The Princess's Servant

82. The Princess and the Pea

Content warning. Exact warnings listed in the comments.

The mercy of sleep, as it turns out, had been overblown. The visions that had haunted Sybil in her waking hours had become full-blown theater in her sleep, allowing her to hear, smell, taste and feel things that in her waking hours she could only imagine. Worse still, her conscious mind had not been present to remind Sybil that she did not like these things; that she did not want them. And so waking from her sleep had been a mercy in and of itself, even if it did come with the price of embarrassment.

The light was searing. The room was cold. Sybil found herself in her bed, despite having no memory of how she got there. She still wore the lingerie and the cape, though her first act awake was to strip off her underwear. She tore it from of her skin and threw it in the corner of the room where she didn't have to see it anymore. Sybil wrapped herself up in her cape and stared down at the sheets.

Across the white linen, the voices still flooded. Her head still rang with whispers of his words. The only difference she noticed from the night before was the pounding headache she now nursed. Incredible. Sybil had only been awake three minutes, and she already wished she hadn't awoken at all.

Although.. Considering the dreams she'd had... Perhaps eternal rest was what she really needed.

"Princess Sybil."

Holden's soft voice in the back of her mind. Sure, she'd had visual hallucinations. Why not auditory ones? Her insanity should throw in some kinetic delusions too, just to really complete the package.

"Is she here? I'd like to speak with her."

A cord stuck in Sybil's heart.

"Her highness is not receiving visitors at this time, your grace. But I can take a message." Her handmaid's sweet voice.

The princess sat up straight in her bed. It wasn't possible. But then, it was certainly more possible than paracusia. The princess wrapped her cloak a little tighter around her frame and held her breath to listen.

"You defy your prince?"

"Would you have me defy my lady, your lordship?"

There was no mistaking it. He was here. Slowly, slowly, Sybil crept out of her covers and towards the open window. The frigid, grainy wooden floor boards roughed the bottoms of her feet, but she tiptoed over them until she reached the glass.

She could see his brown-cloaked figure down below, as he spoke with her maid. As soon as she caught sight of the prince, she ducked behind the stoney wall, so as not to be discovered herself.

Her handmaid pressed on. "Her highness is unwell, asleep, and immodestly dressed. But if you desire to see her in such a state—"

"No!" There was a brief silence after Holden's snap. The prince sighed. "No, of course I don't want to see her like that. Just — give her this, if you would."

Sybil tried to catch sight of what they exchanged, but the roof blocked her view of the upper half of her maid.

"Of course, your highness," the woman curtsied.

"I'll come back at a later hour," the prince replied. And with that, he started off towards the tree line.

Sybil looked out the window after him and felt some feeling swell in her chest. This was bad. This was very bad. Her heart fluttered as his earth-brown cape clung to him in the breeze. Sybil felt time itself still as she watched the prince make his way across the field.

Holden felt a tingling in his spine. For a moment, he stopped and looked behind him. Sybil saw this motion and panicked.

The second story window of the guesthouse, empty. Holden blinked at it a few times, bowed his head, and continued on his way.