). His own eyes were bright red, his face blotchy with emotion, and Elysande was momentarily caught off guard by how he had never looked more beautiful to her than he did in this moment. "None of that matters. All that matters is this. You, and me, and..."
He broke off, his gaze dropping to her flat stomach with pure wonder.
"And our baby," he finished, his voice cracking again on the final word.
Elysande laughed, the sound damp and minorly hysterical, before she was pulling him back into her arms, unable to stay separated for much longer. Noah came willingly, burying his face against her neck, and they held each other as the reality of what they had just learnt gradually began to sink in.
Around them, the others were beginning to recover from their own shock. Eliza was still crying, but she was smiling now too, her face alight with a bright joy that she had never before had reason to express. Even Nicholas looked moved as he watched the Crown Prince and Princess cling to each other.
As for Joakim, well. Elysande could not bring herself to look at him. The two of them had been together for so long that she knew that below the militant exterior was a teddy bear of overwhelming emotion. They loved each other dearly, and she was certain that adoration would be evident on his face right now. If Elysande had met his eye, she feared she would never recover.
The physician left with a tender congratulations before Noah finally released her, though he kept hold of her hand as he turned to face the others. His face was still wet with tears, but there was a new determination in his eyes now, a fierce protectiveness that had crept up on him somewhere between the shock and wonder.
"No one outside this room is to know," he commanded easily. "Not until we decide how and when to make the announcement. The fewer people who know, the safer both Elysande and the child will be."
Nicholas nodded immediately, already clicking back into professionalism. "Agreed. We will need to adjust our security protocols and ensure that the Princess is protected at all times. Additional guards, food tasters, someone to check her chambers before she enters them each night. If Florian learns of this before we are ready..."
He did not need to finish the sentence. They all knew what would happen if Florian learned that Elysande was carrying the heir to the throne. His attempts on her life would intensify tenfold, a hundredfold, driven by the knowledge that killing her now would mean eliminating not just a troublesome daughter-in-law but also the grandchild who would one day threaten his legacy.
Two birds with one stone.
But Elysande could not bring herself to think about that now, not when her heart felt so light. That would be a problem for tomorrow’s reality. For now, she allowed herself to bask in happiness for once.
Nicholas cleared his throat after a moment, the sound cutting gently through the emotion that had engulfed the space. When Elysande looked toward him, she found that he had composed himself admirably, though the slight wateriness around his eyes betrayed just how affected he had been by the news no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
"We should let you rest," he said, his voice carrying that familiar tone of practicality that she had come to associate with him. "You have had quite the ordeal today. There will be time enough tomorrow to discuss what comes next."
Noah seemed to sense the mentioned fatigue, his hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from her face with infinite tenderness. "He is right," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You need to sleep. Both of you do."
Elysande gasped at that, another new shock of emotion hitting her.
Nicholas took that as his moment, offering them both a small bow of formality despite the intimacy of what they had all just shared. "Your Highnesses. I will begin making the necessary arrangements first thing in the morning. For now, try to get some rest." He paused at the door, glancing back for just long enough to give them a genuine smile. "Congratulations. Truly."
Eliza followed a moment later, though not before crossing to the bed and pressing a fierce, slightly damp kiss to Elysande's cheek. "I am so happy for you," she whispered, her voice still thick with tears. "So, so happy. You deserve this. Both of you."
Before Elysande could respond, the young handmaiden had straightened and hurried toward the door, clearly trying to escape before she dissolved into tears again. The door clicked shut behind her, and then there were only three of them left in the room.
Noah. Elysande. And Joakim, who had not moved from his position near the bed where he had been holding Eliza moments ago.
He stood there in silence, his hand no longer resting on his sword as if all sense of duty had left him in one sudden exhale. His head was bowed against his chest, and when Elysande looked more closely, she could see the faint tremor that ran through his frame.
She called his name somewhere between her own shaky breathing, but he did not respond immediately. For a long moment, he simply stood there. Then, slowly, he raised his head, and she finally allowed herself to properly look at his face.
Joakim did not give her much time to assess his appearance as he moved then, crossing to the side of the bed in unsteady strides. When he reached her side, he did not stop at the usual respectful distance, but instead sank to his knees beside her, his head bowing until his forehead nearly touched the mattress.
"Forgive me," he managed to mumble into the silk of the bedsheets. "I cannot..."
He could not finish the sentence. His shoulders shook with silent sobs, and Elysande felt her own eyes filling with tears all over again at the sight of him so undone.
She clambered out of Noah’s hold without thinking, her hand finding Joakim’s hair and stroking gently, the way one might comfort a distressed child. It was not the proper way for a princess to interact with her guard, but what was proper had long since ceased to matter between them. They were family, the two of them. They had been family since long before she had ever set foot in Belgrave.
"There is nothing to forgive," she said softly. "Nothing at all."
Joakim raised his head at her touch, and the look on his face threatened to break her entirely. There was so much there, so many emotions layered one atop another that she could barely begin to untangle them. Joy and relief and love and grief, all swirled together into something that defied simple description.
"I have watched over you since you were a child," he said, his voice rough and unsteady. "I have protected you through everything. Every scraped knee, every broken heart, every nightmare that woke you in the darkness. I have been there for all of it, and I thought..." He had to stop to swallow hard against the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. "I thought that was what it meant to love someone. To protect them, to keep them safe, to stand between them and anything that might cause them harm."
Elysande said nothing, simply continued to stroke his hair, giving him the space to find his words.
"But this," Joakim continued, and fresh tears spilled down his cheeks. "This is something I cannot protect you from. This is something you must do yourself. And I find that I am..." He broke off again, shaking his head as though trying to dislodge the emotion that had taken root there. "I am so proud of you. So proud of the woman you have become, the wife, the princess, and now.... Now you are going to be a mother, and I cannot..."
He could not continue. The sobs overtook him entirely, his whole body shaking with the force of them. Elysande found herself crying too.
She took a deep breath, the kind that you feel dragging up from the depths of your lungs as she tapped his chin to make him look at her once more. "This child will have so many people who love them. Noah and I, of course. Margaret and Eliza. Nicholas, in his own way." Elysande smiled through her tears. "But you, Joakim. You will be special. You will be the one who teaches them to ride, who tells them stories of Aethelgard, who stands guard outside their nursery door and keeps the nightmares at bay." Her voice broke on the last words. "Just as you did for me."
Joakim lost whatever was left of his restraint, and he surged forward to wrap his arms around her in a fierce embrace. Elysande held him just as tightly in return, burying her face against his shoulder and feeling the sobs that wracked his body as he clung to her like she was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly shifted beneath his feet.
"Thank you," he whispered against her hair. "Thank you for letting me be part of your life. Thank you for trusting me with this. Thank you for..." He could not finish, but he did not need to. She understood.
They stayed like that for a long moment, princess and guard, bound together by something far stronger than duty or obligation. When they finally pulled apart, both of their faces were wet with tears, but they were smiling too, stretched widely across their faces until they could not smile further.
"Now," Joakim said, straightening up and making a valiant attempt to compose himself. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, a small sniffle to stifle the last of the overwhelm. "You need to rest. Physician's orders."
"Yes, sir," she replied, and the teasing lilt in her voice made him huff out something that might have been a laugh if it were not still so tangled up with tears.
He rose to his feet, unsteady but determined, and took a step back from the bed.
"I will be outside," he said, and his voice was still rough but steadier now, finding its way back to something resembling normal. "If you need anything. Anything at all."
"I know," Elysande said softly. "You always are."
Joakim held her eyes for one more moment, something vast and wordless passing between them, and then he turned and walked toward the door. Then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him, and Elysande was left with Noah's arms around her and tears streaming down her face and a heart so full she thought it might burst.
"He loves you very much," Noah murmured against her hair.
"I know," she whispered back. "I love him too."
They sat there in the approaching darkness, husband and wife, soon to be father and mother, holding each other as the significance of the day finally began to settle. Outside the door, Elysande knew Joakim would be taking up his position protecting her from the dangers of the world.
But now he was protecting something more; something precious and new and terrifying and wonderful all at once.
He was protecting her family.
a/n: i would say plot twist but 80% of you guessed already so we all knew that was coming.
OKAY to be real. i very much debated the whole baby thing for a loooooong time. like a hellishly long time because i know it can be polarising for some people and i really didn’t want to isolate any readers. so i hope you don’t mind i chose to go for it! i just feel its quite intrinsic to the story and the setting, considering its a royal au in a period sort of setting, they would be expected to have heirs you know? and also it does feel right for their characters. so yeah… i hope no one minds too much and im sorry if thats not your scene!
anyways. hope everyone is happy i didn’t kill margaret and i need you to know it was a LONG debate in my mind but i chose to be nice because i love her and couldn’t imagine my life without her xxxx
we only have three more chapters to go my dudes :( one of which is the epilogue (but will be a big one i promise). i kinda can’t believe this story that brought me to this side of the internet is coming to an end??? and im so grateful for all of you for sticking with it for so long! it means so much that everyone loves it as much as i do, and i hope i can continue to put things out on this blog that people enjoy! so if you are still here, thank you from the bottom of my heart <3
song for this chapter is ‘as the world falls down’ by david bowie ^_^
Summary: It’s no secret to the Straw Hat crew that you and Zoro can’t stand each other. Between the constant bickering, the sharp insults, and the way you both seem to breathe fire whenever you’re in the same room, it’s a wonder the Going Merry hasn't split in half yet. But is all that mutual irritation just a mask for something darker?
