Forged in Frost and Fire (Book 1 in the Chronicles of Kings trilogy)

Chapter Thirty Four

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

I stayed awake all through the night, waiting in silence. Waiting for a flap of wings in the distance, waiting for the shadows to shift, waiting for something. Anything. I felt sick to my stomach as I curled up in a ball on the bed. Sable's words kept echoing around in my head, over and over again.

I killed my father. I killed my father after he killed my mother. Sable was an orphan, his parents had died. But...but he killed his father. How? How could he do such a thing? I thought of my own father, with his soft smile and kind eyes. The thought of bringing a blade to him...it made my stomach turn enough that I had to leap to the bathroom to hurl my guts up. Or that could've been the alcohol.

I stayed by the toilet for most of the early morning hours, every movement I made brought along another wave of nausea, and every bright light made agony slice through my head. I kept the door cracked open, in hopes that I'd hear Sable moving around in the room, but over my vomiting and the loud thoughts booming along the inner walls of my head...I heard nothing.

"You're such an idiot," I muttered, resting my forehead against my arms. My skin felt warmer than usual. I brought my palms up to my cheeks, cooling them thoroughly, but it didn't stop the sick feeling from taking root in my gut. I had forced those words out of him, I knew I had. Nazira told me he'd tell me about his skeletons when the time was right. If it was ever right. Who in the hells was I to force those words out of him? I didn't know him all that well, certainly not well enough to expect to know all his dirty secrets? I had just...I wanted to understand him. Sable felt like a labyrinth, every turn I made, every tunnel I went down had me thinking I was making progress only to reveal I had gotten to a deadend.

But...this? Him revealing he killed his father only worsened things. He didn't want to see me, that much was evident from him not returning to his room. What an asshole I was, kicking him out of his own gods-damned room.

"I'm such a fucking idiot," I groaned, resisting the urge to smash my head into the toilet seat.

"Rough morning?" a voice said. My heart leaped for only a moment, until plummeting downwards as I realized the voice was not Sable's. I looked up to see Caspian leaning against the door. I hadn't really ever said much to Caspian during my stay at Vellichor House, he was always quiet, and I wasn't much of a speaker either. He seemed kind enough though. Him and Nazira were always whispering to each other. She always made him smile, and whatever he whispered to her always made her gasp and hit his chest. They were cute. I wonder if they'd ever done anything, took that extra step.

"And night, and year, and life," I said, drawing my knees up to my chest. I was still wearing Nazira's white dress from last night, though now it was wrinkled and looked worse for wear. My hair was thrown up into a knot at the top of my head, something I had just barely managed to do before tossing my stomach contents up into the toilet bowl.

"I can relate," he crouched down beside me, handing me an empty glass and a white vial.

"Um...I appreciate the effort, but I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be water or something-" My words were cut off as water flowed out of his palm and into my cup. I watched in awe as crystal clear liquid slowly filled to the brim.

"I thought it'd be a little dense to walk up all those stairs holding a glass of water," he said.

"Right," I muttered, laughing.

"Drop a few of those onto your tongue and take it down with water, it should help with the nausea and pain," he nodded at the vial and I did as he asked. It tasted foul and sour in my mouth and I quickly washed it down with water.