Taranheim 181

I couldn’t sleep soundly through the night. My thoughts were abuzz with how I would tackle the trials of tomorrow.

Morgan was the more pressing matter. His life was on the line. I at least had a few more days to convince Julia not to take Terry with her to Auren. I didn’t know whether I could save Morgan—or whether he was worth saving--but I was certainly going to try.

I hated having to get up early in the morning, but it was the best and only time to try and have a talk with Morgan.

I sat up and grunted in pain.

I could still feel the cuts on my body. My vision swam for a moment, but I forced myself to climb to my feet. I walked a few steps, feeling lightheaded, and I nearly fell over when I got to the door.

I leaned against the door, panting. I took a moment.

With shaking hands, I opened the door and I was going to sneak down to the dungeon but a guard posted outside our quarters stopped me. “By order of the king, you’re not to leave your quarters at night anymore.”

“I am the queen! I can go where I want!” I said and tried to brush past him. He seized my arm and I grunted in pain.

“I’m sorry, My Queen, I didn’t mean to harm you.” The guard said.

I sighed. “It’s alright. I’ll go back to bed, then. I just wanted to take a walk to clear my head, but I suppose you’re right—I’m still very tired and I might get myself into trouble. Thank you for preventing me.”

The guard smiled at me cheerfully—won over by my charm. “You’re welcome, My Queen.”

I returned his smile and patted his arm. “You do good work!”

I crawled into bed next to Paris and worried myself endlessly about tomorrow. I wrapped my arms around him and whispered, “your heart’s in the right place. I just wish you weren’t so foolish.”

__

I finally got to sleep at some time in the night, and I accidentally slept through much of the morning because I was so exhausted. Paris woke me up mid-morning with the physician at his side to make sure I was well enough to go hunting as was planned for later in the day. She did a quick checkup on me while asking many questions, “does it hurt anywhere?”

I could still feel the phantom pains even as I stood, but I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”

“There aren’t any wounds or anything…” The physician said contemplatively. “She looks fine. I think she can go hunting with you so long as she takes it easy and spends most of her time sitting.”

“Thank you. I wish to speak with my wife now,” Paris told the physician who scurried out of the room. She was very nervous around him.

“They’re all so afraid of you,” I murmured with a drowsy frown. “I want everyone to know how sweet you are…”

I leaned my head against his chest. It made me so bottomlessly unhappy that nobody saw him the way I did.

He kissed my forehead and then shepherded me to the bed and sat me down gently.

He asked, going through my wardrobe, “what would you like to wear?”

“Something yellow.” I replied.

He chuckled. “That’s not very specific…”

“Yellow is the most beautiful and happy color.” I explained. “In moth culture.”

He grabbed an extravagant yellow dress from the wardrobe and instructed me to lift my feet. “I love how you only adopted the sweet and good things from your culture.” He said, pulling the dress up over my legs.

“You don’t have to dress me…” I told him while running my hands through his black hair. Black was malevolence, but it was also a symbol strength and power in moth culture. He may not be physically powerful, but his personality certainly was.

“I owe you one.” He replied.

I stood up and he pulled the dress up the rest of the way and stole a kiss at the end. He rotated to my back and laced up the back of the dress for me while asking, “why do you need the cheering up of wearing yellow? Is it because of your sister? I wish I could make her a princess but—”

I interrupted him and told him sincerely, “the world is a dark place; it makes me very sad… that is all.”

Paris was silent for a moment—not following—but then he said, “I can’t free your sister, but if you wish, I can assign a guard to her to protect her so we don’t have a repeat of this incident.”

I gasped as he kissed the back of my neck. I giggled a little. “You know where that leads! And thank you, but my sister would not appreciate that. She’s very self-reliant.”

“Very well.” He said mischievously.