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Tending to Mother in her illness had tuned my senses to focus completely on her, no matter what I was doing - sleeping, cooking, laundry, it didn’t matter. If I heard even the slightest sound from her, I dropped everything else until I knew she was okay.
So, as soon as Nokto’s nightmare began, I was awake, on my feet, and rushing to his side.
I thought it was a seizure at first because his fever got too high. He was thrashing about, tangling the bedsheets and groaning, but it didn’t take me long to realize this wasn’t a seizure. The low flame of the single candle I’d left burning in the bathroom reflected off the sheen of sweat covering his face, contorted in shock and terror. I knew at my first glimpse of that expression that this was a nightmare. And I knew what he was seeing, too.
“Nokto,” I called, touching his shoulder. “Nokto!”
His eyes flew open, and he grabbed my wrists, yanking me down to the bed and pinning me beneath him. My already racing heart sped up even more. His crimson eyes were wild and distant, hovering above my face, and he held my wrists above my head in a painfully tight grasp as he gasped for air. I stared into those eyes, eyes that I knew, struggling to remind myself that he was still in the nightmare. He didn’t even know I was here. All he knew was that his mother wanted to kill him, and this time, he was fighting back.
He was still a man pinning me to a bed. Just like Jack. No, stronger than Jack. And it was taking everything in me not to fight back against him.
“N-nokto, i-it’s okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm while my heart threatened to pound out of control. “I-it’s me. Ivetta.”
He stared at me for a second before his eyes widened in realization. A shudder ran through him, and he released my wrists, sitting back on his heels and dragging his hands over his face. I held my breath, afraid to move, unsure what to expect, painfully aware that he was still straddling me, battling the anxiety threatening to take control and clinging desperately to my worry for him.
And then he bent over me again, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing his forehead to my chest.
“I’m sorry, Ivetta.”
I couldn’t breathe. His full weight was on top of me now, his sweat and tears soaking the front of my nightgown, and I couldn’t breathe. I squeezed my eyes shut, telling myself to hold still, not to scream, he wouldn’t hurt me, he would get off of me as soon as he came to his senses, but my thoughts were becoming more and more scrambled. He’d buried his face in my chest, his fingers were tight on either side of my waist, and if it weren’t for his choked words echoing through my mind and his shoulders shaking with sobs, I would have screamed. He didn’t even know what this was doing to me. I swallowed hard and brushed my trembling fingers through his silver hair, picturing the frightened little boy who had to watch his brother kill his mother to save his life. The image was fuzzy amidst the growing panic.
“N-nokto, I - I w-want t-to help you, b-but-”
My throat was closing off. The air wouldn’t come. His head left my chest, and I heard him whisper, “Ivetta?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I shoved him off and bolted away without regard for direction, ending up with my back in a corner, my hands over my mouth and my whole body shaking. Nokto stared at me in shock.
“Ivetta?” he repeated.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, sliding my hands up to cover my face. He was the one waking up from a nightmare, not me. I was here to help him. This wasn’t the time for me to fall apart.
Not that there was ever a good time for that.
“S-sorry,” I said, opening my eyes and dropping my hands to clench my fingers into my skirt. “Y-you should lie down. I-I just n-need a minute.”
“Come over here and sit down,” he said softly. “I won’t touch you.”
I nodded hesitantly and made the few steps across the room on trembling legs to sit on the edge of the bed. He watched with worried eyes.
“I - it’s not - you, it’s just-”
He shook his head. “It’s fine.” He paused, and then he said, “Does…that happen with Chevalier?”
I nodded miserably. “Not all the time, and it’s getting better, but…”
But with Chevalier, I didn’t run away from him. I ran to him, even when he was the one who scared me inadvertently, because he knew how to calm me down. He usually knew the panic was coming almost before I did. I didn’t know how to explain that to Nokto without making it sound like I didn’t trust him. I did, just not the same way I trusted Chevalier, and under normal circumstances, he would have noticed my anxiety well before I reached the point of panic. He couldn’t very well pay attention to me when he was fighting his own demons. So, I trailed off, watching my hands wringing nervously in my lap, and then I noticed the scars on my bare arms, and the waning anxiety waxed full again. My summer nightgown was sleeveless.
“Oh - s-sorry, I forgot - I’ll just-”
I was on the verge of jumping out of bed and darting for my dressing gown when he stopped me with a light hand on mine. “It’s fine.” Then his eyes widened, and he jerked his hand back. “Sorry. I said I wouldn’t touch you.”
I shook my head. “It’s - it’s okay. I…I just don’t like people seeing them.”
“That’s why you cover up all the time.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “But, um, I should check your temperature,” I said quickly, needing to change the subject before he asked anything else about the scars. “Y-your hand doesn’t feel so - so clammy anymore.”
“Ivetta, you don’t have to-”
“Yes, I do,” I interrupted him, putting my hand on his forehead. “I have to do something. You don’t feel hot.” I dropped my hand to the bed and studied his face, avoiding his searching eyes. “And your color’s better, I think. It’s hard to tell in this light, though. I guess - I guess I don’t need to stay here anymore, so-”
“Chevalier’s coming.”
