Blood Curse - Red Queen Fan Fiction

Chapter 23

A/N: What a surprise, a super-long chapter again :-p

Cassandra POV

3 months before

The queen drags me to the palace's bunkers. Only when we're inside do I notice these aren't the rooms for the royals and nobles, but those for everyone else, the commoners and servants, big but not big enough, as I remember. I can't say why we're here. I can't think much at all. I'm burning up, the charred flesh on my left tearing with every movement. I've trained for this, got up despite my aches and injuries so often, yet now I feel like I'm in hell. If Iris didn't hold me up, I'd fall. I shouldn't lean on her that much, it can't be good for her baby, I should find a rest. There has to be –

"Captain," she calls me out of the mists of pain. "Captain," she repeats, "lock and seal the doors."

But it takes on me just to looks at them, to focus on my surroundings again. I grit my teeth. The doors are wide open, and so is my telekinetic sense. It'll cost me later on, but I'm suffering either way. Iris has to know better than me.

It's a miracle I still manage to seal us in, to shove the doors closed and blockade the lock, almost destroying it. My consciousness wavers in consequence, and Iris speaks. "You'll get us out again," she says like a command, but with indecision in her voice.

I don't know how I got to the bunk bed, or how I removed my clothes. They're gone when I fall on the pillows and blankets. Iris starts to clean my wounds. My left side is burned, from my waist over my ribs to my shoulder blades, and to my left shoulder. Also, I haven't noticed before, my left cheek. Iris looks worried. She asks me to help myself, to use my ability to remove dirt and clothing residues too small for her to get off my burns. "You're predestined for this," she says, as if I didn't know that. That isn't my problem. I try, as best as I can, but I can hardly see it. Iris sighs. She bandages and cools me, using her ability for it. I still notice some of her work as I slip in and out of consciousness. A few times she makes me drink. The water feels nice, neither too cold nor warm, even if it can take away only so much of my suffering.

Iris keeps on talking even while my mind drifts off. "All members of the Royal House Cygnet learn to treat burns," she says. "A tradition to brave the Calores." Her voice follows me when I can't make sense of her words anymore, when I faint for good. Maybe her efforts will be useless. Maybe I'll never wake.

I'm left to question this for the next two months. I can't remember much else but pain, Iris's care and brief moments of lucidness. I only notice the passing time when Iris remarks on it, and by her growing belly. She takes care to maintain order and keep up the calendar when I can't. Perhaps Iris chose the commoner bunker for my sake, because here's medicine to numb my aches and against the infection we couldn't avoid. Yet I can only take so much drugs, and they aren't strong enough to take all pain away anyway. Possibly, the royal bunkers had a skinhealer waiting to serve, that would've been easier for me for certain. Instead the queen treats and feeds and cleans me, sometimes even moves me from bed to bed. There's enough water, food and space, and I hope no one else needs it – needed it. The palace still stands, but I don't know if anyone else is here anymore.

Iris's cut off my hair too, what was once waist-long now ends at my chin. "It threatened to fall against your wounds, or was easily wrapped into your bandages," she explained once, caressing my unhurt cheek.

She's all I have now. I want to see my family, to know if my father, his wife and my little sister are okay, to feel Sorata's embrace again. Now I have to rely on the queen, but what am I to her? I can't help her. With my left side burned by Tiberias, I wonder whether I'll ever move any part of my body without aching again. I don't know what she expected. She could've left me outside, maybe an ally could've saved – and healed – me. At least I'm not dead yet, although I became feverish and sunk even deeper into unconsciousness and fever dreams. She still lies down next to me to talk during my worst moments, to hold my hand. I wish I had better replies or could remember what she says. She must be lonely, too.