Crown of Faeries

17 | Torpid

My body twitched violently in a single, large, jolt that had me sitting straight up in split second. I inhaled a large breath, as if I was waking from the dead. My eyes were wide open but everything was hard to see. And for a moment I thought I was back in the darkness.

A shiver shuttered through my body and then soft hands fell on me. I jerked left and tried to crawl away, but the hands gripped my arms and yanked me back.

"Don't do that Caelia!" Max's deep and sensual tone graced my ears and I went slack in his arms.

"Why can't I see?" Panic was laced all throughout my words.

Max laid me back down against a pillow. He fanned out my hair in a comfortable way that wouldn't allow my locks to knot. But the memory of the smell of my hair burning reaching my nose and I cringed. I wondered then just how much of my hair I had lost.

"I have your eyes covered with a cloth. It's lathered in an emollient that should calm your burns--or what's left of them."

"What does that mean?" I went to raise an eyebrow, but I hissed at the attempt to do such motion.

Max's hand laid on my shoulder for a moment before his fingers touched my neck. "Your pulse has been weak and Reighton's been a mess. He's furious they got you from the inside and placed you before a Dragon for your first trail."

"Tell him it was the figure in my dream, please." I whispered.

I could just imagine his questionable stare at me as he glanced towards the door. "What figure?"

"Reighton knows." I didn't give him much information.

"Alright." Max seemed a little hurt that I wasn't telling him the whole picture and I sighed.

"Max," I said his name softly. "Tell Reighton he needs to tell you all of my dreams. I didn't exactly get a chance to tell him everything when I did last night--"

"Last night?" Max's voice cut me off.

"Yes, last night--"

"Caelia. Reighton hasn't been in your room for the past two days."

"Two--what?" I went to sit up to clear my head, but Max's hands pressed me softly back against the pillow.

"Never mind." Max huffed out a breath. "I'll need you to drink this." He placed the edge of a glass up against my lower lip. I let my lips part and felt the cold touch of a bitter liquid coating my tongue. I was about to choke on the dirty, herbal tasting water, but decided to make Max's job easier instead of more bothersome.

"Thank you." I said as I searched blindly as my head moved to where I thought Max would be.

"That should help you sleep a couple of more hours. I'll check in on you in the next and remove the cloth. Your arms healed quickly last night and there's not even a hint of a scar on you." He words sound shocked and we filled with disbelief.

"I guess I'm lucky." I gave a weak smile and I heard him snort a deep sound in his chest.

"Get some sleep." He said as he went to grab his bag. I could hear the jingle of the zippers as he zipped them up. And then his foot falls were soft as he walked to a door. And then my room fell silent and I was alone. It wasn't too much longer after that that I felt my eyes get heavy and I let my body slip into sleep.

_____________

In the following hour or two, I woke up with a large stretch. My knuckles hit the backboard of a bed and I opened my eyes to see that I was laying in Reighton's room. Again.