Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 114

Jacin slumped in the visitor chair, watching the doctor check Winter's vitals with no small amount of envy. He wished he was the one to administer to her needs, to know from a readout of life statistics how she was faring and what he could do to make her better. Instead he had to sit there and pretend to be patient and wait for the doctor to inform him, once again, there was nothing to be done. They just had to wait and see if she would recover.

Recover.

Jacin hated the word. Every time it was said he could hear Winter's voice, haunted and afraid. I do not know that even a sane person could recover from this. So how can I?

"Her heartbeat is still accelerated," said the doctor, putting away his portscreen, "but at least she's sleeping. We'll check on her again when she wakes up."

Jacin nodded, holding back any of the multiple retorts he had. When she wakes up kicking and screaming. When she wakes up crying. When she wakes up howling again like a sad, lonely wolf. When she wakes up and nothing has changed.

"I don't get it," Jacin grumbled, letting his gaze rest on Winter's forehead—at least she was calm in her sleep. "It should have made her better, using her gift. Not worse. She shouldn't be like this, after so many years of fighting it."

"All those years are precisely what caused it." The doctor sighed, and he too looked wistfully down on the princess. Too wistfully. Jacin bristled. "It might help to think of the brain and our gift like a muscle. If you don't use that muscle for many years, and then one day you decide to push it to its full potential, you're more likely to strain it than strengthen it. She did too much, too quickly, and it ... damaged her mind, quite extensively."

I am destroyed, she'd said. Not damaged. Destroyed.

And that was before Aimery had even shown up.

As soon as the doctor left, Jacin scooted his chair closer to Winter's bed. He checked the padded restraints on her limbs—they were secure, but not too tight. She had often woken up with violent thrashing and clawing, and one medical assistant had nearly lost an eye before they decided it was best to secure her. Jacin hated watching them do it, but even he agreed it was for the best. She had become a danger to others and to herself. Her teeth had even left an impressive gash on his own shoulder, yet he still couldn't fathom that it was Winter lashing out. Sweet, gentle Winter.

Broken, destroyed Winter.

Jacin let his fingers lie on her wrists longer than was necessary, but there was no one to chastise him now, other than himself.

The rash from the disease grew fainter every day. He doubted it would leave many scars, and what it did leave would be largely unnoticeable on her dark skin. Not like the scars on her cheek that had paled over time.

He both hated and admired those scars. On one hand, they reminded him of a time she'd been suffering. Of a time when he hadn't been able to protect her.

On the other hand, they also reminded him of her bravery and the courage that so few people saw in her. In her subtly defiant way, she had dared to go against Levana's wishes and the expectations of their society time and again. She had been forced to choose her battles, but choose them she had, and both her losses and her victories had cost her so much.

The doctors were at a loss for what to do with her. They had little experience with Lunar sickness. Few people chose to let their sanity deteriorate like she had, and they could only guess what the long-term effects might be.

And all because she refused to be like Levana and Aimery and all the rest of the Lunars who abused and manipulated and used others to fulfill their own selfish desires.