That startled me into meeting his eyes. Chevalier was across the country on a business trip. He wouldn’t be back until tomorrow or the day after that, and it took a full day’s ride to cover the distance, too.
“What do you - do you mean now? But he’s-”
“I sent a message to him this morning. He’ll be back anytime now,” Nokto explained patiently.
“But - you didn’t know about my schedule until-”
He opened his mouth, and I stopped, a sense of foreboding turning my stomach when he hesitated. He reached out and took my hand in both of his, and then he finally said, “Ivetta, if that noblewoman was your only threat, I wouldn’t have asked you to stay in your room, and I wouldn’t have been outside in the rain.”
I stared at him as the realization sunk in. “Y-you mean…”
“Nothing will happen to you,” he reassured me, his crimson eyes holding mine with a steady gaze. “Everything is under control. Everybody’s working on it, and we don’t need Chevalier here to handle it, but I know how protective he is of you - and why,” he said, his eyes flicking to my arms. “So, he’ll be here soon, and he can help calm you down. That’s what he does, right? Like when you had that nightmare and he spent the night with you?”
I swallowed nervously. The way he said that made me think he didn’t know about any of the nights Chevalier spent with me since that night before the coronation ceremony. The night he found out about during our impromptu dance lesson. When he kissed me. When I realized his feelings for me went much deeper than I thought, and he taught me to dance, anyway, so I would be ready for Chevalier’s proposal.
I didn’t want him to know about all the other times.
One of his hands left mine to brush my hair back from my face. “You need him, don’t you?” he asked softly.
I nodded.
His arms came around me, pulling me into his chest in a warm embrace. I closed my eyes and leaned into him, too tired and confused to push away.
“I know it’s not the same, but maybe you can make do with me until he gets here,” he said, stroking my hair soothingly.
“This isn’t right,” I mumbled. “I’m supposed to be helping you.”
“You did, Ivetta. Now, I’m repaying the favor.”
Repaying the favor. Taking care of him when he had a fever was hardly sufficient repayment for drinking poison for me and enduring my ripping his heart out regularly.
“When do you want échaudés?” I asked.
“You don’t have to make me échaudés every time I do something nice for you,” he said.
“No, because then I’d be making them for you all the time,” I replied.
And that was when the door flew open so hard and fast that it hit the wall with a bang. My heart rate shot up again, and I grabbed at Nokto’s shirt, burying my face in his chest rather than looking at the door. His hands left my back and pushed me gently away by the shoulders.
“Ivetta, it’s Chevalier,” he said.
“Chevalier?” I whispered, looking up as he stormed across the room toward us, dripping rainwater across the floor. I reached for him without thinking, and he pulled me off the bed and into a cold, wet embrace. He nuzzled into my neck, icy drops of water trickling from his hair down my cheek.
“If I’d lost you-”
His voice broke. I’d never heard his voice break before.
“Would you mind taking this touching reunion elsewhere?” Nokto asked irritably. “I’m trying to sleep off some poison here.”
Chevalier loosened his grip on me enough to cup my cheek with one hand, his crystal blue eyes intent on mine. “Poison.”
I nodded. “Nokto drank it. H-he took the antidote, so he’ll be okay, but he really needs his rest. A-and you need to get out of these wet clothes.”
“Careful about playing that strip-tease game with him, Ivetta. He’s not sick,” Nokto said in a wry voice.
“I’ll deal with you tomorrow,” Chevalier said coolly, his voice directed at Nokto, but his eyes never leaving mine. “Come.”
“Wait,” I said, resisting his tug towards the door. I grabbed my dressing gown from the sofa and my slippers from the floor, looking back at Nokto. He was lying down, facing away from the door. “Thank you, Nokto. Get some rest and don’t worry about getting up early tomorrow. You’ve done more than enough today.”
He raised his hand in a lazy wave. “Yeah, sure. Goodnight, Ivetta.”
I returned to Chevalier, who was waiting for me at the door. He slipped an arm around my waist and led the way down the hall, his cloak falling naturally around me, wrapping me in a cocoon of protection. A wet, cold cocoon.
“Chevalier, you’re soaked through,” I said, looking up at him. “Are we going back to your room?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because you need a hot bath to warm you up. And maybe some hot tea. Mark, could you bring some tea up to his room?” I asked, craning my neck to see my guards around his cloak and over my shoulder. The telltale clanking of armor told me they were following us. They never followed me when I was with Chevalier, but I couldn’t focus on that right now, or I’d fall apart again before we even made it to Chevalier’s room.
“Ivetta,” Chevalier started.
“If you don’t need it, I do,” I said firmly.
He sighed, and then he said, “Mark.”
“Yes, your highness.”
Well, that was one small victory, I thought as I leaned into Chevalier’s side. Now, I just needed to hold it together long enough to convince him that taking care of himself was a better use of his time than rushing out into the night on his own personal manhunt, because I knew the cold and damp seeping through my clothes from his didn’t tell the full story. Inside, he was angry, and he would be out for blood once he decided I was safe and secure.
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