While navigating the prehistoric heat of Little Garden, Zoro falls victim to Miss Goldenweek’s Colors Trap, and the "Crimson of Hidden Truth" rips his emotional armor to shreds. The formidable swordsman can face a T-Rex without blinking, but he’s a total coward when it comes to his own feelings. It turns out, when he’s not "sober" from the spell, Zoro has a lot to say about your mouth, your scent, and exactly why he’s been losing sleep lately.
But what happens when the paint smudges and the pride comes rushing back?
a/n: please be kind, this is my first time actually publishing anything! i’ve been in love with zoro for so long that i’ve honestly lost count lol. i have plans to continue this if you guys want more. enjoy! <3
The heat in Little Garden was almost palpable, a thick, humid blanket that made your clothes cling to your skin, turning the air heavy and making every breath a chore. The prehistoric jungle around you was an imposing green labyrinth, alive with bestial roars and flora large enough to swallow the Going Merry whole.
For you, however, the island's oppressive climate was the least of your worries. Your biggest problem was currently walking three steps ahead of you with three swords at his hip and heading in the exact opposite direction you were supposed to go.
"Zoro, you absolute idiot, you have the directional sense of a brick wall! We need to go right, we literally just came from that way!" you snapped, crushing a giant leaf beneath your boot with way more force than necessary.
Zoro stopped, turning around slowly. His eyes were half-lidded in that expression of pure, unadulterated boredom and annoyance he reserved exclusively for you (and Sanji).
"If you know the way so well, why didn't you lead, you brat?" he shot back, his deep voice cutting through the buzzing of giant insects. "Besides, right is that way." He pointed with utter confidence toward what you knew for a fact was true north, straight into a bubbling swamp.
You massaged your temples. Ever since you’d joined the Straw Hats, right around the same time as Sanji, the dynamic on the ship had shifted. While the cook treated you with chivalry and exquisite sweets, Zoro seemed to have made it his life's mission to get under your skin. You existed in a constant state of sparks and barbed remarks. If you said white, Zoro said black. If you needed silence, he decided to train with ton-heavy weights right next to you. It was exhausting, frustrating, and in some twisted way you’d never admit out loud it kept you on your toes.
The crew had split up. Luffy and Usopp had run off to explore; Sanji, Nami, and Vivi had stayed behind or gotten lost on another route. And you, by some terrible stroke of luck, were tasked with making sure their main fighter didn’t end up in a dinosaur’s stomach just because he took a wrong turn at a tree.
"I didn't lead because someone has to make sure our main combatant doesn't drown in a puddle of scalding mud!" you fired back, closing the distance between you two and stopping mere inches from his chest.
Zoro glared down at you, jaw tight, unable to hold back his own sharp words.
"My swords take perfectly good care of me. I don't need a babysitter. Especially not you."
"Fine! Then go right ahead, Marimo! Go hug a T-Rex!"
You both kept walking, the silence heavy with an electric tension that seemed to draw the giant mosquitoes right to you. What neither of you noticed, caught in the middle of your private storm of insults, was the small figure watching you from a thick branch above.
Miss Goldenweek sipped her green tea, her apathetic eyes tracking the argument below. She wasn't particularly interested in fighting, but Baroque Works' orders were clear. That swordsman was a target, and you were a nuisance. With a bored yawn, she picked up her paintbrush.
She didn't want to use the Black of Betrayal, nor the Yellow of Joy. She looked at how you two interacted. The anger. The excessive proximity when you yelled at each other. She smiled faintly.
Colors Trap: Crimson of Hidden Truth.
Moving with an eerie, total silence, she slipped down from her perch and weaved through the trees. Zoro snapped his head to the side, thinking he’d caught a glimpse of black in his periphery and heard the rustle of leaves caused by neither him nor you. Seeing him look back and forth, you couldn't care less, far too focused on letting out the irritation bubbling in your chest. Maybe, if you stayed quiet for too long around him, you'd realize you didn't actually hate him that much; so, talking and throwing insults felt safer.
"What is it now? Did you lose your common sense somewhere in the bushes?"
Zoro scoffed in disbelief.
"Are you seriously telling me you didn't hear that, or notice anything weird? No wonder you're such a terrible listener."
Miss Goldenweek took advantage of the bickering and snuck past, leaving a spiral mark on the swordsman's skin. Right on the back of his muscular right arm, where he wouldn't be able to see it. Distracted by your own rant (words Zoro would usually deflect with double the effort) you completely missed the change that took place in a matter of seconds.
Zoro stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence about how your voice was worse than the sound of rusting blades.
"Zoro?" You stopped a few steps ahead, turning around. "What? Did the dinosaur finally get your tongue?"
He didn't answer right away. His back was to you, his broad shoulders rising and falling in breaths that suddenly seemed entirely too heavy. When he finally turned around, you instinctively took a step back.
His gaze was... different. The sharp, defensive hostility was completely gone. In its place was a dark, dense, and ravenous heat. He wasn't looking at you with annoyance; his eyes were tracing the lines of your face, the curve of your neck, trailing slowly down to your waist.
"You know..." Zoro's voice dropped to a pitch you'd never heard before. It was rough, dangerously low, almost a purr. "I always pay attention to your mouth when you're yelling at me."
Your brain short-circuited.
"W-what?" You blinked, completely stunned. "What kind of stupid joke is this, Zoro? Did you hit your head on a branch?"
He took a step toward you. You stepped back, but your spine hit the rough bark of a colossal tree. Zoro didn't hesitate. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, like a predator cornering his prey, stopping mere inches from you. He lifted one of his calloused hands and, to your absolute shock, brushed a sweat-dampened lock of hair out of your face. The touch of his warm fingers sent a shiver straight down your spine.
"It's no joke." He tilted his head, his eyes locked firmly on your lips. "I hate admitting it. Always have. But every time you team up with the curly-brow to laugh at me, all I can think about is how much I want to shut you up. And not with a sword."
Your heart started hammering against your ribs like a war drum. This wasn't Zoro. Zoro was proud, stubborn, and emotionally bulletproof. He never gave an inch. He would never show himself as vulnerable, much less... desperate.
But Miss Goldenweek’s mark didn't allow for filters or defenses. It ripped the padlock off the box where his deepest, most suppressed instincts were kept and threw it wide open. Zoro was a man of intense, focused passions, his swords, his captain, his ambition. But there was something else he had been repressing with sheer brute force since the day you set foot on the Going Merry.
"Zoro, you're scaring me. Back off." you ordered, your voice betraying you in the face of this wild unpredictability. You tried to shove him back by his chest, but he was like a wall of hot stone. Your hand rested flat against his blue shirt, feeling his heartbeat racing just as fast as yours.
Instead of stepping back, Zoro's hand slid down to your waist, pulling you forward with a grip that was firm, yet surprisingly gentle. Your breath hitched. Your bodies collided, and you could feel every line of taut muscle pressing flush against you.
"I provoke you because it's the only way to get you to look at me with the same intensity I look at you" he murmured, his voice vibrating against your neck as he leaned in. His nose brushed the sensitive skin just beneath your jawline. "I hate the way you smile at Sanji. I hate that you haven't noticed I’ve spent the last few weeks losing sleep because your sweet scent lingers on the deck at night."
"Y-you've lost your mind..." you stammered, your voice failing miserably. The anger you usually harbored for him was blurring, replaced by a dangerous, liquid heat spreading through your veins. The worst part wasn't even his confession; the worst part was that, beneath months of irritation, your body seemed to be responding desperately to this proximity.
"I lost my mind the day you laughed in my face for getting lost and your eyes lit up" he confessed, so incredibly raw. The honesty in his voice was crushing. He gripped your waist tighter, pulling you even closer against him, while his other hand moved up to cradle the back of your neck, thick fingers tangling in your hair.
Zoro pinned your body completely against his. His right hand, in a swift, predatory move, caught both of your wrists and pinned them above your head in a way that, no matter how hard you tried, you wouldn't be able to break free. Being at his mercy like this suddenly made more sense than any angry thought that usually crossed your mind. His tense muscles enveloped you in a bubble of heat, and you found yourself staring desperately at those damn plush lips that looked so soft. Of course he noticed, and he did something about it.
The second his lips brushed yours, a soft groan escaped you. It wasn't a full kiss yet; it was a maddening tease, a promise. Zoro took a deep breath, as if inhaling your very essence.
"I want you. So damn much. And I'm too proud to admit it sober, but right now... right now it feels like I can't hide it." He opened his eyes, and the dark intensity in his irises pinned you in place. "Push me away. Call me an idiot again, throw every insult you've got. Because if you don't do it right now, I'm not going to be able to stop."
Your mind screamed at you to run. There were enemies on the island, dinosaurs, and the rest of the crew needed you. You hated each other. You never agreed on anything.
But as you looked at the raw vulnerability mixed with that predatory hunger on the swordsman's face, all your fights seemed completely ridiculous. Maybe the bickering was never hate. Maybe it was just two lions in the same cage, snarling because they didn't know how to handle each other's presence.
You didn't try to break free.
Instead, you surrendered into it, pressing your body even more against his, the friction making your eyes roll back in pleasure.
"You're an idiot, mosshead..." you whispered back, your breath hitched. "An absolute idiot."
