Once in his hospital room, Aidyn gently lays Noelle on his bed and steps back to let the present attending healers take over. None of them are mages, so they can't help with the magical aspects of Noelle's condition, but they situate her more comfortably and start hooking her up to monitors.
Carrying Noelle up from the basement level to his third floor room is the most physical contact she and Aidyn have ever shared—besides the whole soul-touching incident. He felt comfortable carrying her now because it was medically necessary, but he doesn't feel comfortable tucking her into bed. He doesn't think Noelle would either.
Aidyn isn't kidding about her aversion to physical contact. That tendency was there as a teenager as well, but it has definitely intensified as an adult. While Noelle tolerates hugs from the other women on their team, she's always hesitant to the point of wariness about being in close contact with men. Whether it's because she's still grieving the loss of her husband, or because touching simply creates more data, the men on their team are particularly careful not to encroach on Noelle's personal space.
From a power dynamics standpoint, keeping things professional is important to Aidyn. As a prince, everything he does carries more weight. His words and actions always land with more force, so carelessness isn't something he can afford in normal circumstances. Forming a Love Bond with one of his co-workers obviously isn't the wisest choice if professionalism is the goal. But what's done is done. All that matters now is protecting his bond partners.
Aidyn pulls a chair closer to the bed, finding he wants to stay as close as possible to Noelle—without touching, of course.
While waiting for the specialist, Aidyn splits his awareness between the room and their Team Bond. As soon as he materializes in the still frantic Library, he gives everyone a brief update.
"Noelle is with me now, but we need to clear out of The Library and not use her magic for a while," Aidyn instructs. "I think she's in Overload. I don't know when she'll be well enough for us to spend a lot of time in here again."
Ellyse clenches her fists. "If she's over her limit, why didn't she ask us for magic? The rest of us are stuck sitting around in our palace Stronghold rooms—thanks for that by the way, this is much better—but we have plenty of magic to spare. If she needs help, we are here to give it. Why didn't she ask?"
"I don't know, and I can't talk to her about it until her fever subsides enough for her to be coherent." Through his split focus, Aidyn sees Jonnsonn let in the specialist and the incompetent healer. "I have to go, but I'll check in every twelve hours. Royal Guards will relay messages."
His teammates offer quick good-byes before disappearing from The Library. Following suit, Aidyn shifts his focus fully back to the hospital room and stands to address the mages.
Without introducing herself, the specialist immediately starts examining Noelle with magic. After asking Aidyn rapid-fire questions about Noelle's magic, their new bond, and the circumstances surrounding its formation, the specialist grills the Healer Mage originally assigned to Noelle. He turns out to only be an apprentice. How an apprentice ended up with the responsibility of caring for a high-ranking mage is a mystery Aidyn doesn't have the energy to solve right now.
"Noelle is definitely exceeding the limits of her magical Strength," the specialist confirms after only a few minutes. "Having a new passive bond that generates continual data is overwhelming her, to the point that her physical body can't keep up, even with a Healing Bond."
She writes down notes on Noelle's chart. "I've already put in a Summons Request for a Strength Mage to come boost her magical stores, but it could be a while. With so many bond-break patients at once, our few Strength Mages are in high demand."
"If it helps, I told the rest of our team to not use Noelle's mental construct for a while, and when she wakes up, we'll share our magic with her. I don't know why she didn't activate our Strength Bond earlier."
"Giving her more magic will help in the short-term, but it won't solve the bigger problem. I can see from her chart that the bond formation and then using the Soul Bond to sustain you took a lot out of her. Those were isolated magical events, though, and relatively easy to recover from with time and rest. It's the continued strain of the passive Emotion Bond in combination with her passive magical ability that's pushing Noelle into a deficit."
The specialist pauses, studying Aidyn for a moment before continuing. "Your partner is also holding a considerable amount of your emotions for you on her side of the bond. Almost half. That's the only reason you're conscious right now. I'm honestly surprised she knows how to do that, given your bond is so new and you say the two of you weren't that close before forming it."
Aidyn shifts uncomfortably. "She's had a Love Bond before… Her husband was a captain in navy, but he died in The Battle. She and I have been friends for over fifteen years, though."
It isn't strictly necessary to go into personal details with the specialist, but everyone else has been so judgmental of his and Noelle's decision to bond that he feels the need to justify it.
"Ah, that explains it. She's had some previous experience. Even so, Noelle took on too much. Sharing the emotional weight of your broken bonds has helped you remain much more functional than normal, but it isn't doing her any favors. The way Noelle's magic works, the more of your emotions she holds, the more information her magic gathers and has to filter. First she collects the data as yours, and then again when she takes it on as her own. Also, it looks like she's only partially filtering it, which is causing even more of a strain."
"What do you mean by partially filtering?"
"It looks to me like she's fighting her magic, resisting it, like she's holding it back from following her normal filtration systems."
Aidyn nods, thinking about the recently added blocked-off section of The Library with the apologetic stamps. "She's probably trying to protect my privacy."
The specialist pauses again before responding, and Aidyn can't tell if she's simply uncomfortable or trying to figure out the best way to tell him something serious. "How well do you actually know Noelle?"
He tenses. "Why? Did I mess up my part of the bond? I was barely conscious when we formed it, so Noelle did all the structuring. She's very detail-oriented though—and it activated, which means it's valid!"
