King Make Believe

Chapter 30

Archer

I sat up with a jolt, my thoughts spinning and a pounding headache threatening around my temples. A low, cracking feeling around my temples and the back of my skull. I stood up and wobbled slightly on my feet. I managed to walk over to the bench and I leant against it heavily. I remembered how I went to help him up and then—somehow—the Mist transferred half of itself into me. And...then I blacked out? I wondered absently if this was what that boy—Hirokazu—dealt with all the time. Headaches, aching all over. The threatening feeling of fainting tinged in the back of my head. I looked up, my vision crossing over as a figure walked into the room. 

"Get her undressed and in the bath, thanks Miyoko!" It was Hiro. I stared back down at the bench, where I'd began to mix a blend of mint leaves, a root of a foreign tree my Mum stored away for special treatments only. I felt Hiro's gaze on my face and I vaguely heard his footsteps come closer as he eventually made his way to the table behind me. I tried my hardest to stand up straight but it didn't work, and soon I found myself slumping slowly to the ground. 

"Woah!" Hiro's voice rung through my head, but unlike my Mum's nasally voice used to sting when I got a migraine; his voice was melodic and sweet. "Are you okay...?"

"Archer." I pushed out, trying to find my breath. I was still slightly shocked that the migraines I hadn't had since I was only thirteen, twelve years old came back now.

"Archer, is there anything I can do to help?" Hiro asked, his hands wrapped gently around my right shoulder and my waist. I couldn't help but lean against, but even with all my weight on him—Hiro didn't stagger in his steps as he helped me into the couch I'd woken up on.

"Make...the drink." I managed to say, the dizziness running circles in my brain got me closing my eyes and hoping I could hear what was going on. I didn't want to black out now.

"Archer, I'm only going to ask this one question." Hiro said, his voice suddenly very near. I managed to open both eyes and saw through the blur of eyelashes his two cyan eyes staring directly into my hazy ones.

"Is the Mist causing this, or is this a normal occurrence?" He said. I felt like frowning and shouting at him for assuming I was so weak—but I grimaced and my eyes fell shut. I managed and small nod that caused me to gasp and curl over myself. Any movement was like stirring up a hurricane of knives in my head.

"Okay, then." I spent the next—probably five minutes—what felt like hours lying on the couch, thinking up different scenarios about my childhood. I was distracted enough from the dizzying pain until Hiro helped me move so I could drink the tea he'd miraculously made.

I moaned and managed at least three sips before I choked and Hiro walked away. I lay there and hoped that consuming those mouthfuls would calm the nightmarish trauma of my childhood. I heard a faintly familiar voice of the pink haired girl who'd entered as one of Hiro's companions. Her voice was soft and delicate as she whispered. "Is he sick too?"

Hiro responded merely with a short. "I don't believe he is sick like Jae is—Jae just drank too much...Archer is probably going to take a little more time recovering than her." I wanted to stand up and push him into a corner, lift him up by the collar of his shirt and ask if I really was as weak he thought, but I knew if I even moved—I would pass out.

"Well, I think Jae is probably going to sleep for the next thirteen hours, I think by then—by the looks of Archer's complexion—he should only last a little more than five." She said quietly. I didn't know where she knew her medicinal and observational practices—but I hoped she was wrong.

I moaned, I didn't want to open the next four hours in hell. I didn't want to burn inside my own body. I wanted to walk around and shoot with my bow. To run through fields of green, sprinting through the rain. I didn't realise Hiro was by my side until I felt his sallow breath and he sat down beside me on the floor. He shifted and I wanted to open my eyes, to tell him he didn't need to watch over me—but I knew it was for the best.

"Succendam latus tuum." He muttered under his breath. I sucked in a breath. How did he know this language that only my family spoke in? How did he know the language of the Old Worlds?

"Incendemus domum appello infernum meis communicare." I replied, knowing this language like the back of my hand. Even if I understood the language—it was as if Hiro breathed it when he spoke, as if it became alive when their words were formed on his tongue.

"Wisi enim ad animam." I said, slipping over my tongue and rolling out of my mouth before I could stop it. I managed to open my right eye and I met Hiro's shocked gaze.

"Et e novo requiem expergisci." He said quietly, his voice soft and breezy. I felt something inside me unravel and I tripped accidentally into the blackness that beckoned all lost souls.