Chapter 40
AWAKING from fainting always comes with an abrupt shock to the brain and body. A lost grip on reality, and the five senses rushing back all at once add to the shock. Extremities are chilled from a lack of circulating blood and the body trembles relentlessly. It takes a few minutes for the person who blacked out to register what happened. Why were they laying on the floor shaking? What was the throbbing sensation in their head?
“Nngh?”
Yuki woke up alarmed by the softness of a bed—she expected to find herself on the washhouse’s stone floor. Fingers shaking and cold from passing out, she groped around to make sure her sense of touch still worked.
Her eyes snapped open to see a ceiling instead of the sky. The unfamiliarity of the ceiling told her she wasn’t in the room allotted to her in Fol Castle. Slowly, she sat up, her hair tumbling down her shoulders—someone had let it out of the ponytail. She racked her dazed mind to remember what happened.
What happened after I blacked out? She remembered up until she lost consciousness. That’s weird, I can’t remember. Trying to recall what happened led only to a painful, blackness left by passing out.
“Yuki, you fainted in the washhouse.”
“Selena?”
Selena sat at the foot of her bed. “You should watch the way you groan and moan when you first wake up. You sounded like an old lady,” Selena joked and then continued on a serious note, “Vigo was here a little while ago. He said you passed out from overexertion.”
“Overexertion…”
“Well, a piece of it is definitely you working yourself ragged, but the greater fault lies with Vigo. He acts like it has nothing to do with him too.” Selena stroked Yuki’s hair and pushed a lock behind her ears.
“What do you mean the greater fault is Vigo’s?”
“Mm, the easiest explanation is he’s making you do all the work, Yuki.”
“What’s wrong with that? I’m the one who asked for this! He’s not at fault!”
They stayed longer in Fol because of her selfish request. Despite knowing Vigo had business in the capital, Yuki pled with them to adjust their plans to her whims. She kept telling herself she had to work ten times as hard to make up for it.
“…Oh gosh. Why must you be so lovable?” Selena crooned, running her hands through Yuki’s hair. “Yuki, aren’t you hopelessly wrestling with your desire to go to the capital to see your Knight?”
Those few nonchalant words brought all of Yuki’s tension back and knotted her stomach. Her hands curled around the blanket and squeezed.
Don’t say that to me.
She had to constantly chant not to think about Luca. The more her thoughts went to him, the more apprehension weighed on her urge to rush to his side. A desire to run off to the capital abandoning the patients who smiled at her and the soldiers who did well by her surged through her with every thought about Luca.
Luca, her precious Violet Knight who was locked away somewhere like a common thief in a dungeon. Luca, the man whose thoughts and actions she could never read. Luca, the only friend she had in this world who she had turned her back on and ran from. Luca, the prince everyone said hadn’t awakened from sleep for months.
Don’t force me to think about him. Anxiety crushed her heart and her with it. She’d lose her ability to cope if she thought of him.
“You should just go to him.”
“…I can’t…not yet.” Her nails pierced through the thin blanket. She tried to unlatch her hands, but they were shaking too hard to loosen.
I can’t.
Yuki came to Aridol looking like a child and acting like one. She didn’t know why she came to their world. Aside from being from another world, she didn’t know what she was or why she possessed violet eyes. She had neither a place to live nor a way to return home. The patients and soldiers put their wholehearted trust in her when she had nothing. How could she toss them aside?
But her thoughts were an excuse. More than anything else, she was afraid.
How many months had passed since she ran from Luca into the forest where the boy was killed and Orga captured her? The people she wanted to reunite with may have forgotten about her since then. They might not have had the time to think about her. Or maybe they hated her for what she did.
What if she had taken too long to come to the capital and they shooed her away at the gates? What if they said she didn’t matter to them? What bonds did they really have? What did they actually know about each other? Yuki was too afraid to take action when she thought of all the things that could go wrong.
I’m awful…I’m full of excuses… I keep saying I can’t go because of this person or another or an obstacle gets in my way, but in the end aren’t I just protecting myself by not going? The realization was agonizing and sent her spiraling down the abyss of depression.
“You should just go,” Selena repeated. Yuki shook her head and kept her eyes trained on the blanket.
I want to see him. But I don’t want to see him.
Selena sighed beside her. It was a conflicted sigh. Yuki waited for her to say something. “You know, Vigo said he has something to discuss with you as a reward for all your hard work… He should drop by soon,” Selena said in a dreadfully kind voice. The way she stroked Yuki’s hair was kind too, causing Yuki to hate herself further for giving in to her kindness.
“You have been working yourself to death to see your Knight, and I don’t even know when you started. But I do know you have been doing your best for his sake. Even oblivious Vigo knows… You can proudly go find your Knight now,” Selena announced, as though she had seen through Yuki’s thoughts. Yuki jerked her head toward her.
“I…haven’t been doing my best,” she said in a ghost of a voice.
“That’s not true,” she consoled, patting the top of her head.
“I only ever think of myself,” her barely audible objection was erased by the creak of the opening door.
Vigo entered the room and gave her a deal she couldn’t refuse.