Zoro didn't need to hear anything else. The thread of control he was barely holding onto snapped. He captured your mouth with a possessive urgency that completely swept your feet out from under you. The kiss wasn't sweet or hesitant; it was scorching, needy, a head-on collision of months of repressed friction. His lips were hot and demanding, parting yours to deepen the kiss as his tongue explored you with the same relentless determination he used in battle.
A muffled moan slipped from your throat, and Zoro responded by pressing you harder against the tree, his body grinding against yours in a way that left absolutely no doubts about the extent of his desire. You found yourself kissing him back with equal fervor, your arms slipping free from his grip to wrap around his thick neck, pulling him closer, wanting every millimeter of distance between you gone. It was overwhelming, messy, and absolutely perfect.
Far away, up in the branches, Miss Goldenweek blinked.
"How weird..." the Baroque Works agent mumbled, munching on a rice cracker. "Usually they just scream their secrets and start crying. This is a bit inappropriate."
She sighed, picking up another brush. If you two kept at it, you'd completely forget to fight.
Zoro wasn't just kissing you; he was consuming you. The swordsman, always so restrained by his spartan training and iron pride, had become a storm of pure instinct under the effect of Miss Goldenweek's paint.
You were short-circuiting. All the anger, the traded barbs, the furious glares across the deck of the Going Merry, the times you wanted to strangle him for sleeping through a storm or getting lost walking in a straight line... it all felt like kindling, just waiting for this exact spark. You hated yourself for a millisecond when you realized how wildly your body was responding to him, but the thought melted away when Zoro's tongue invaded your mouth once more, exploring with the ferocity of a fighter, sending a pool of heat straight to your lower belly in a raw need that left you dizzy.
A low, almost animalistic groan vibrated deep in Zoro's chest. He trailed kisses down your jawline, his teeth scraping lightly against the sensitive skin of your neck. You threw your head back, panting, your hands desperately gripping his broad shoulders, feeling the thick cords of muscle bunching under his shirt.
His breathing was hot and jagged. With impatient agility, Zoro's fingers found the buttons of your shirt. He wasn't gentle; the fabric was tugged, the first few buttons giving way, parting the garment and baring the heated skin of your chest to the muggy jungle air. He traced the line of your collarbone with his lips, his heavy breaths ghosting over your skin. Every touch was a claim, a physical declaration of everything he had refused to say out loud for months. He wanted to devour you right there, to erase any remaining space, to make you forget everything but the feeling of his hands on you.
You were drowning in it. You pulled his face back up to yours, kissing him with sudden, desperate fury, your own repressed desires finally breaking out of their cage. Your hands slid over his shoulders, up his thick neck, feeling the swordsman's racing pulse. You spread your fingers, burying them into his short, green hair, tugging slightly, which drew another dark sound from the back of his throat.
That was when the fingers of your right hand slipped down the underside of his arm, gripping his bicep.
The skin there felt weirdly wet. You felt a viscous substance smear across your fingertips. In the heat of the moment, the frantic movement of your hands rubbed right over the crimson mark Miss Goldenweek had painted, smudging the perfect symbol and destroying the colors trap entirely.
Like a bucket of freezing water being dumped over both of your heads, the effect was instantaneous.
Zoro froze. His body, which seconds ago was radiating unbridled passion, went unnaturally rigid. He broke the kiss abruptly, his eyes snapping wide open, his dilated pupils contracting as the red mist of the spell evaporated from his mind. He blinked, still panting, but the feral look had been entirely replaced by pure shock and confusion.
He took a staggering step back, tripping over a thick tree root.
You stayed pinned against the tree, lips buzzing, chest heaving uncontrollably. Your eyes were half-lidded, dark with desire, your face flushed with arousal. Your shirt hung open, exposing the curve of your chest and the skin marked by a light flush where he had just been kissing you. You looked at him, vulnerable and entirely exposed, waiting for him to pull you back in, wanting the intensity to continue.
Zoro looked at you, and the reality of what had just happened hit him with the force of a Gum-Gum Pistol. The memories of the last few minutes, of what he had said, how he had touched you and pinned you against that bark... He remembered all of it. Every embarrassing word, every desperate confession.
"What... what the hell did I just do?" his voice came out raspy, his eyes wide with horror. He looked down at his own hands, trembling slightly.
You blinked, the fog of lust finally starting to clear, quickly replaced by a cold spike of confusion. You looked down at your own fingers, seeing the smeared red paint.
"Zoro?" you called out, your voice thick.
He backed up another step, looking at you like you were made of fire. He frantically wiped a hand over the back of his arm, feeling the rest of the wet paint. His face twisted into a complex mix of disgust and panic.
"I was being controlled." He ground his teeth together, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists. "Something... someone threw something on me. It was a trap, a Devil Fruit power, or some kind of witchcraft!"
Your body temperature plummeted. The cold shock was already beginning to curdle into something else.
"Controlled?" you repeated, your voice dangerously low.
"Yes!" Zoro practically shouted, desperate to rebuild his impenetrable posture, his emotional armor that had just been brutally ripped away. He gestured wildly in the air, a defensive glint in his eye. "Look at you... look at us! There are enemies on this island! Do you really think I'd do something this idiotic in the middle of hostile territory? I would never admit... I would never do those things or say those atrocities on my own free will! I’m a swordsman, not some hormone-driven idiot!"
His words lashed out at you like a whip. Atrocities. Never do them on his own free will.
The vulnerability that had softened your features vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a mask of cold marble and incandescent fury. The desire pumping through your veins coagulated, twisting into the purest, most acidic form of rage. He was backing pedaling. The great, proud, fearless Roronoa Zoro was terrified of his own feelings, hiding behind the excuse of an enemy spell to invalidate everything that had just happened between you.
With fingers trembling slightly, no longer from arousal, but from pure, unadulterated anger, you pulled the flaps of your shirt together, buttoning it with sharp, jerky movements. The sound of the fabric snapping shut sounded like thunder in the heavy silence between you.
"I get it." Your voice sliced through the air like sharp ice. You didn't yell. It was the calm, venomous tone that made him swallow hard. "Of course it was a spell. Because the great Roronoa Zoro would never stoop so low as to feel something as pathetic as desire for me, right? It was all an illusion. One big, stupid illusion."
"Look, don't twist things, I didn't say..."
"Shut your mouth." You shoved past him, purposely bumping your shoulder hard against his chest, not even sparing him a backwards glance. "You make me sick, Zoro. Not because of what you did under that fucking spell. But for being such a cowardly piece of shit now that it's over."
With the bitter taste in your mouth reflecting your rage and disappointment and the desire that now felt wrong pulsing through your veins, your skin, and your nerves, you let the swordsman find his own way back.
warnings: 18+ mdni, nsfw content below the cut. smut, hurt/comfort, mild threat, assassination attempt, minor character injury, seizures
word count: 11k
chapter 9 || ‘dethrone’ masterlist
One month seemed to drag in passing since Elysande had discovered that her father-in-law wanted her dead, and all that had come with it.
That equated to one month of looking over her shoulder at every turn, of flinching at unexpected sounds, and of lying awake in the darkness while her mind conjured shadows that were not there. One month of pretending, for the sake of the court and the kingdom and everyone who could not know the truth, that everything was perfectly fine. An impossible task, really, when she wanted more than anything to just spend her days in her chambers, wrapped in Noah’s arms and pretending the world outside did not exist.
But Noah was to become King soon. And that meant there was too much to do.
The council met almost every night now, their gatherings extending well past midnight as they worked to identify allies and root out potential threats. Nicholas had taken charge of the intelligence efforts alongside Joakim, his knowledge of palace dynamics proving invaluable in piecing together the web of connections that surrounded Chancellor Miller. Names were added to lists and then crossed off again as loyalties were confirmed or denied through some subtle sleuthing. Maps were drawn, showing which noble houses could be trusted and which remained uncertain, so that they had a physical representation of the ‘safe’ areas. Plans were made and revised and made again, each iteration attempting to account for variables that seemed to multiply with every passing day.
It was a never-ending cycle of suspicion and anxiety that took an undeniable toll on every member in the council. Even lesser Lords and Barons were showing up with grey bags under eyes and hair mussed from pulling it out of its sockets. And they did not even have matters of coronation to attend to during waking hours.
Elysande attended when she could, though her presence at formal court functions had been deliberately limited through careful scheming by Nicholas. The official explanation was that the Crown Princess was suffering from a lingering illness, something obscure enough to explain her paleness and diminished appetite without inviting too many questions from ears that were not trusted to hear the reality. In truth, every public appearance felt like walking into the lair of a predator. And if she had thought herself drained by public appearance and forced curtsies before, this month had been a whole new monster entirely.
The rumours, of course, had already begun to spread. As they so often did in Belgrave.
Elysande knew something was amiss from the whispers that fell silent whenever she entered a room, and the accompanying pitying glances of ladies who thought themselves subtle only served to confirm her suspicions. Certain lords, those especially loyal to the King, had even begun to look at her with something uncomfortably close to satisfaction. The Crown Prince and Princess were struggling, they said. The famous love match was already crumbling under the weight of royal expectation. Some speculated that she had failed to conceive, and the Prince was growing impatient. Others suggested that he had taken a mistress, or that she had been caught in some indiscretion. The theories grew more elaborate with each telling, each one more ridiculous than the last and becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Florian, she knew, was delighted by every whispered word.
