I don't sleep.

  Instead, I keep watch as Rael rests beside me. I know if anything attacks us again, my attempt to fight them will be futile, but sleep is a distant thought as I observe Rael in the growing light of dawn. It spills through the frosty trees, weaving a soft film of gold across his face and raising shadows along his jaw and cheekbones--illuminating the storm that is him.

  I studied him throughout the night, mostly to ensure the veylan root had taken effect, but now as the light crowns him in something almost celestial, almost ethereal, I find it nearly impossible to look away. In sleep, he seems untouched by this world--black lashes resting against his skin, his breathing deep and unguarded.

  At some point in the night, he'd shifted closer--or maybe I had, I wasn't entirely sure--seeking warmth even in slumber; and his arm now draped loosely around my waist, his face turned toward me. My fingers twitch with the urge to reach up and trace the hard lines of his face, to brush the strands of dark hair from his brow, but my fingers retreat before the thought can fully take root.

  What am I doing? I am to marry the King.

  I scold myself and carefully lean away, mindful not to wake him as I watch the sky shift from indigo to gray. He should wake soon, we need to move.

  Bracing a hand against the ground, I force myself up--searing pain shooting up my arm. I bite back a groan.

  Rael's breath hitches beside me, and I look over to find him studying me me with furrowed brows. "Princess?" His voice is hoarse with sleep and groggy confusion. He props himself up on his forearms, still sluggish, still fevered, but as soon as his gaze onto my arm, he stills.

  I frown, following his stare, my stomach lurching as I spot the serrated flesh of my bicep peeking through my torn sleeve. I look to my other arm, finding a similarly grotesque image where the demon's claws had ripped free. My vision blurred.

  "You're hurt." Rael's fingers ghost over the punctures before snapping back like he's touched something vile.

  I had been so consumed with everything that had happened that I had completely forgot to tend to my own wounds. Perhaps the moonshade coating my teeth had paralyzed my nerves? "It's nothing," I rasp, set on tearing more fabric from my dress for wrapping, "I'll--"

  "It's not nothing," he cuts me off, already shoving himself to his feet. He sways, but his fiery eyes gaze set on the corpse laying somewhere beyond me burns away any sign of fatigue. "If he were still alive, I would break every bone he raised against you," malice glints in his eyes, "and make him count them one by one."

  I blink. "Rael--"

  "I've killed for far less." Something dark burns beneath the surface of his words. "And I'd do it again, for you."

  I find any retort catching in my throat, subdued by the frost, the silence, the rage all hanging between us like fog.

  Then, he kneels before me, the cold of the morning air nipping my cheeks and raising the flesh on my arms. His eyes remain intense, the only thing focused as he gently, almost reverently, cuts the fabric of my sleeves to reveal the angry, raw gash beneath.

  I flinch away as his fingers brush against my skin, the heat of his touch undeniable, and for a moment I begin to wish he'd move more quickly. He releases a deep breath through his nose before tearing the hem of his cloak and wrapping my arms. I swallowed, the proximity of him—

  I focus on his deft fingers, feather-light as they work. But my attention quickly snags on the bandage around where the arrow once resided. Blood has bled through the fabric, staining the edges a rich crimson. "Your wounds..." I whisper.

  "Leave them," Rael states, "we'll reach Varethia in a few hours." But his words don't erase the pallor of his face, the subtle tremble in his fingers.

  I wonder if he notices my stare, wonder if he notices the worry slowly creasing my brows and that's what has him trying to convince me he's fine. "I'll be stitched up when we arrive."

  Something about the look in his eyes—soft, almost unguarded—has my pulse quickening and I look down to where his fingers rest idly on my arm.

  "Let's get going."

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  "Rael?" I question.

  He leans closer, his chin a subtle pressure on my shoulder. "What?"

  I blink, hard, trying to form words before they disappear as fatigue clouds my brain. "Silver," I start, "it's what caused you to... slow in the fight."

  He grips the reins tighter.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "It weakens demons, doesn't it?" I press, grasping onto the conversation like a lifeline to keep my awake. "Like poison?"

  He hesitates. "What do you think?"

  It isn't a direct yes or no, but it is enough of a sign to point to the truth.

  Silver wounds demons.

  I breathe, absorbing this information as we continue trotting through the forest. "I would've died if it weren't for you." His voice is muffled, and though my heart flutters from the sentiment, my drooping eyelids make the world around me fade into a blur of darkness and hoofbeats.

  "Talk to me." The demand has my eyes shooting open.

  "About what?" I yawn.

  "Anything," he grits. "Just...I need you to keep talking to me."

  A distraction... he needs a distraction.

  "What was she like--your mother?"

  I feel his breath hitch, noting his straitened posture, "she would have liked you."

  I blink, confusion and intrigue swirling together in the haze as I wait for him to continue.

  "She died when my brother and I were still young." He pauses, as if debating whether to continue, then presses on. "But before that--before everything--she was magnificent. Fierce. Stubborn... More heart than sense, my father used to say."

  I think I'm smiling but my cheeks have gone numb. "Sounds familiar."

  He huffs a laugh, "It does, doesn't it?"

