She pulled away from his face slightly, staying close enough for her breathe to mingle with his hair. Her own hair brushed against his ear, making him even more aware of what just happened.
His eyes stayed widened as he continued to stare at her with shock and amazement. He smiled up at her. "You really are drunk." He whispered as she let out a yawn. Her head rolled onto his shoulder. Her forehead pressed against the side of his neck as a cold shudder broke through her skin.
Her fever suddenly spiked, her body trembling from the result of it. He shifted her position in his arm as he started to walk towards the mansion. Her limb legs lay drapped against his left arm as he pridefully walked across the garden. Unaware of the eyes of the servants at his direction.
He carried her across empty hallways towards his own guest room, knowing that hers was crowded with empty glass bottles and the pungent scent of liquor. But never did he know that Nada would be waiting at his room while tapping her foot on the ground with an angry rythm.
He stood frozen in shock at her face, staring at Aefia's once before flashing an awkward smile. "She collapsed while I was bringing her here. I swear I didn't do anything that might upset her."
His hands were too occupied to even wipe away the stray tear that had escaped the corner of her eye. However, Nada stepped forward, reaching a finger over to wipe it away from her cousin's cheek.
"I am not certain yet..." She spoke with a very gentle tone. "Aefia never really falls asleep near people. But seeing as how peaceful she is against your shoulder... I can tell she really trusts you."
He turned flustered and shifted his gaze towards the table instead. "I think she did it because she is drunk."
"Even if she is drunk... She won't have been this quiet while sleeping. Even if it is me, she would have flinched. I think she thinks you will protect her if someone ever harms her like this."
"I am not... Sure about it..."
Nada furrowed her brows at him. "You don't know her as much as I do, alright?" Her jaw clenched as she stepped aside to allow for him to move Aefia towards the bed. As he set her down, he moved her stray hairs away from her eyes and pressed his palm flat against her burning forehead.
"Listen, Aefia has suffered quite a lot in her life. She barely got to be ten years old that her parents started questioning her future. She was a girl in a family whose aunts saw her as a threat in their way. Aefia wasn't always this smart, until reality forced her to calculate every tile she stepped on." Nada explained while walking up to the edge of the bed.
While Helio went to fetch a bowl of water from the sink, she sat down, staring at her face. And as he did, he clenched the towel at his hand while staring at the water falling off the bowl for a second. No wonder she has trust issues.
"I am honestly glad that Aefia came to this world... Although I didn't want her to suffer twice as much in here..." She whispered while letting her head droop down. "There has been times that Aefia said she couldn't sleep due to the trauma she carries across two worlds. She even said she didn't expect things to progress worse than the first day when she was taken to the palace.
"Besides that... I never really expected to see her crying like that when she was injured after the hunting competition ended. She said she was in pain, she needed painkillers. But what I do remember, she had never wanted painkillers in her entire life." Nada tapped her chin while observing her cousin's face.
"She took her own pain killers." He replied while stepping up beside Aefia's head. "Opioids mostly. And sleeping pills mixed with toxins to make things worse. She said she could't even get three hours sleep, so she took more just in case."
"And you say you are not sure she trusts you enough?" Nada mischievously tilted her head to the side while folding her arms in front of her. "How do you think you know if I don't even know? She clearly wasn't drunk back then."
"No she wasn't... But she was under the influence of drugs." He looked back at her with annoyance. "Those golden liquids make her lose her mind for exactly ten minutes—she said all those around times like that."
"Stop acting like she didn't mean it seriously. Even if she loses her mind, she doesn't speak that openly to me too! And I looked after her for the time that you couldn't."
"What if she did, but you forgot."
"Oh my god..." She slammed her palms into her face while looking away. She abruptly stood up with a fierce stomp that forced him to look up at her.
"I am just saying... Aefia needs a break. She had suffered a lot and she is struggling to keep her head above water right now. I want you to look after her for whatever she plans on doing next, since I can't quite do so wherever she wants to go next. I know that at least knowing how her body is weak, she will take someone along with her—and you are the first person on the list of someone. So take care of my cousin properly or I will snap your neck."
He looked at her with suspicion. His eyes narrowed as he patted the fabric down on her forehead. "I am older than you... You know? Use some respect."
"You don't say that to her... Do you?" She threw her words back at him. Her face distorted in frustration. "I will only say this once. When she wakes up, ask her about what happened at the hunting competition and what she wants to do next."
"And what am I supposed to do after knowing that?"
"Do you still not get it?"
"No..."
Nada calmed her expression down, breathing out her anger before lifting her gaze up at his face.
"I have been thinking lately. I want Aefia to have a life where she isn't having to face one problem after another in continuous motion," she looked down at her face. "She has missed somethings in her life and I want her to enjoy them now before she can't do it ever again. Her brother thinks the same. And Aefia herself too wants to do them at in her life—that she couldn't do as a child. I want you to help her do it. Even if you deny it multiple times, she still trusts you more than anyone else.
"I will likely not be able to interfere for the time being. I have some things to take care of. However, you don't. So I want you to do me a favor and give her a life I, as a cousin, couldn't." She whispered while stepping back towards the door. "Apparently... Aefia may be trying to take her life again... Her symptoms have become just as reckless as before—so has her speech.
"I am afraid I might not know exactly what or why. But since a very young age, she had bipolar disorder. She can't even distinguish when she is genuinely happy and when she is depressed. Not only that, she had thalassophobia, making her extremely afraid of a blinding dark and unbreathable situations—"
"But why are you telling me?" He asked while standing up with the bowl of water.
