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19. Blur

19

Blur

No one could stop her. Not the servants that meddled with her affairs, or the letters she takes her time to write for Lotir and the Queen. The correspondence could only do so much, and with the Queen being busy with her affairs, no one and not even Feina stopped Sileas from working herself to the bone.

It didn’t surprise Sileas that she woke up one day and everything was hot. Then cold. Then with no memory of how she got to her bed and in her nightwear. Her throat parched, and her joints aching. The curtains were drawn back to let the heat of the sun in.

Her eyes burned when she closes her eyes, or blinked for too long. She tried her hardest to remember what she was doing last, but it just gave her a splitting headache, and the urge to sleep.

“You’re awake”

“What…What are you doing here?” She murmured. Not sure if the person in front of her is real, or how she didn’t even notice someone with her.

“Well, my dear sister has run herself silly, and I was even given an urgent summon” Lotir sat on the edge of her bed, her clothes in disarray and her hair looked as if she ran her hand through it too many times. “You’ve fainted in your office, and blood just kept pouring out of your nose. We thought you caught a plague or something.”

“what… is it?”

“Overwork.” Lotir reached for something Sileas couldn’t see, unable to even turn her neck or move her heavy body. Lotir pulled out a glass of water and easily wrapped her free arm behind Sileas’s back to sit her up. “Didn’t my brother ban you from working?”

She drank from the cold glass. The water ran down her burning throat and somehow that ease a bit of her headache. Still, when Lotir lets her go, she couldn’t even keep her eyes open, and she slowly, surely drifts off to sleep.

Lotir watched as her sister-in-law drifted off to sleep again, relieved that she finally woke up from being unconscious for 4 days. Sileas would wake up and open her eyes, but would drift immediately back to her feverish oblivion. This has been the most lucid she ever came to, but her sickness is still in its heights.

“Did she wake, your highness?” Feina rolled a trolley inside the room.

“She did, and much better this time.” Lotir sighed. “My brother is already throwing a fit because of this. I might have to stay here till he gets here.”

Feina made a face, but quickly ironed out her expression. “Is… the princess going to be in danger?”

Lotir sighed again, heavier this time. The kinsd of sigh she never thought would come from the carefree former princess. “No…I don’t think so.”

Ragna’s joints ached, but they always do, a usual occurrence for the burned sides of her. Arius insisted that they return to the nomads, and rest there. But like always, she insisted in staying close to her children. Children that are grown up enough to lead wars and manage a territory. But no matter how much they grow up, all she see are her children. All wide eyed and filled with wonder.

After the incident, Arius saw his children in a different light. He loved them, but he knew how dangerous how his son could be, and he started to fear him, as Eitr is the only being in this world he couldn’t hurt to protect his mate.

The two fated Fyres with a problematic prophesy. About a son that could level the whole continent and destroy everything they knew. But Arius doesn’t care about that. The world could burn and the country could fall in to ruins, and he wouldn’t care. But his mate… if anything were to hurt his mate, then that is another matter. Why else did he allow his bloodthirsty son to go to the frontlines the moment he asked for it?

His mate wouldn’t talk to him for months after, and she cried every night with worry, but he could take that. He’d rather she hate him than see her suffer again.

Ragna kissed Arius’s cheek. Her hand lingered from his shoulder to his cheek in a caress that made him lean towards her touch. “You should be resting, my heart.” Arius gazed up at her, he clutched her hand to his cheek with enough force to match his longing. “You don’t need to tire yourself to go that far.”

Ragna playfully slap his cheek with the hand he’s holding. “don’t say something so rude. The girl is sick.”

“Lotir and many of the doctors are on hand” He smirked in response. She’s so small and fragile that even that was laughable to him. “You’re sick too.”

“not as sick as her” Ragna leaned down and kissed him, slowly at first, but he’s a demanding shifter, and not long she felt breathless. She broke the kiss and almost teetered back on the coffee table, but he’s still holding her hand. “Arius” she warned with a small glare.

He laughed. Crossing his long legs and tipping his head back on the chair. “fine, I’ll do some work, but please don’t push yourself. Lotir is on her way here to fetch you.”

“You really need to order her around?”

“She wanted to” Arius smiled. Catching a glance behind his chair, where his desk is filled with work that somehow…wasn’t as bad anymore. “Sileas deserves to feel better.”

Ragna followed his gaze. “She did do most of your work. She got sick because of it. in other words, you owe her.”