  I want to ask more, want to grasp onto the warmth in his words as he speaks of her, but my head tilts back against his collarbone, focusing becoming a chore as the pull of sleep grows more fervent.

  His arms tighten around me. "Don't you dare fall asleep," he orders.

  I hum a laugh, "the guard telling the princess what to do."

  He scoffs.

  "Tell me more." I mumble. "About your childhood." At first, I think he won't continue, that he'll dismiss my request like a wave of a hand. Instead, he responds.

  "My brother and I weren't raised the way humans are."

  His voice becomes my anchor, "What was it like?"

  "We are trained from the moment we can walk. Not just to fight, but to survive. To outwit. Strength means nothing if you don't know how to use it." He shifts behind me. "We were taught that no one is coming to save you. If you want to live, you must be strong enough to take what you need and ruthless enough to keep it."

  My brows scrunch, my foggy mind turning over the words. "That sounds... lonely."

  "It was."

  My heart aches at the admission.

  "You're expected to learn quickly, or you don't learn at all--you die. My brother and I were left in these woods when we were ten." He speaks like he's simply reciting facts rather than recounting his own childhood. "We were provided a blade and the clothes on our backs. No food. No water. One goal... find our way home."

  "That's barbaric."

  "Perhaps, but we survived."

  "How long..." my question trails off.

  "A month."

  A month?

  "We fought beasts twice our size--as well as other demons like the one you met last night--nearly froze to death when an ice storm rolled through the mountains. My brother got injured and I didn't know if he would make it, but we didn't stop. We couldn't."

  What a difference from my own childhood. From the safe walls of the palace where food was brought to me, where the worst I had to fear was my mother's expectations and my brother failing to wake up the next morning.

  "What if you didn't make it?" I ask.

  "Then we weren't meant to."

  Cruel. That is the word I wish to describe it as, yet it shaped him into who he was now--resilient, powerful.

  "You said your mother would've liked me," my mouth begs for water, but I use that gnawing demand to keep me present, "why?"

  "You're strong, and you don't break." My heart flutters, just as another lurch of exhaustion shudders through me. "Stay awake, Selene. Just a bit longer."

  The world shifts, and for a moment, I forget where I am. The ground beneath the horse feels unsteady as if the earth itself is swaying beneath us. My head is heavy, my thoughts still slipping away, but a set of gates loom ahead. Huge, blackened stone that seems to melt into the mountains themselves. I blink, trying to focus on them but the edges of my vision blurs, like I'm staring through water, everything distorted like a painting left out in the rain.

  I fight to stay awake as we race through the entrance, the city rushing past in fragmented flashes--stone buildings, icy streets, faces passing too quickly to register like ghosts in the mist. I try to focus on the sounds--the echo of footsteps, the thrum of life that pulses around us flying by--but it all seems just out of reach.

  I lean back into Rael, seeking his warmth as the cold creeps further into my bones. The city feels like a dream, a collage that doesn't quite fit together. The imposing towers, the cold stone, the people--its hauntingly beautiful.

  "Do you think," I sigh, half-asleep, "do you think the wind would carry us forever if we let it?"

  The question feels wrong as soon as I ask it, like it isn't meant for this moment, like it belongs somewhere else. Somewhere less cold. Somewhere where I can breathe.

  But the moment slips away along with reality, the world tilting and spinning, the city swallowing me whole as shadows press in around me.

  I'm so tired. My eyelids flutter, heavy as stone, and I can't seem to keep them open anymore.

  Hoofbeats grow louder--more rapid, the thundering wind whipping through my hair, but I'm falling deeper into the darkness of an inescapable dream.

  "Selene."

  My body feels light, but also like it's being pulled apart limb by limb and I barely register us slow to a stop. A heartbeat later, strong arms are wrapped around me, lifting me from the horse before pulling me snuggly against an armored chest.

  I can barely hold onto the remnants of consciousness.

  Something's wrong.

  "Get a doctor!" Rael's shout cuts through the ringing in my ears. "She is promised to the King! Get somebody, now!" Frantic footsteps echo through my skull as we traverse through blurry corridors, yet Rael carries me like I'm the most fragile thing in the world.

  I want to tell him I'm fine--that I only need sleep, but the words don't come.

  I sink into a mattress as Rael crouches beside me, eyes wild, still feverish. "Stay awake, Selene, just a bit longer," he urges. His hand is on mine, clutching it like a lifeline, but I cannot feel the warmth of his fingers. Cannot see the emotions written on his face that blurs in and out of focus, sharp features smoothing over.

  What's happening?

  He pulls away, standing as the door to the room opens and a woman enters. The scent of flowers fills the air, delicate and calming, but dizzying.

  "It's alright, dear," she cooes. "Rest now."

  The floral scent deepens, like I'm laying in a field of it. My mind spins, a tangled haze of warm and cold, of soft words and soft hands.

  "Soul rot." A distant voice states but I cannot resist any longer as sleep takes me in a deep waves that washes over me like the tide.

  The last thing I hear is the soft rustle of fabric, the sound of someone moving around the room, and the faint murmurs of Rael's fading voice.

  Then, nothing.