Nada bit her bottom lip for a split second. "Because I don't want anyone she trusts to hurt her unwillingly. Once she has been betrayed, she will dread over it for a very long time.
"She would blame it on herself and I don't want her to feel numb over her own unsettled situations ever again. I just want you to be careful with your words—in case. She is the only family that thought about saving me when I was about to be sold out.
"So she is like my most prized possession who I would never stop loving like my younger sister."
Without another word, she turned on her heels and walked out of the door. The room fell silent expect for the Aefia's ragged breathing. He was tangled up in his thoughts for a long time, thinking through Nada's words.
He let out a sigh after a long time, rubbing his thumb along Aefia's slender yet soft fingers. It was hard for him to believe she had so much experience fighting but her hands were like a newborn's. He traced his fingertip against her knuckles, wondering what kind of a person she was.
Again, she is like a pretty showcase doll with a knife sharper than most blades.
He single-mindedly pressed his lips against her knuckles before standing up to fetch some medications, glancing once at her face before shutting the door.
***
Snap!
"Ugh! I am bored!" Aefia childishly complained while throwing the book near the foot of the bed. She lay flat on her back on her velvet bedsheet, staring blankly at the ceiling before looking towards the side to catch a glimpse of a golden hair. "What are you reading?" She flipped herself around to settle her chin against his head.
"You will not enjoy it."
"Still. What if I end up doing so?" She asked with a smile while tickling the side of his neck with her fingers. It has been three days since she had a hangover, and she remembered half as much as what she had done at the garden and didn't even bother being awkward about it.
"Stop it Aefia." He shifted his head to the side that she was tickling. He sat with his back leaning against the side of the bed, still sitting on the floor. He flipped a page, shifting his gaze to the top of the left page.
"I am extreeeemely bored."
"What is wrong with your book? I thought you got the best out of the entire library?"
"I thought it had a strong and smart female protagonist, who can break down an entire horde of army with a single word like, 'stop!'. But this turned out to be a romance. Not even a hint of action. And the male lead is just... Dumb!"
"Then why did you pick it up?"
"Because the synopsis was promising." She answered while half burying her face in his golden blonde hair.
"Then read mine along with me?" He squinted his eyes as her breathe tickled his scalp. "It is by H.G Wells. I thought you said you liked a few of his work?"
"Yeah I do..." She shifted her chin properly on his head to stare down at his book. Not even three paragraphs into it, she flopped back onto her back and precariously hung her head off the edge.
"The story is interesting... But its not interesting me right now." She spoke while staring out the window, where the sky was navy blue from the evening light. The silver edges of her hair brushed against his arms as she blabbered on about the kind of story she wanted to read right now.
"Aefia. Sit properly. Or the blood will rush to your head and cause you a stroke." He spoke while flipping to the last page.
"Stroke sounds like a pleasant way to die." She whispered while zoning out.
"You will get a headache..."
She immediately sat up on the bed and held her forehead at her fingertips. "Thanks for letting me know." She looked towards the book at the foot of her bed. Her fingers reached out for it, wanting to stand up and put it away. But before she could touch the leather cover, he picked it up and placed it along with his on the desk.
"Alright." He sat on the edge of the mattress, his back in the direction of hers, his gaze was fixed on hers. "What do you want to do? You can't say you want to go to the library again. Because you definitely didn't enjoy it this time."
She thought for a while, looking towards the door. Then a smile popped on her head. "I want to go to a—"
"Nope! Not that. You just recovered from a very painful injury, in terms of you." He interrupted her while shifting slightly.
"You didn't even let me finish!"
She shot him an annoyed look and immediately slammed back down on the bed. Her hair falling off the edge but her eyes stared up at the ceiling. She stayed silent for a long while as he slid his fingers across her hair strands, his fingertips glowed a lime-green. She let out a yawn as her eyes felt heavy, and then...
"You know I was assaulted at the hunting competition?" She muttered out while looking at his face.
"What?" He froze as his eyes widened at what he had just heard. "You didn't tell me that?!"
"Apparently, that bastard Kazimir controlled a rivalling team into using a brick against my head early in the morning just because I stole back all of our already stolen hunts."
"Who is Kazimir?" He asked while leaning forward slightly.
"Cedric's older brother."
The name 'Cedric' caught his attention the wrong time since he thought that navy-blue-haired guy had arrogantly beaten her up.
"He sent Cedric away early with the guise of a medical injury and took over being captain by himself. Not only that, he wanted to use the wish to enslave me so he could torture me for taking him off the throne.
"Not only that, the first time that I met him, he tucked my hair behind my ear. And then the second time I met him, he used his finger to trace my jaw. I didn't care about it the previous two encounters but—"
"You should have said something to someone when he did it the first and the second time!" He yelled at her with a genuinely concerned face as he traced the nearly invisible silver line across the side of her hairline using his thumb. "He won't have done it if some people knew, you know..."
She stared at his face with shock for a few moments. Before she would utter a single word, he caught her right palm in his hand while leaning over her face to kiss her forehead multiple times in a row. She was confused all at once, staring blankly at his shut eyes for an answer. His sudden actions were suspicious...
"You know something?"
"What?" He opened his eyes.
"I think you are... Jealous." She smirked.
He smiled back at her. "I am..." Then leaned down to press another kiss to her injury.
She didn't object. She liked it—it felt like a reward that wasn't offered by a drug. Eventually, she let go of her rigid muscles and relaxed against his touch.