“I don’t want to make trouble.” Vhalla was sincere, which shone through enough that it made the woman pause. Vhalla could only imagine the pain the Empress was shouldering; now was not a time for Vhalla to insist on her pride. “I am more than happy to depart, if that is best.”
The woman opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off by a tired wheezing. “Vhalla, don’t be crazy,” Baldair managed from the bed within. “My mother said only family. Clearly—” He coughed, and Vhalla heard the blood come up. “Clearly, the little sister I never had is included in that.”
The woman looked toward her son in shock, then back at Vhalla. A lot of eyes were on her at once, and Vhalla gripped her hands more tightly. Clearly Baldair’s condition had made him fearless, and Vhalla knew she had to also be so in order to give the prince what he was asking for.
Vhalla followed the Empress into the room, startled to see the Emperor on the opposite side of Baldair’s bed. The Empress assumed her seat next to her husband, and Vhalla awkwardly took the seat on the opposite side of the bed. She tried to ignore her sovereigns as much as possible, focusing on Baldair instead. His normally brilliant eyes were listless and dull.
“Come now, Vhalla.” He coughed. “Don’t give me those sad eyes.”
Her hands moved before a cleric could. Vhalla mindlessly picked up the cloth from his bedside table so she could blot the blood from the corner of his mouth gently without a thought, just as she had done for her mother.
“Forgive me, my prince.” She forced her voice to sound strong.
“Baldair,” he wheezed. “I don’t have time for pretense anymore.”
Vhalla finally glanced at the Emperor and Empress. She couldn’t make much from their expressions. The Emperor’s was hard and shut off. The Empress’s eyes glistened.
“Don’t say that, Baldair,” she whispered. Vhalla turned her eyes back to him, and the world went away. “Please don’t.”
“I know.” Baldair lifted his hand, and she took it gently. “I can feel it.” He coughed again, and a muffled whimper escaped her lips.
“No, no! You’re going to keep fighting. You’ve been eating right? I told you to keep eating and—” Vhalla blinked several times in quick succession, her eyes burning frustratingly.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Baldair coughed again, and Vhalla’s hand quickly caught the blood. The other held his tightly.
She shook her head. “You-you’ve never disappointed me.”
“How foolish is it?” He leaned against his pillows. “The mighty golden prince, felled by a cold.”
“No.” All she could do was shake her head and refuse. It was a never-ending loop, refusal at the world, at fate. “No, Baldair, please. Don’t talk like this. You will get better, you will. My mother couldn’t because we didn’t have anything, because I couldn’t save her. But-but,” Vhalla took a shaky breath through her nose, her chest ached. “But they can save you.”
“Your mother?” Baldair asked softly.
Vhalla blinked. She wanted to laugh or cry, a strangled noise of pain was her body’s compromise. “I had the fever. So did my mother. I got better, she-she didn’t.” Vhalla hung her head. Before he could say anything else, she looked up suddenly, swinging between emotions. “But like I said, you are much stronger. You can keep fighting.”
“Oh, Vhalla . . .” Baldair looked at her sadly. “I am so sorry.”
She shook her head, knowing the cause of his guilt. He wouldn’t have a reason for it, she insisted to herself. He would get better.
He sighed softly. “I’m tired.”
“No.” Vhalla shook her head. She was completely oblivious to the clerics around her, the hovering healers who did not know how to react to her proximity and actions toward healing the dying man whom she clung to. She did not see the looks from the Emperor or Empress. All she saw was the golden haired prince, the heartbreaker, wasting away from an evil that could not be fought with swords or arrows or wind. “Please, please . . .”
“Do you remember . . . when we met?” Baldair breathed. “You were . . . so . . . jumpy.” He laughed, which only lead to more coughing.
“My prince, please,” a cleric finally pleaded.
Baldair shook his head at them and continued, “You had, you have still, a beautiful heart, Vhalla. I’m glad I somehow found a place in it. You healed things, things I didn’t think could be healed. I don’t think I have spoken as much to my brother in years as I have in these past months. I am thankful for it.”
He spoke of her healing things, but she couldn’t heal what mattered. She couldn’t escape the curse of her existence that threatened to consume everyone and everything she loved. Vhalla clung onto him and his words.
“Tell him—they don’t let him in here now—tell him I am sorry, I don’t think I’ll live up to our agreement.” Baldair coughed again.
“It’s fine,” she whispered. It didn’t matter whatever the brothers had agreed. “Aldrik just wants you well.” Vhalla had completely forgotten herself as she used the name of the crown prince loosely, without title.
“I know he does,” Baldair confessed. “I love that idiot brother of mine. Will you tell him that for me?”
“You will tell him yourself,” she insisted. Vhalla threw a bold look to the Emperor and Empress. There should be a fourth. There was another soul who needed to be present more than she did.
“Don’t change,” Baldair continued on. “Don’t let the world change you.”
“Stop saying goodbye!” Her voice was louder than she intended it to be. “Don’t you do this! I did not come here for this!”
“Vhalla, please.” He coughed again, and she was right back to tending to him. “Listen. They do not see you for what you are. Or perhaps, they see you only for what you are upon the surface. Don’t let them define you.”
Vhalla shifted her clean palm to his forehead as Baldair’s eyes fluttered closed. Beads of sweat dotted his skin.
“He needs more fever reducer,” Vhalla observed aloud.
The cleric shook her head. “We can’t give him anymore.”
“Then cool him with water.” Her mind drifted back to the icy feeling Victor had put in her veins earlier. “Are any of you sorcerers? Waterrunners?” They all shook their heads. Aldrik was right, they were all incompetent. “Then get someone from the Tower!”
“Who are you to order our clerics?” The Empress’s voice was shrill and thin.
“I am the woman who is going to try anything I’ve ever seen or read to save your son’s life,” Vhalla proclaimed with ferocity. “Because clearly no one else will step up to the task and try whatever needs to be tried.”
“It is a method common folk use in situations without medicine.” Bushy eyebrows stroked his chin. “Go, tell the crown prince.” A cleric raced out of the room.
“Vhalla,” Baldair chuckled weakly. “You’re scary when you let your ferocity show—a little twister.”
“Don’t talk too much,” she whispered softly and ran her hand through his hair. “Save your strength. Elecia is coming, did you know that? She’s so strong, Baldair. She will fix you, I know it.”
Coughing was his only response, and Vhalla clutched his hand all the tighter.
Vhalla shouldn’t have been surprised when Victor was the one to appear not long after. A mask around his mouth and nose, he walked into the room with purpose. A short briefing from the clerics, a once-over of Baldair, and he set to work. For an hour, the minister lightly cooled the prince’s skin, each time colder than the last to not send his body into shock all at once. Vhalla retracted all negative thoughts she had on Victor, mentally sending a sincere apology—if he could save Baldair. She’d do whatever the man wanted if he healed Baldair. Eventually, nothing more could be done, and the sorcerer departed.