Elysande had seen him watching her at the few events she had been forced to attend, expression as always so frustratingly blank, but his eyes bright with a satisfaction that made her whole nervous system shrivel in on itself. He, of course, never addressed her directly, did not acknowledge the tension that crackled between them whenever they occupied the same space for that would be unseemly. Instead, he simply observed, like a lion watching a creature it had already decided to kill, content to let the anticipation build before striking.
The worst part was that the rumours were not entirely wrong.
Something had indeed shifted between her and Noah in the weeks since their tearful confession on the floor of their chambers. They still shared a bed and reached for each other in the darkness, still exchanged soft words and softer touches when no one else was watching. But… there was a carefulness to their interactions now; a hesitance that had not existed before. Noah seemed to hold her like she was made of glass, and when he touched her, it was as if he was afraid she might shatter beneath his fingers. He watched her constantly, his eyes tracking her movements with an intensity that bordered on obsessive, and yet he seemed reluctant to close the distance between them.
Elysande understood, in more ways than she cared to admit. The fear of losing someone had a way of making every moment feel fragile, every touch a reminder of what could be taken away. And Noah? Well, he had already spent so much of his life living in fear of loss that he was far too adept at pulling back when necessary to protect himself. It seemed as though some memories of that feeling never disappeared. She had kept a damning secret from him, and despite their apologies and acceptances, she knew that was bound to affect a man. Especially when said man was used to isolation as if it were second nature. So she understood, truly.
But understanding did not make it hurt any less when he pulled back from a kiss too soon, or when he found excuses to stay at his desk long after she had retired to bed.
Margaret and Eliza had been told the truth within the first week.
It had been a practical decision more than an emotional one. These women were with Elysande constantly, helping her dress and bathe and navigate the daily rituals of royal life. If anyone was going to notice something amiss, if anyone was going to be in a position to protect her or to simultaneously inadvertently put her in danger, it would be them. They deserved to know what they were facing, and Elysande trusted them wholeheartedly with the information.
Margaret had taken the news with characteristic composure, her expression barely flickering as Elysande explained what she had overheard in the corridor. When the tale was finished, she had simply nodded once and said, "Then we shall have to be more careful, Your Highness." As if the revelation that the King wanted to murder her mistress was a possibility she had always been aware of. Margaret was by far one of the most intelligent people in this court, after all. Elysande had half a mind to think that Margaret would be able to run such a Kingdom better than anyone, and it was rather a shame she had not been born into the nobility that Elysande herself had.
Eliza, in her youth, had been less stoic. Her face had gone pale, hands trembling as she processed the information, and for a moment, Elysande had legitimately worried that she might faint. But the young handmaiden had rallied quickly, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin with a determination that made her seem older. "I will not let anyone hurt you," she had declared, her voice only slightly unsteady. "I swear it on my life."
True to their word, both women had thrown themselves into protecting her with a fervour that was both touching and slightly alarming. Margaret had appointed herself the unofficial taster of everything Elysande consumed, sampling each dish and drink before it reached her mistress's lips. Eliza had taken to checking the chambers every evening, examining window latches and door locks with the thoroughness of someone trained in a military guard instead of in servant’s quarters. They worked in tandem, a silent partnership forged in the fires of shared purpose, and Elysande found herself once again grateful beyond words for their presence.
Joakim, meanwhile, had become her shadow in every sense of the word.
He was there when she woke in the morning, already stationed outside her door after what she suspected was a sleepless night of vigilance. When she walked the corridors of the palace, whether it was to a luncheon or to the stables, he was there; always positioned between her and any potential threat. At meals, at meetings, and at the rare social functions she was required to attend, he had found many ways to slip himself in so naturally that he became a part of the palace’s furniture. The only times Joakim truly left her side were when she was safely lodged in her chambers with Noah, and even then she suspected he remained just outside the door, listening for any sign of trouble. There were other guards he had identified as being trustworthy, of course, but it seemed Joakim had become just as paranoid as his protectee, and was only certain of safety if he, himself, was there.
The lack of sleep was beginning to show on him. His eyes were shadowed, every muscle perpetually tight with tension, and he had lost weight that he could not afford to lose. When she tried to suggest that he rest, that he allow another trusted guard to take over for a few hours, Joakim simply shook his head and changed the subject so ingeniously that she did not even notice. His duty, he reminded her whenever she questioned him, was to keep her safe. Everything else was secondary.
Elysande found she worried about him almost as much as she worried about herself.
Even the simple pleasure of riding had been complicated by the new reality of her existence. Where once she and Noah had been able to escape into the countryside without even Joakim trailing at a respectful distance, now their excursions required a full complement of guards. Joakim, of course, was the first to take up that guard. Then, they were joined by a constant cycle of changing men who rode at Joakim’s side behind them: Nicholas, young guards from the training centre, and even Lord Carrick on occasion. Nick, too, had joined them when the day had felt particularly tense, although he usually preferred to ride uptop with Noah and Elysande themselves so that he and his friend could chatter about changes in the stables and anything else that came to mind.
Caliban sensed her unease; she was certain of it. The gelding had always been attuned to her moods, and lately he had taken to pressing his nose against Elysande's palm with extra insistence even when she did not have apples, as if trying to offer comfort that he could not put into words. The rides themselves were shorter now, confined to routes that had been thoroughly scouted and deemed safe, but they remained one of the few moments when Elysande could breathe freely. Out in the open air, with the wind in her hair and the thunder of hooves beneath her, the walls of the palace felt far away.
The stress, however, was taking its toll on her body in ways she could not ignore.
Elysande had always considered herself resilient; capable of withstanding pressure that would break lesser spirits, for she’d had a lot of practice at it. But a month of constant, unending vigilance? That had worn her down in ways she had not anticipated. Her appetite had all but vanished, each meal a chore she completed only out of basic care for her body rather than for pleasure. Sleep came fitfully when it came at all, and she often woke feeling more exhausted than when she had closed her eyes. She knew from small glimpses in reflections that could not be avoided that her complexion had grown pasty, dark circles taking up permanent residence beneath her eyes, and she had lost enough weight that Margaret had begun quietly letting out her gowns without making too much fuss about it.
The nausea was still the worst of it. It always came without warning, a sudden churning in her stomach that sent her rushing for the nearest basin or bucket. The first time it happened after that initial night with Joakim, Elysande had been in the middle of a council meeting, and she had barely managed to excuse herself before her body rebelled against her. Nicholas had looked concerned when she returned, pale and shaking, but she had waved away his questions with a dismissive hand. There was nothing he could do for her until this whole ordeal was over, after all, so she did not feel much like causing unnecessary worry.
The second time had been significantly worse. She had been walking with Noah through the gardens, attempting to maintain the illusion of a happy couple for the benefit of watching eyes, when the wave had crashed over her with such force that she had doubled over right there on the path. Noah had caught her, his face betraying his poorly concealed panic, and he had half-carried her back to their chambers while she protested weakly that she was fine.
She was not fine. Elysande knew that. But she attributed her body's mutiny to the weight of fear and secrecy pressing down on her until something had to give. It made sense that her stomach would be the first casualty. It had always been sensitive to her emotional state, churning with nerves before important events and settling only when the worst had passed.
This would pass, too, she told herself. Once Florian was dealt with, once the coronation was behind them and Noah was safely on the throne, her body would remember how to function normally again. She simply had to survive long enough to see that day arrive.
That was the hard part.
Four months was a long time to live with fear. To pretend that everything was fine while the sword of Damocles hung over her head.
Some days, it felt like an eternity.
The council's efforts had begun to bear fruit, at least. Marchioness Rendale’s confirmation of loyalty had proven invaluable in identifying which noble houses further out in the states could be counted upon to support Noah when the time came. Through her constant convergence, they had been able to secure a significant portion of the West borderlands as allies, and that was a great relief to everyone in the council. Even Lord Bystead, whose loyalty had long been uncertain, had been persuaded to throw his lot in with the Crown Prince after a private conversation that Nicholas refused to elaborate upon.
On the other side of the ledger, a clearer picture was emerging of who served Florian. Chancellor Miller remained the most dangerous piece on the board, his web of connections extending further than anyone had initially realised. He had allies in the King's Guard, men who had been bought with gold or bound by blackmail, and his influence reached into corners of the palace that should have been beyond his grasp. Two kitchen servants had been quietly dismissed after Joakim discovered they were reporting to Miller's network. A stable hand had been reassigned to duties far from the royal horses after similar suspicions arose. It was safe to assume that anyone in the actual council (that of the King’s) who did not attend Noah’s private gatherings was an enemy, and most of them had made it very clear that they were Florian loyalists until death. Then there were others that Noah’s men did not even bother approaching, slimy individuals like Lord Ivor, who were not worth the hassle of engaging.
The enemy was everywhere, it seemed, and nowhere all at the same time. Invisible threats that could materialise at any moment, from any direction. It was enough to make even the most level-headed person paranoid.
Elysande had long since passed the point of level-headed.
She found herself examining every face for signs of treachery, every smile for the glint of hidden malice. She questioned the motives of servants she had known for months, and wondered if the guard who opened doors for her might be the one tasked with ending her life. It was exhausting and irrational and she knew it was changing her in ways she did not like, but she could not seem to stop.
The woman she had been before that night in the corridor felt like a stranger now. That Elysande had laughed easily, trusted freely, and walked through the palace with her head held high and her heart unguarded. This Elysande was a creature of shadows and suspicion, always watching, always waiting for the blow that she knew was coming.
