Page 47 of Royal Hunt
Why did that hurt so much? She watched me closely for a reaction, and when I gave her none, continued. “Anyway, he’s right. We vacationed together as children. I can put him on his ass in a fight.” Her saucy smirk faltered. “Then again, that’s not exactly saying much at the moment.”
I shot a glance at his face, much more at peace in sleep than in life. The bags under his eyes were just as pronounced as they were earlier. His skin was papery thin.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked again, a desperate note to my voice.
Viana’s shoulders dropped. “He’s sick, Eve.” She withdrew the tiny glass vial from her waist and shoved it at me. I reluctantly let go of Ellis to examine it. There was no label. I took out the cork and sniffed it, frowning.
“This smells like … drink.”
Ellis groaned in his sleep, turning toward me. Hurriedly, I returned the vial to Viana and resumed my position of one hand in his, my other on his forehead. He quieted immediately. Viana looked oddly disturbed by this. Then she shook her head, and the moment was over.
“That’s because itisdrink. Ellis is a drunkard.” Viana said it with a flourish as though it were something large and monumental.
“Well, yes. I think that’s apparent,” I said carefully, not understanding completely. “But if it’s the drink that makes you sick, why are you feeding it to him?” Was it possible Viana didn’t want Ellis to get better? Fear grabbed my heart and squeezed.
“Have you ever been around someone who was sick from drink?” Viana’s tone wasn’t accusatory or degrading, simply curious and astonished.
I tossed my hair over my shoulder. “Well, there was one farmhand. I was young though, and my father got rid of him eventually.”
Viana waved away from explanation, a look of disgust in her eyes. “Say no more. I get it.” She leaned back against the magickal wall, her eyes closing in exhaustion. I wondered what it was like to be her, to be so confident in yourself and who you were, and exactly what you were born to do. Viana didn’t have to worry about being married off; she was aqueen, for fuck’s sake.
“Ellis drank so much that he now can’t function without it.”
Her words caught me off guard, and I blinked. “What? That doesn’t make any—”
Ignoring me, Viana continued, “This small vial of pure drink was packed tightly in our supplies. I don’t know why, but I’m not questioning it. It’s extremely potent, and a few drops is enough to keep him on his feet. We agreed to save most of it for the games.”
Drink made him sick, so now he was sick without it?
“Think of it like a poison,” Viana encouraged, sensing my frustration. “At first the body resists. It makes you sick, you vomit, you lose your senses. Then after a while, your body becomes used to it. It knows it can’t defeat the drink, so it adapts. It takes more and more of it to get the same feeling as before. Then you realize you’re too reliant on it, and try to stop. You feel ill—far more ill than you ever were on the drink. Now you’re stuck consuming it,” she finished, waiting for my reaction.
It was too much to process. I kept my eyes on Ellis, trying to examine everything I was feeling. To claim I had no feelings for him at this point would be pretty stupid. It would explain my initial jealousy toward Viana as it warred with my touch of hero-worship. I settled on a different question. “Why does he drink so much?”
“Why do any of us do anything?” she fired back. I wasn’t used to seeing her this agitated. “People do stupid shit when they’re scared, Eve.”
“Scared of what?” I felt like we were so close to finally addressing the core root of whatever it was that ate at Ellis.
Viana shifted her legs, eyeing me warily. “Why? What’s in it for you? You’ve known him a whole what … three days?”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Whatever Ellis and I had between us, it felt too raw and new to openly discuss. It mattered to me that whatever plagued him was solved. His happiness mattered. And that certainly hadn’t been the original plan, had it? The plan was to have him owe me, and then be set for life. To live in a palace and make all of my own decisions, and—
“What? What is it?”
My utter shock must have shown on my face, alarming her. I tried to compose my face into something calmer, but it didn’t work. My pulse quickened, and my breathing hitched. This was all wrong.
Since when did I have a crush on the Crown Prince of the Northern Realm?
“Tell me about his nightmares,” I said instead.Distract. Deflect.
“Has he told you anything about them?” Viana questioned, her eyes narrowing.
I shrugged. “No, nothing. He’s said a few cryptic things while drunk and half-conscious.”
Viana leaned forward, hands on her knees. “What kinds of things?”
My mind reached back to the night we met. “The night we met he kept muttering that I wasn’t real. He always seems depressed when he mumbles about it.”
“And what did he say just now?”