“Ah, yes, and that’s the only reason why I’m not tying you to our bed or in this office.”

Ragna laughed. Feeling the warm excitement from deep inside her abdomen. All these years and he still excites her. “You are being silly, but the both of us could see the change.”

Arius sighed. Like he always does when it shifts to a particular topic. “He isn’t going to change”

“Arius, he spared someone.”

“He spared one, for later, while he’s… destroying a whole country because of his machinations.”

No one else knows this as Arius had kept it a tight secret. But the skirmish between the neighboring country was close to being done diplomatically. They already asked for terms as the war dragged on, and his son earned a lot of victories for Dracone. They were acceptable terms. Their monarchs would be kept to rule their land but they would be vassals. Keeping their long line of history without being executed.

But arius made a mistake. He forgot how much his son loved the battlefield. How much of a monster he became. Eitr insighted that country’s prince to stage a coup, and he amassed enough people to start a rebellion. Eitr gleefully told Arius himself of the news. He even briefed him of his elaborate plan.

A plan he knows he made long before the coup happened. Now, Eitr is on his way back to the vassal country’s capital to execute the royal family, and it supporters. One of the well discussed clauses, all because of a single gullible and naïve prince, and a psychopathic one.

He lets his mate’s hand go, as he leaned his head on his propped elbow on the armchair. “you should sit while we wait for her.”

Ragna glanced at the closed doors. “She’ll be here any second now.”

Arius rolled his eyes, already expecting the stubborn answer as he easily wrap his arm around Ragna’s waist and easily lifted her off her feet and on his lap. “Hello there, my heart.”

Ragna bristled. “Arius!”

“What? you are light as a feather.” He grinned as he tucked her stray hair behind her ear. Gazing at her burned half with enough attention and affection that he can’t help kiss the puckered scar. “You are still so beautiful.”

“I don’t believe you” She whispered, out of instinct, she closed her eyes as her Fyre peppered her face with kisses and nibbles on her scar.

“you should” he said between kisses. “I’m the only one that matters.”

She laughed. “the tabloids matter too.”

He growled. Leaning back to gaze at her with an anger that wasn’t directed at her. “I told you not to read those stupid papers. I should have destroyed that paper when I had the chance.”

“Please” Ragna laughed. Her laughter eased his anger, but he was still annoyed enough that he is going to deal with the paper soon. “I’m teasing.”

“I know it bothers you either way.” He sighed. Wrapping his arms around her to pull her closer to him. “I don’t know why you convinced me to let them stay in business.”

“Freedom of speech.”

“But they publish gossip”

“Some of it are based on the truth. It might become handy.”

He huffed. “Why are you so stubborn?”

“Why are you turning into a tyant?”

They stared at each other with hard and serious gazes. But it broke when Ragna couldn’t help but laugh. A laugh that Arius loved and adored. He leaned towards her and kissed her till his mouth tasted like hers.

“Awww, eww” Lotir closed the door behind her with a tired look. She stepped towards her parents and grabbed a cup of tea on the coffee table. “Glad you two are much still in love.”

Arius smiled at his daughter, but frowned when he noticed her state. “What happened to you?”

“Are you sick too?” Ragna pushed herself to her feet.

“No, no, no. I just haven’t taken a rest nor a shower since she got sick.” Lotir rolled her aching shoulders and finished her tea in one go. “That girl worries me.”

“Has she woken?”

“Briefly. There are small ones that aren’t lucid and the most recent one is the most lucid and longest one.” Lotir sighed and leaned back.

“You should take a rest” Ragna caressed her daughter’s face, a face that looked so much like Arius that it still amazes her to think that this beautiful woman came from her. “I’ll take care of Sileas.”

Lotir smiled and leaned towards her touch just alike her father. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too” Ragna pecked her smooth cheek and pinched it.

“Ow”

“Rest. I’m going to her wing.”

“I’ll take you there”

“No, you will—”

Before Ragna could say anything else, Lotir swiftly rose to her feet and pulled her mother gently in her arms. Arius can’t help but smile at his daughter. he doesn’t see it when people said she is his clone. He still isn’t convinced.

“Lotir!”

“Mama!” then she took off running.

“Be careful!” Arius jumped to his feet and roared down the hall as Lotir was too fast for him to scold. “don’t drop your mother!”

He couldn’t hear her reply against the laugh that he loved so much. Still, he watched their forms till it faded down the hall. *Still don’t see it *

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