Noah saw the change in her. She could tell by the way he looked at her sometimes, a mixture of concern and helplessness that made her want to weep. He tried to reach her within the capacities of his own fear, tried to coax out the woman he had fallen in love with, but she did not know how to be that person anymore. Not when every moment felt borrowed, every happiness tinged with the knowledge that it could be ripped away without warning. It seemed they were no longer themselves, and that hurt more than any possible assassination ever could.
The two of them still had not spoken properly about what had passed between them that night on the floor. The confession still hung in the air like smoke that refused to dissipate. But since then, the words had become careful things, offered gently at appropriate moments rather than shouted in the heat of overwhelming emotion.
She missed the overwhelming emotion, if she was honest. She missed the passion that had characterised their early relationship, the arguments that had blazed hot and burned out just as quickly, leaving them tangled together in the aftermath. What they had now was quieter, softer, but also somehow more fragile. As if they were both afraid that too much pressure would shatter whatever remained.
A month of living like this, and Elysande was beginning to wonder if she would ever feel safe again.
—
Tonight was like any other night. The council meeting had run late, as it always did, and by the time Elysande retired to her chambers, she was fatigued in that way that sleep was not even able to cure. Margaret helped her undress with efficient hands, her touch as always gentle despite the late hour, and Eliza turned down the bed with extra care.
"Will there be anything else, Your Highness?" Margaret asked, not bothering with forced conversation when she could tell her friend was drained of any and all energy.
Elysande shook her head, managing to still pass her a small smile despite the rattling of her heart in her chest. "No, thank you. Both of you should rest. It has been a long day."
The handmaidens exchanged a glance that spoke of shared concern, but they did not argue. They simply curtsied and withdrew, leaving Elysande alone in the candlelight.
She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, staring at the canopy above her head and trying not to think about all the ways her life had changed. Outside the windows, the night was dark and still, the kind of quiet that should have been peaceful but instead felt ominous. Somewhere in this palace, Florian was sleeping soundly, dreaming perhaps of the day when his troublesome daughter-in-law would no longer be a problem.
Elysande closed her eyes and tried to remember what it felt like not to be afraid.
It was well past midnight when Noah finally entered their chambers.
Elysande had not been sleeping, though she had tried. She lay in the darkness with her eyes closed, willing her mind to quiet and her body to relax, but both refused to cooperate. She had counted backwards from one thousand twice over, had recited childhood prayers she had not thought of in years, and had even attempted to catalogue every flower in the palace gardens in alphabetical order in a feeble attempt to exhaust her mind to the point of losing consciousness. Nothing worked.
So she was wide awake when the door opened softly, and Noah's familiar silhouette appeared against the dim light of the corridor. He moved quietly, clearly trying not to disturb her if she was indeed resting, and she heard the rustle of fabric as he removed his jacket and laid it over the chair by his desk. A moment later, the scratch of a match being struck, and then the glow of a second candle on the desk surface brought his profile into view.
He did not come to bed. He settled into the chair at his desk, pulling a stack of papers toward him, preparing for several more hours of work over sleep. As she looked over at him, hunched immediately over the polished wood with his head held up by one hand, she thought he looked exhausted. They both did. Exhaustion had become their steady companion these past weeks, as ordinary as the fear that followed them everywhere.
Elysande watched him pick up his quill through flickering eyelids, her heart suddenly aching with a longing she did not quite know how to express. This had become their pattern lately. He would stay out late at meetings or bury himself in correspondence, and by the time he finally came to bed, she was either asleep or pretending to be. The distance between them had grown so gradually that she had not noticed it at first, but now it felt vast. An ocean separating two people who shared the same bed but no longer seemed to share the same world.
It was terrifyingly reminiscent of how things had once been, before they had collided in their matrimony. When Noah would find every reason not to see his betrothed, when she had felt far away from him in both literal and figurative states.
It was easier back then. Back then, she had hated him. Now the distance only served to break her heart and her determination all at once.
"You should sleep." Noah’s voice cut through the silence, soft but firm. He had not looked up from his papers, but somehow he knew she was awake. Of course he did. After all these months together, they had learned to read each other in ways that did not require sight.
"So should you," Elysande pushed herself up against the pillows.
"I have some things to finish first." He dipped his quill in the inkwell, the gesture so automatic he did not even have to turn his head to track the movement. "It should not take too long. An hour, perhaps two."
By the time he indicated, she would have most likely given up on sleep entirely and they would pass another night in parallel silence, close enough to touch but worlds apart. Elysande was not prepared to let it happen again.
"You have been saying that a lot lately," the words slipped out before she could make an effort to stop them. "That you have things to finish. That it will not take long. Telling me I should sleep without you."
Noah's hand stilled over the paper. He did not look up, but she saw the slight shift in his seat that told her she had struck a nerve. "There is much to be done. You know that."
"I do know that." Elysande drew her knees up beneath the blankets, wrapping her arms around them. She felt somewhat like a petulant child as she hugged them to her chest with the faintest pout forming on her bottom lip. But Noah still did not look up to see. "I also know that there was much to be done a month ago, and two months ago, and you still came to bed. You still held me. You still..." She trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence without sounding accusatory.
Then there was silence. Just for a moment, but long enough that Elysande began to fret and worry over the consequences of her words.
She was just about to speak again when, finally, Noah set down his quill. He turned in his chair to face her, and the look on his face made her breath catch. He looked tired, yes, but beneath the exhaustion was something devastatingly like pain.
Noah started to speak but stopped himself just as quickly, running a frustrated hand through his hair before attempting again. "I do not know what you want me to say."
"I want you to tell me the truth." Elysande’s voice was just as small as it had been back then, too. But she was tired of pretending, tired of dancing around the elephant that had taken up residence in their chambers. "I want you to tell me if something has changed. If you..." She swallowed hard. "If you regret what you said to me that night."
Noah’s head suddenly snapped to attention as he stared her down, shock evident in every line of his face. "What?"
"When you told me you loved me." The words tumbled out faster now, propelled by an anxiety that had been building for weeks that she had not entirely realised had manifested into such an ugly insecurity. “I… I simply mean to say that I thought that meant something. I thought it would change things between us, bring us closer. But instead you have been pulling away, and I do not understand why–” She cut herself off suddenly with a sharp inhale, a necessity before her words could turn into choked sobs. “... I need to know if it is because you did not mean it, or if you have changed your mind, or if I ruined everything by keeping that secret, and you cannot forgive me, no matter what you said, and now you hate me and cannot stand to be near—"
“Elysande, stop!” Noah was on his feet now, crossing the room in three quick strides with a desperation she did not want to read into. He sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for her hands, and she let him take them even though her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe. "Stop. Please. Look at me."
With all of her might, Elysande forced herself to meet his eyes, bracing for the worst.
What she found there was not what she expected. Where she had braced herself for rejection, she was instead met with a new kind of horror reflected in his eyes; one that was directed at himself for ever allowing her to think such a thing.
"I meant it," Noah practically commanded, voice low and fierce. "Every word. I have never meant anything more in my entire life. When I told you I loved you, I was not just speaking in the heat of the moment or saying what I thought you needed to hear. I was telling you the truth that I had been too afraid to admit even to myself." His grip on her hands tightened. "I love you. That has not changed. That will never change."
"Then why—" Her voice splintered, and she had to take a moment to compose herself. "Why does it feel like you are a thousand miles away? Why do you flinch when I reach for you? Why do you stay at your desk until you are certain I am asleep? What did I do wrong?"
"You did nothing wrong." Noah’s response came in the form of a shuddered cry, squeezing her hands as if willing her to believe him. "Nothing, Elysande. This is not about you. This is about me, and my own inadequacy, and the fact that I do not know how to protect the person I love most in this world."
Elysande stared at him, uncomprehending.
Noah released her hands, but only so he could cup her face instead. Up close, she could see the toll that the past month had taken on him. The new lines around his eyes, the shadows that seemed permanently engraved beneath them, the grey exhaustion that dulled features that had once been so vibrant. He looked like a man being slowly crushed by a weight he could not put down. Still unendingly beautiful in his own way.
"I am terrified," he admitted, and the words seemed to cost him something. "Every moment of every day, I am terrified. When you walk through the palace, I imagine assassins behind every corner. When you eat, I wonder if this will be the meal that kills you. When you sleep, I lie awake and listen to you breathe, because I am afraid that if I close my eyes, I will wake up and you will be gone." His voice wobbled. "I love you so much that the thought of losing you makes me physically ill, and I do not know how to live with that fear. I do not know how to be near you without being reminded of how easily you could be taken from me."
Noah paused, only long enough to take a deep breath he seemed incapable of without putting in significant mental energy to the task.
"I pull away because I do not know what else to do." His thumbs traced gentle arcs across her cheekbones, catching tears she had not realised were falling. "Because when I touch you, I remember that I might not always be able to touch you. When I hold you, I think about what it would feel like to have that warmth ripped away. Every moment of happiness feels like tempting fate, like daring the universe to prove that I do not deserve it."
"Noah–"
"I know it is irrational. I know that pushing you away does not protect you, and that it only hurts us both. But I have spent my entire life learning that the things I love can be used against me, that caring about someone is just giving your enemies a weapon to use." He closed his eyes, brows knitted together in anguish. "My father taught me that lesson well. And now he is threatening the one person I cannot bear to lose, and I do not know how to be brave. I only know how to be afraid."