The specialist's eyes go wide and she shakes her head. "That's not what I meant, Your Highness. I know your bond is valid. It's structured beautifully, and functioning exactly as designed."
"So what's the problem?"
"It's just… your bond is incredibly strong."
Aidyn still doesn't see any problems. "Isn't that good?"
"Well, yes, of course," she says, looking a bit flustered. "But when you told me the two of you worked together, and you formed your bond in an emergency situation, I expected to find a lot of brittleness in its structure. Not from lack of skill, but from a lack of relational depth. But that's not the case. Your bond is as solid and structurally sound as… well, as people who are more than just merely co-workers. Magically speaking, it looks like the two of you are much closer than that."
Aidyn's eyes go wide. Does that mean there's more between him and Noelle than he originally thought? Love Bonds don't just activate for anyone. Partners must truly love each other, which means he and Noelle do share some type of genuine love.
Hope grows up through the many layers of his distress, discomfort, and anger.
He squashes it.
Like Noelle herself said, there are many forms of love. Aidyn is Noelle's boss and a prince of her realm. No matter what he feels for her, Duty is most likely the strongest type of love Noelle feels for him. The fact that Noelle started calling him by his titles again as soon as he was attacked is strong evidence towards that conclusion.
"It's probably just because she's a Memorizer," Aidyn says. "Her memories don't fade, so anything she poured into the bond structure as motivation would have been as strong as if they'd just happened."
Knowing Noelle, she probably poured in every single memory they've ever shared. She doesn't do anything halfway.
The specialist doesn't look convinced, so he changes the subject before she can ask any more uncomfortable questions. "I still think I did something wrong. I can't feel any of her emotions."
"That's normal after a bond break. You can't feel her because of how intense all of your emotions are right now. Bond breaks are emotionally and magically traumatic events. Right now, it's all so fresh and big and all-encompassing, everything you feel is swallowing Noelle's emotions, especially since she took on so much of it herself. Her emotions are still there, but they're either mixing in with yours so you can't separate them, or they are buried deep beneath yours."
"That sounds… unhealthy," Aidyn admits.
"It's not recommended long-term, but it's not unexpected for what you've gone through. If you take back your emotions, hers will have space to emerge. Then, as you process your emotions and start to heal, you'll have the capacity to feel her more easily through the bond. Emotional landscapes are nuanced by nature and always take a lot of practice to navigate."
And if he isn't sure he wants to navigate it? Aidyn has enough duty-bound relationships in his life already.
"How do we get her out of Overload?" he asks instead, choosing to focus on practicality.
The specialist's eyes fill will sympathy, telling him the answer before she says anything.
"You're going to need to take back everything Noelle is currently holding for you. The more you hold yourself, the less strain it will put on her magic and body."
Aidyn rubs his head. It already hurts so much. The thought of it hurting more sounds unbearable… but his pain isn't Noelle's responsibility. His emotions are his to bear, not hers. It's amazing that she's carried so much of it for this long, but it clearly hurts her to do so. Causing Noelle pain is the last thing he wants to do.
Words get caught in his throat, so he simply nods in response.
A softness enters the specialist's voice as she shifts from problem solving to reassurance. "The first few weeks after bond breaks are the hardest. It will get better though, Your Highness. For both of you."
Then her expression hardens.
"And on behalf of the entire staff, I apologize that I wasn't called in sooner," she adds, glaring at the nearby apprentice, who looks down at his feet with slumped shoulders. "Noelle should have been in the care of a Memorization specialist from the start. Unfortunately, in the confusion of the attacks, that detail fell through the cracks. Given her magical ability, Apprentice Benn should have brought Noelle's symptoms to the attention of his superiors immediately."
Aidyn shoots his own glare at the cowering apprentice before turning back to the specialist. "I'll count on you to express my dissatisfaction, since I don't want to cause Noelle any more discomfort than I already have."
"Absolutely," the specialist nods. "Would you like a separate room, Your Highness? Or we can bring in another bed? Both of you will need to remain in the hospital for a while. You'll most likely need medication to handle the next week or so, and it's unclear at this time how long Noelle will need to recover."
"I don't want to leave her." The amount of affection that spills into his voice surprises him. He coughs to cover it. "For security reasons."
"Yes, of course." The specialists bows. "I'll bring in another bed and set it up right next hers. For security reasons."
Aidyn pretends not to see the knowing smile she gives him on her way out. Instead, he gives a set of orders to his guards.
"Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone remove Noelle from this room unless I've given verbal, coherent, permission. Understood? Be sure the night-shift knows as well."
All four of his on-duty guards salute in response.
When the second bed is set up and ready, the specialist—who belatedly introduces herself as Robyn—walks him through the process of taking back his emotions.
Pulling back everything from Noelle's side is a slow and excruciating task, but Aidyn doesn't let himself stop. Noelle has done more than enough for him already. The more of his emotions Aidyn takes back, the more of Noelle's emotions emerge, just like Robyn said they would. He can't tell what exactly those emotions are, but at least he finally senses their existence.
As Noelle's side of their landscape fills with her own feelings, her ragged breathing slowly steadies next to him. The monitors hooked up to her show a healthy decrease in blood pressure and heart rate as well.
Good. She will be ok.
A small smile flickers briefly on Aidyn's face before the force of the internal storm he now carries on his own sweeps him away.