Starve This Sin

{ Chapter Thirteen }

Ben stood in his chambers, back bare, fists clenched as he stared out his bedroom window.

The sky echoed angry passionate embers and his heart pulsed with fury.

Night was falling quickly and he was prepared to spend all evening focused in a meditative state, waiting in her dream realm.

He had spent the past week doing this, only getting small naps in here and there through the day. The exhaustion of his refusal to sleep mixed with the mental state of desperate anguish made him visibly sick.

He was constantly running a slight fever, his eyes growing red circles of irritation. His hair was tangled and waved, unkempt. Even his posture became weaker, his large shoulders in a fallen state at all points of the day.

He also sported a new scar that ran jagged down his cheek, peach colored and warrior like, branding his face.

Being king had been everything he expected but without Eva he couldn't face Solanyn alone. He was beginning to feel drained from the plethora of orders. His plans to remove him permanently were stalled. Every moment Eva was away, Ben was a step closer to his own death, to letting the darkness consume him.

With one hand gripping the wooden frame, he peered out below the window. His other hand began reaching out, grasping, trying to gather anything from the air. He was calculating signs of her returning to the wind but there was nothing. Despite their fight in her dream she remained human.

Hopefully, tonight, he could find her again.

"Excuse me, your majesty?" Edana's voice cut from the doorway of his bedroom, head popping in.

Ben turned his head to her, peering over his shoulder.

"I know it is almost night so I apologize for bothering you in your.. preparation. But I left you some dinner outside on the hallway table. It's been a few days since you've eaten."

His brows pinched together, lips parting in confusion, "I think I had forgotten." He states it simply, turning completely. "Thank you."

Edana looks him over, how distraught and tired he appeared, and shakes her head as she steps further into the room.

"Have you reached her at all?"

"Last night," he flops down onto his bed, dark drapes clutching under the weight.

Edana grabs the tray and walks it to him, resting it at his side on the bed. "What did she have to say?"

"That she wants nothing to do with me, that I owe her an apology," he gruffs, arms swinging over his face.

"If I can be so bland, my king, but I think maybe you do."

He sighed so heavily, the bed moved with him.

"I was only doing the best thing I could manage at the time. The very last thing that woman needed was to be pulled away from her life to be married to me-who had no interest in the matter, who was diving deeply into my magic. I won't say my interests weren't purely selfish, but I still knew better than to persue her. And even when I did, it was for nothing but awaking her to her destiny and at the very last moment I could spare."

"Yet the way you approached things came off a bit... aggressive? Tyranical? Don't you think?"

Ben was silent for a moment. "Even if they were. She needed an authority, tough guidance. She just didn't take to it very well."

"She was your prisoner, Ben. Why would she ever return?" With that, Edana closed his bedroom door, leaving Ben to his thoughts and food.

He stayed half in his bed for awhile, his hands picking at the chicken breast beside him with his fingers and swallowing chunks of meat and potato.