Elysande reached up to cover his hands with her own, holding them against her face. "Look at me," she said softly. "Please."
Noah opened his eyes, and she saw in them every fear he had just confessed, every doubt and insecurity that he usually kept so carefully hidden. The things she had known from before but never fully seen so openly directed towards her. The stories she had been told about the Prince’s nature from her handmaidens and guard prior to their marriage, now so brutally reflected on her husband’s face.
"I am not going anywhere," she told him. "I know I cannot promise that nothing will happen, that your father will not find some way to hurt me. But I can promise that I am here, right now, in this moment. I am alive, and I am in love with you, and I am not going to let fear steal the time we have together."
"It does not matter what we–"
"No." Elysande shook her head firmly. "Listen to me. This past month, I have watched us drift apart, and I have hated every second of it. I have missed you. Not the prince who attends meetings and reviews reports and stays up late pretending to work. You. The man who holds me like I am the most precious thing in the world. The man who kisses me until I cannot remember my own name…" She turned her head slightly to press a kiss against his palm. "I need that man back. I need my husband back. Please."
Noah watched her carefully, eyes glossy with unshed tears and face still showing signs of deepset tiredness. But the crease that had taken up residence in his forehead from a constant scowl seemed to have eased, and as he searched her own features for any sign of deception, something seemed to brighten in his eyes.
Then, for the first time in weeks, he smiled. A little self deprecating, but wholly warm. “I have been a fool.”
Elysande could only giggle despite the heaviness of their situation. "Perhaps a little."
Noah’s smile turned into a full blown grin as he tilted his head to one side to assess her. "Only a little?"
"I am being generous." She reached up to brush an errant strand of hair from his forehead, letting her fingers tap against his temple where they settled. "You have been a complete and utter fool. But you are my fool, and I love you anyway."
"I love you too." He turned his head to press a kiss against her wrist, his breath warm against her pulse point. "I love you more than I have words to express. I am sorry that my fear made you doubt that, even for a moment."
For a long moment, Noah simply looked at her. His eyes traced over her features as if memorising them anew, as if seeing her for the first time after a long absence.
"Let me show you," he finally breathed, voice caught somewhere between awe and desperation. "Let me show you how much I love you."
She did not have time to respond before he was kissing her.
It was gentle at first, almost hesitant, as if he was relearning the shape of her lips after weeks of self-imposed distance. Elysande kissed him back with equal tenderness, her hands sliding to rest against his chest, feeling his heart beat rapidly beneath her palms. The kiss deepened gradually, heat building between them in slow increments, and the final bit of tension that had been residing in her body melted away.
This was what she had been missing. The connection, closeness… this sense that they were two halves of a single whole. She had not realised quite how starved for it she had been until this moment, with his mouth on hers and his hands cradling her face like she was something infinitely cherished.
Noah pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against hers, his breath coming faster now. He did not speak, nor did he make a move to back away; he just looked at her. And when he kissed her again, deeper this time, she felt herself being lowered back against the pillows.
The weight of him settled over her, achingly welcome after so many weeks of distance. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, needing to feel every inch of him pressed against her.
They moved slowly, purposefully, as though they had all the time in the world. Here, it felt like that. Noah's hands trembled slightly as he undid the ties of her nightgown, his fingers fumbling with laces that he had unfastened countless times before. Elysande did not tease him for it. Instead, she helped, guiding his hands with her own until the fabric loosened and he could push it down over her shoulders.
He paused then, pulling back to look at her in the low light of the two burning candles. The gown had fallen around her waist, leaving her bare from the waist up, and his eyes traced over her skin with a hunger that bordered on obsessive. And she was more than prepared to let him devour her.
"Beautiful," Noah whispered into the space between them as if the declaration were a hymn sung in the chapel. "You are so beautiful. How did I ever convince myself to stay away from you?"
"Temporary insanity," was all she could suggest breathlessly.
He laughed then, and a momentary sense of normalcy washed over Elysande. It was not just the physical intimacy they had missed, though she had missed that too, but this ease between them. This ability to laugh together, to tease, to be something other than two people weighed down by fear.
Noah lowered his head to press a kiss against her collarbone, then another against the hollow of her throat. His lips traced a slow path downward, worshipping every inch of skin he encountered. She sighed and let her head fall back against the pillows, fingers threading through his hair as he explored her upper body with painstaking thoroughness.
"I have missed this," he echoed her thoughts against the junction of her breast. "Missed touching you. Missed hearing the sounds you make when I do this..." He demonstrated, his mouth finding a particularly sensitive spot, and she gasped in response. "That. Gods, I have missed that sound."
"Then do not stop," she ordered, voice already wavering with want.
Noah did indeed not stop. He continued his slow exploration, mapping her body with lips and tongue and gentle hands as he rediscovered territory he had once known by heart. Every touch was a worship, and every kiss a promise. He lavished attention on her breasts until she was arching into him, then moved lower still, pressing open-mouthed kisses across her stomach and along the curve of her hip.
By the time he finally helped her shed the nightgown entirely, Elysande was trembling with anticipation. She reached for him with shaking hands. "Please. I need to feel you…"
Noah sat back just long enough to pull his shirt over his head, revealing the the tattoos she so admired that she had traced so many times before. She placed her hand over his heart, and he covered it with his own.
After a moment to simply exist, Elysande pulled him down to her. For a while after, there were no words between them, only breath and the slow, careful rekindling of a flame not extinguished but damped. Noah kissed her everywhere he could access without moving too much, trailing his lips down her neck and across her shoulders and along the bend of her waist. She returned the attention in kind, pressing kisses to his jaw, his throat, the place where his pulse beat strong and steady as a reminder he was living; he was here.
When his hand slipped between her thighs, she gasped against his shoulder. Noah touched her gently, working with patient fingers to show exactly how much he had missed her. The pleasure built slowly, a warm tide rising in her core, and Elysande rocked against his hand seeking more.
She was so close already, wound tight from weeks of longing and the emotional intensity of their conversation. But when she tried to pull him closer, to urge him to move faster, Noah resisted.
"Not yet," he commanded into the crook of her neck. "I want to take my time."
And he did. He brought her to the edge with his fingers, held her there until she was gasping and pleading, then eased her back down with gentle strokes. Again and again and again he built her up, only to let her drift back until she was a trembling mess beneath him, utterly undone by his patience.
"Noah," Elysande gasped, nails digging into his shoulders. "Please. I cannot... I need..."
Noah only kissed her deeply, swallowing her whimpers before they fully formed in her throat. "I know."
He shifted between her thighs, and she felt him position himself at her entrance. For a moment, he paused, his forehead pressed against hers, his breath mingling with her own. "Look at me," he whispered.
Elysande opened her eyes, met his gaze, and saw everything she felt reflected back at her. Love. Need. Fear. Hope. All of it tangled together in a way that defied separation. The moment was so tender that it stole all the breath from her lungs and made her question the fears that had crept in in the first place.
Noah entered her slowly, so slowly, giving her body time to adjust to the feeling of him after so many weeks apart. The stretch of him was typical and alien all at once, a sensation she had missed more than she had allowed herself to admit for someone once so unaware of these particular intimacies. She wrapped her arms around his neck once more and pulled him back down close, burying her face where his collarbone met his neck as he sank fully into her.
For a few minutes, neither of them moved. They simply held each other, breathing in tandem and savouring the sensation of being joined so completely.
"I love you," Noah gasped against her ear, the words escaping so naturally she wondered why she had ever had cause to doubt. "I love you so much."
She answered him with her body, rolling her hips in a silent plea for him to move. He obliged, withdrawing almost completely before pressing back in with paralysing slowness. The rhythm he set was gentle, unhurried; each thrust was a declaration of devotion that words could never capture.
It was wildly different from the passionate encounters of their early marriage, from those heated moments of desperation that had characterised so many of their joinings. This was something more peaceful, more profound and definitely just as welcome. Two people finding their way back to each other after being lost in the dark.
Noah's hands roamed over her body as he moved, touching her everywhere he could reach. He traced a slow, steady line along her waist, her hip, the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. When his fingers found the place where they were joined, stroking gently in time with his thrusts, she cried out and clung to him harder.
The pleasure crested gradually, gathering in her core so extremely that it could not be ignored on this occasion. She could feel herself approaching the edge with terrifying speed, and this time, Noah did not pull her back. His fingers continued their steady rhythm, his hips moving in perfect counterpoint, and Elysande felt herself begin to unravel.
"Noah," she gasped, her body tensing under his touch. "I am... I am going to..."
"I know." Noah only kissed her once, deep and tender. "I have you. Let go.".
Elysande did, and her climax crashed over her in an intense but welcome wave, more intense than before, considering how he had built her up with his fingers. Her whole body tensed and then released as she came apart in his arms, shaking under his touch. She was vaguely aware of crying out his name and her nails leaving marks on his shoulders, but none of it registered in the haze of her mind that was consumed entirely by him.
Noah held her through it, never stopping his gentle movements to prolong her pleasure until she was pliant and trembling beneath him. Only then did his rhythm stutter as he neared his own release. He buried himself deep inside her and let go with a shuddering groan. Elysande held him through it as well as she could, considering her own daze. She stroked his hair and murmured soft words of love, feeling his heart race against her own as he spilt himself within her.
