THE APPLE OF SNAKES

lxiv. bad dreams

The day of the competition started early.

Nerluce dressed in light robes and tied his hair back. There was no need for his usual excess. It would only serve to hinder him.

He left before Coam was awake. She had trouble sleeping at night - something Nerluce hadn't learned until a couple of months ago when they stumbled upon one another in the halls long past the reasonable hour. She'd been up last night. Nerluce had heard her leaving her room and then going back into it and then leaving again. She probably barely got to sleep by the time Nerluce woke up.

Nerluce had never asked Coam why she didn't sleep. He had never had to. It was the same reason that Nerluce couldn't sleep either.

Unlike his sister, who had trouble falling asleep, Nerluce woke frequently at night. He'd stay awake for a candle mark or two and then fall back asleep for a couple of candle marks and then wake up again. Sometimes walking would help him sleep longer. Sometimes it just meant he wouldn't fall back asleep. Sometimes that was the idea.

It was hard to say when exactly the dreams started. It might've been... months or weeks or days. Nerluce wasn't sure. He just knew that one night he woke up screaming. And the next day it happened again. Then it started happening twice a night. Three times. Four. As many times as Nerluce slept, he dreamt. Nerluce stopped screaming but he couldn't stop the dreams. He doubted that Coam could either.

The morning air was colder than Nerluce was expecting but he didn't mind it. Winter was still awful and the cold weather was proof enough that the first snow would fall before he returned to Hebikoti Palace - likely making the trip home even longer - but the Golden City made it almost impossible to think of such things. It was a place that seemed so far away from the world and its problems.

Though that might be because Nerluce was avoiding his problems like a plague.

He didn't talk to Aristide again and he bolted from any room as soon as the High Priestess arrived in it.

"Nerluce?"

The sudden voice made Nerluce flinch and stumble back, almost tripping and falling into a bush of yellow roses. He managed to catch himself before that but the embarrassment still caused heat to rush to his face. He turned and tried to fix the intruder - and really they weren't much of an intruder because it wasn't like this path belonged to Nerluce - with the most intimidating glare as he could muster when his ears were probably bright red.

The intruder - a young woman - took a step back, startled herself. Good. People called him a hero and a savior, but Nerluce did not want that role to play. Heroes had responsibilities. Saviors didn't get to slack.

Yet, after a moment, the woman took a bold step forward. "Nerluce," she said, again.

"Do I know you?" Nerluce asked. 

She looked... familiar, though he couldn't place where he'd met her before. She wore teal robes that flowed like water around her frame. Her hair was long and black and decorated with a pretty jade pin. Nothing rang a bell. The young woman had addressed him by his first name, though, so she must've thought they were somewhat intimate. Nerluce wondered if he'd stolen a kiss or two. She was pretty now so Nerluce had probably thought so too in the past.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," the young woman said, trying to hide her offense. "It means, I've grown prettier."

That... almost seemed like a flirtation. "I doubt the young mistress was ever anything shy of beautiful," Nerluce said, flirting back. Because if she was someone Nerluce kissed in the past, he wouldn't mind revisiting that.

Besides the glare hadn't worked.

"You're such a flirt," the young woman said with a laugh.

"Such slander!" Nerluce pressed a hand to his chest before smiling: cocky and full of spite. "Young mistress, you know my affections are for you alone."