Afterwards, they lay tangled together in the messy sheets, neither willing to break the connection between their bodies. Noah was half on top of her, his head resting on her chest, and she ran her fingers through his hair in lazy, soothing strokes. It was becoming one of her favourite ways to lie, she vaguely noted in the back of her mind, with him in her arms. If she could offer him that moment where he could shed his duties to just be held, then she always would, and she found it was just as necessary for her to take care of someone as it was for him to be taken care of.
"I am sorry," Noah murmured into her skin after a long moment of quiet. "For pulling away and making you doubt."
"I know." She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "You were afraid. I understand. But you cannot shut me out, Noah. Not about this. Not about anything. We are in this together, remember? The two of us against the world."
Without looking down, Elysande could feel the way he smiled against her bare chest. "I like the sound of that."
"Good. Because you are stuck with me now."
Noah laughed, the sound rumbling against her chest, and tilted his head up to look at her. The fear was still there in his eye, she could see it lurking in the shadows, but it was tempered now by something warmer and more hopeful. The strength he pulled from her, that they pulled from each other, that would forever carry them forward.
"I can think of worse fates," he jested, punctuating his words with a poke to the sensitive curve of her waist that had her squealing and batting his hand away. Noah only caught her fingers in his and brought them up to his lips.
"Charming as always."
Noah shifted until his chin was pressed against her breastbone, and he could look up at her properly. Elysande thought vaguely about how unseemly she must look from this angle, head tilted all the way down so that she could properly meet his eye. Her husband did not seem to care about such a detail as he passed her a contented smile. “But you love me anyway.”
Elysande huffed out a false breath of annoyance, but the guise did not last long. One look at the cheeky grin on Noah’s face, and her resolve was crumbling similarly. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
–
In the blink of an eye, there were three months until the coronation.
The milestone felt significant in a way that Elysande could not quite articulate. Halfway there. Halfway to the moment when Noah would take his rightful place on the throne and Florian's power would begin to wane. Halfway to safety, or at least the closest approximation of safety she could hope for.
If she survived that long.
The banquet had been unavoidable. They had made too many excuses in recent weeks, declined too many invitations, and the whispers about the Crown Princess's mysterious illness were beginning to take on a more sinister tone that was becoming unavoidable. Another absence would only fuel the speculation further. So when the invitation had come for a small, intimate dinner with the immediate royal family and their closest advisors, Noah and his council had reluctantly agreed that Elysande should attend.
"Fewer people means fewer variables," Nicholas had reasoned during their planning session. "It will be harder for anyone to make an attempt in such close quarters without being immediately identified. And your continued absence is becoming more conspicuous than your presence would be."
The logic was sound, even if it did nothing to ease the swelling of anxiety in Elysande's stomach as Margaret helped her dress for the evening.
"The blue silk, I think," Margaret said, holding up the gown for inspection. "It brings out your eyes, and you could use some colour in your cheeks."
"I could use a great many things," Elysande muttered, but she allowed Margaret to help her into the dress nonetheless.
The blue silk was beautiful, she had to admit. It draped elegantly over her frame, the colour rich and deep against her skin. Over the last few months, Elysande had even begun to find that she no longer disliked blue as much as before. Sure, it was still a far cry from her home colours of red and yellow, and it would never fully ignite the same emotion in her as the Aethelgardian symbols, but… she liked it. It was perhaps not due to the colour itself, but more what her wearing it represented. That she was Noah’s.
Eliza had done something clever with her hair, pinning it up in an as-usual fanciful style that exposed the line of her neck while still appearing effortlessly simple. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman who appeared composed and confident. The reflection was a lie, but it was a convincing one.
"Remember," Margaret said quietly as she made final adjustments to Elysande's appearance, "If anything seems wrong, anything at all, you leave immediately. Do not wait for permission, do not worry about causing a scene. You simply leave."
Elysande turned to face her handmaiden, caught off guard as she often was by the fierce decisiveness in Margaret's eyes. This woman had become so much more than a servant over the past months. She was a protector, a confidante, a friend.
"Be careful," Elysande all but ordered. "Please."
Margaret's determined expression buffered just the slightest. "That is supposed to be my line, Your Highness."
The walk to the dining hall felt endless, even with Noah at her side and Joakim trailing a few steps behind. The corridors were quiet at this hour, most of the palace staff occupied with preparations for the evening, but Elysande could not shake the feeling that eyes were watching her from every shadow. That constant fear that followed her everywhere still lurked disgustingly beneath the surface. She wondered vaguely if she would ever truly be free of it.
As if sensing her growing anxiety, Noah's hand found hers, fingers intertwining with her own. "Breathe," he murmured, low enough that only she could hear. "I will be with you through it all."
Elysande squeezed his hand in silent acknowledgement, drawing what comfort she could from his presence before they were forced to put on a show for watchful eyes. Things had actually been better between them since that night in their chambers. The distance that had grown between them had shrunk considerably, though it had not vanished entirely. There were still moments when she caught him watching her with that haunted look in his eyes, and there were still plenty of nights where he lay awake long after she had fallen asleep. But he was trying, and so was she.
She was trying a lot of things. Trying to stay calm, trying to be a good wife, trying to stay alive… Trying had to be enough sometimes.
The dining hall was smaller than the grand banquet rooms, designed for intimate gatherings rather than Florian’s traditional brags of wealth (although, this was still obscenely opulent). A table in the shape of a horseshoe dominated the space, already set with ornate glasses and napkins folded in the shape of a… was it a swan? Elysande could not entirely tell. It did not look like the work of their usual arrangement servant, a little sloppier around the edges. Perhaps the man had simply been otherwise occupied, or tired. It was certainly an interesting shape, at least.
Florian was already seated at the head of the table, with Reagan to his right. The Queen looked tired, Elysande noted, just as everyone else in this damned palace seemed to perpetually be these days. She wondered how much Reagan suspected; how much she had pieced together from whispered conversations and meaningful glances shared between guards and councilmen. The woman was no fool, even if they had deliberately kept her in the dark. That was a decision that had been made more to keep her safe than anything.
Chancellor Miller occupied the seat to Florian's left, his thin face arranged in an expression of mild pleasantness that did not reach his eyes. Every time Elysande looked at him, she heard his voice in her memory, discussing the various methods by which she might be killed. It was interesting, really, how the man had at first been nowhere, and now he was everywhere all at once. Even if she had not overheard such a conversation, she wondered if she might have begun to think of something as amiss from the sheer number of times she had seen this man in the past few weeks.
She kept her guise skillfully plain as she and Noah took their seats to the side of Reagan, with Nicholas settling in beside them. Joakim positioned himself against the wall behind Elysande's chair, close enough to intervene if necessary. Margaret and Eliza, too, stood nearby, ready to serve but also watchful in ways that had surpassed the expectations of their official duties.
The meal began with the usual pleasantries. Florian inquired after Elysande's health, his concern so perfectly feigned that anyone who did not know better might actually believe he cared. She responded with equal insincerity, assuring him that she was much improved and grateful for his consideration. The words tasted wrong on her tongue, but she delivered them flawlessly. It was as if she had never been away from the political schemes in the first place.
Reagan attempted to steer the conversation toward lighter topics, mentioning a new book she had been reading and inquiring about the preparations her son had been involved in for the coronation celebrations. Noah responded with more warmth than he showed his father, and Elysande found herself grateful for his mother's presence. Whatever else Reagan might be, she was a buffer between them and Florian's malevolence.
The first course soon arrived, carried by servants whose faces Elysande did not recognise. That alone was enough to set her on edge. Where were the usual staff, the men and women she had come to know over the past year? These servers moved with the telltale grace of people raised in such a life, but they were not palace workers. Or at least, they had not been in the past. They were Florian’s people, that much was clear immediately. His people. His food. Prepared and served by hands that answered to him rather than to Noah.
She watched as plates were set before each guest, steam rising from some overzealous portion that smelled of herbs and roasted meat. Her own stomach churned disgustingly when the first waft of oil hit her nostrils, immediately sending a flair of uncomfortableness through her abdomen. The nausea had become an almost constant companion lately, striking at unpredictable moments and fading just as mysteriously. It happened at random intervals, but meal times were the worst. The nausea put herself off eating, but she knew starvation was not an option in the current climate.
Stress, she reminded herself, wreaked havoc on the body.
Margaret stepped forward smoothly, her movements entirely unremarkable as they were designed to be. She selected a small portion from Elysande's plate, bringing it to her own lips and chewing subtly as Elysande whispered something in her ear to keep up the pretence of normalcy. Around the table, the other guests had already begun to eat, their attention focused on their own plates and conversations. No one seemed to notice the handmaiden's careful sampling, and if they had, it had been cleverly disguised.
A minute passed. Then two.
Margaret gave a small nod, invisible to anyone not watching for it, and stepped back to her position against the wall.
Still, Elysande hesitated.
The food sat before her, beautiful and aromatic and utterly unappetising. Her stomach roiled at the thought of eating, no matter how much the plate appeared otherwise divine. Around her, the others ate and conversed, their forks clinking against fine china, their voices a pleasant murmur of courtly small talk. Noah glanced at her plate, then at her face, a question already forming as he barrelled a particularly ambitious cut of meat into his own mouth.
"Not hungry?" he managed to get out around the food in his mouth, one hand coming up to cover it.
"Not particularly." She managed a small smile. "I suppose my appetite has not fully returned."
She reached for her wine glass instead, thinking that perhaps a small sip would settle her nerves enough to manage a few bites.
Before she could raise the glass to her lips, there came a soft sound from behind her. It was barely audible over the conversation at the table, but the Princess caught it.
A small cough, quickly stifled.
Elysande's hand froze halfway to her mouth.
She turned her head slightly, just enough to see Margaret in her peripheral vision. The handmaiden was standing rigidly at attention, her posture perfect and face composed as always. But there was something wrong, even if no one else could tell. Elysande had become rather good at reading her handmaiden’s moods by now, just as they had hers, and there was something about this particular stiffness in Margaret’s shoulders that kept her attention.
Another cough, slightly louder this time. Margaret raised a hand to her mouth as though she were simply clearing her throat, but Elysande was unconvinced.
"Margaret?" Elysande set down her wine glass, her heart beginning to beat faster. "Are you alright?"
"Perfectly fine, Your Highness." Margaret's voice was steady, but Elysande knew her well enough to hear the strain beneath the words. "Just a tickle in my throat. Nothing to concern yourself with."
But even as she spoke, Elysande saw her sway slightly. Just a small movement, barely perceptible, but enough to send a spike of fear through Elysande's chest.
Margaret was not fine. Elysande could see it now in the way her face had gone pale beneath her carefully applied powder. A thin sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead, and her breathing seemed to be taking considerably more effort than it had mere moments ago.
Elysande had moved before she consciously decided to, chair scraping inwards as she crossed the short distance to where Margaret stood. "Tell me what is happening."
Margaret opened her mouth to respond, but what came out was not words. It was a gasp, torn deep from her chest where her lungs begged for air, and her hand flew to her midriff as though something had seized her from the inside. Her eyes went wide, confused, and for the first time Elysande saw genuine fear in them.
"I... I cannot..." Margaret's voice came out strangled, broken. "Something is... my chest..."
Elysande moved to grab her arm in an attempt to steady her, but Margaret's legs were already buckling. She slumped against Elysande, her weight suddenly heavy and body trembling violently.
The table erupted into confusion. Chairs scraped back as people rose to their feet, and Noah was at her side in an instant, helping to support Margaret's weight. But even as they held her, Elysande watched in horror as Margaret's condition deteriorated with terrifying speed.
Her skin had gone from pale to grey, a sickly slate colour that seemed to spread even as Elysande watched. Her breathing had become too shallow for an otherwise healthy human being, each inhale a desperate wheeze that told her lungs were battling against the air. Her hands clawed at her throat, at her chest, as though trying to tear out whatever was causing her such agony.
"Get her down," Noah commanded, his voice laden with urgency. "Lay her on the floor. Carefully."
Together, they lowered her as gently as they could, but Margaret was beyond noticing gentleness. Her back arched off the stone floor, body convulsing in a way that seemed impossible; inhuman. A terrible choking sound escaped her throat that Elysande would remember forever in her nightmares.
Then, she saw it.
Blood.
A thin trickle of it, seeping from Margaret's nostril. Bright red against the suddenly murky pallor of her skin, obscenely vivid and unable to be missed even from a distance.
Eliza's scream cut through the chaos like a knife. "She has been poisoned!”
Everything happened at once.
Reagan screamed, pressing herself back in her chair as if distance could protect her from the horror unfolding before them. Nicholas was shouting for the guards, for a physician, for anyone who could help. Several of the other guests had gone pale, looking down at their own plates with sudden terror, wondering if they too had consumed whatever was now killing Margaret before their eyes.
Joakim had not hesitated for even a moment.
He was already on his knees beside Margaret, his hands cradling her head to keep it from striking the stone floor as her body continued to seize. His face, usually so guarded and controlled in public settings had fallen to pieces entirely. There was no guard left there, no soldier. There was only a man watching the woman he loved die in his arms. "Margaret." His voice cracked on her name, all pretense stripped away. "Margaret, stay with me.”
She could not react to his voice or look at him in any capacity. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, showing nothing but white. More blood was streaming from her nose now, and a thin rivulet had begun to trickle from the corner of her mouth, staining her lips a dark crimson and making her look like a portrait in a gallery of torture. Her body jerked and spasmed, muscles contracting in ways that seemed designed to tear her apart from the inside.
Joakim was murmuring something else, something that sounded vaguely like a prayer in a language Elysande only half understood. She was not able to pick up on the individual words. She was not able to do much else, other than stand and stare at the ground where her friend and confidant lay, for lack of a better description, dying. Eliza had dropped to her knees on Margaret's other side, her hands shaking so badly she could barely function, but she was still trying to press her fingers against Margaret's wrist to find signs of life not yet entirely fleeting.
"She is alive," Eliza gasped, though her voice wavered with uncertainty. "We need a physician!"
The seizures were growing weaker, which should have been a relief but somehow was not. Margaret's body was no longer thrashing with such violence, but the movements that remained were wrong somehow. Jerky and uncoordinated like a puppet whose strings were being cut one by one until their life fell to a wooden stillness.
"Stay with me." Joakim's voice had dropped to a whisper, broken and desperate. He was stroking her hair, her face, touching her as though his hands alone could anchor her to life. "You cannot leave me. Do you hear me? You cannot leave. I will not allow it."
Guards poured into the room, responding to Nicholas's shouted commands. Someone was calling for medical help. Someone else was securing the exits, preventing anyone from leaving. The beautiful, intimate dinner had become a crime scene in the space of a few heartbeats.
Margaret's seizures slowed, stuttered, and then stopped.
Her body went terribly, horribly still.
"No." The sound that escaped Joakim was barely human. It was raw, animal, torn from somewhere so deep inside him that Elysande felt it reverberate through her own body. He gathered her limp body against his chest, holding her as though he could somehow force life back into her through sheer will. His shoulders shook with silent sobs, his face buried in her hair, and Elysande had to look away because the grief was too immense, too private, and too devastating to witness if she wanted to hold herself together.
"The physician is coming," Nicholas announced, pushing through the chaos. His face was grim, his jaw set with determination. "He will be here any moment. Joakim, we need to keep her still. We do not know what poison was used, but moving her too much could make it worse."
In the midst of it all, Elysande stood frozen.
Her mind was still catching up to what had happened, still processing the horror that had unfolded in mere minutes. It was too much all at once. The sight of her friend laying on the floor, half dead as she seized an stilled from poison. Poison that had been meant for her.
Because that was undoubtable. The food had been meant for her. It was Elysande who was meant to consume the poison, and it would be her writhing on the floor now if it wasn’t for her unending nausea. Instead, Margaret was paying the price. A price she should have never been exposed to in the first place.
Someone had tried to kill her.
She knew who.
Slowly, with considerable effort, Elysande lifted her gaze from Margaret's crumpled form on the ground. Her eyes slipped past the scrambling servants and shouting guards and weeping queen, past her husband who was issuing orders with a calm authority that belied the fear in his eyes, and past Nicholas, who was doing his best to create some semblance of order as the physician made his way into the space.
There, Elysande’s eyes found Florian.
He had not moved from his seat.
While everyone else had leapt to their feet as panic and horror transformed the room around them, the King of Belgrave remained perfectly still. His hands were folded calmly on the table before him, posture relaxed, and not even his expression had changed from one of mild interest. He was almost charmed, impressed by a precaution he had not accounted for; that someone would taste the food.
His failed attempt did not deter him, if anything he seemed almost proud. He had never noticed a taster before, and maybe the knowledge that his mere existence had driven Elysande and her counterparts to implement such a caution brought him a joy unlike no other. A sick, twisted joy that only a sadist such as himself could find pleasantries in.
His plate, she noticed, was untouched. The food sat before him exactly as it had been served, not a single bite taken.
He had not wanted to eat. Not because the poison was in his own food, of course it would not have been. But because he had wanted to watch.
He had wanted to watch as his daughter-in-law died before his eyes.
Their eyes met across the room, and in that moment, all pretense fell away.
There was no feigned concern in his eyes, no attempt to appear shocked or distressed by what had transpired. There was only satisfaction, a gleaming triumph that made Elysande's blood run cold. And beneath that satisfaction, barely concealed, was a promise that this was just the beginning.
Something in his face told that he knew. Somewhere down the line in the minutes that had passed, Florian had figured it out. He knew they were aware of his schemes, and it did not deter him in the slightest. If anything, it only seemed to give him more satisfaction in the delicate dance that they were undergoing.
Slowly, as the chaos descended into the background and Elysande’s world shrunk to this moment, Florian raised his glass.
He pointed it in her direction, toasted the air, and then drank.
a/n: HELLO!!!! i’m sorry this took so long. i am officially caught up on pre-written chapters so the last three weeks has been me trying to catch up and get ahead again. but hopefully this satisfies! and you don’t hate me……………. sorry for the ending xxxx
ANOTHER SORRY because i’m sorry that this is a shorter chapter in comparison to usual BUT it means you get an extra chapter! there is officially three left, plus an epilogue <3 so we are getting there. a hugeeee thank you to everyone still with us. you all keep me going on this silly little app. i love you desperately and appreciate all your feedback!!!!!
i don’t really have too much to say this time which is a miracle???? if anyone ever wants to talk do come say hi. i get very bored sometimes lmao. song for this chapter is mantra by bring me the horizon, a reminder of the playlist here!
final thing before i leave again: i’ve had a few messages from people talking about being inspired by this to create stuff, and just wanted to say if you ever do please share with me!!! i love seeing how it inspires everyone :’) i was gonna make some character moodboards myself but i SUCKKKK at making them. so if anyone ever wants to do that… very much appreciated. anyways. love you all
