Demons and Kings

Chapter 10

Fever dreams and late nights. Incense and low torchlight. Hard muscle on silk sheets.

I had spent so long cooped up in the kings' rooms they now seemed more familiar to me than my own. Not that my own were all that familiar to begin with. When had it all gotten so normal? The guards had lost their intimidation, the palace its sense of mystery, even the shock of time had all but faded away. It no longer felt like a fantastic dream, but a nightmare.

It was never-ending, a slow sort of torture. And it was my new reality. Our new reality.

Luckily, I was not given much time to ponder my situation. There were other things to think about, other people to worry about; without the medicines I was used to having access to, nursing Memphis back to health was all guesswork after giving him the initial cure. I was stumbling around in the dark again.

For the first few days, he had hardly been conscious. After a week, I was starting to wish he had stayed that way. Two and I would have gone out and caught another snake myself. But Minue was insistent and dedicated, sweeping in just when I had begun to contemplate regicide. Not for the first time I wondered what Memphis had done to garner such loyalty. Minue was far too good for him.

And still; save him. Save him.I had racked my brain under the pressure, trying to remember everything we had done for Carol after her attack; all the foods we had had her eat, the amount of rest she had needed to get, all the teas our mother had made her choke down. I wasn't willing to use any more of the actual anti-toxin; the number of snakes I'd seen recently had me clutching it to my chest in a desperate fit of self-preservation. I would have to consider more alternativeoptions.

At my insistence, they opened the palace library for me, and I spent hours poring over what they did have in regard to natural remedies. I tried quite of few of the ones I recognized, and there was a certain amount of joy that came from testing them and telling a man who was unused to being told what to do, well, what to do.

Memphis obeyed all my orders with a certain amount of petulance, dragging it out with his dark eyes and lingering hands, yet there was something else underneath that. It made my heart beat faster and my palms sweat. How was I supposed to handle this? Feel about it?

I wouldn't deny that I enjoyed the attention to an extent. The same extent that any woman would enjoy a powerful and attractive man's attention. A dangerous man. And still, I needed to make up my mind. Or so Carol told me. I had agreed if only to appease her and found the matter heavy on my shoulders. Irritancy came to me quickly at the thought of him, anger next, hopelessness, a healthy amount of fear...there were just so many things I needed to sort through.And after days of the other servants whispering behind hands and in darkened doorways I finally decided; it was a sensation I was distinctly uncomfortable with. Yes, uncomfortable. That I could be. Unemotional. Unattached. That I could handle.

I didn't think I could handle it for long.

But he was quick to smile, those strange feelings fading into the background at his smug grin. And if he looked at me in a way he hadn't before, if he caught my hand in his when I checked for a fever and held it...well, I pretended not to notice. Not to care. If his orders kept me close and he demanded my time. I wasn't in a position where I could refuse.

God help me, but I was only human.

It didn't matter – shouldn't matter – that he was so different now, where he was so vulnerable and dependent on me. That there were moments he made me laugh with his surprisingly sharp wit. That once he found out I could read, that he asked me to read to him as often as he could manage to get the words out. It didn't matter that I loved that he asked, not demanded, but asked with a hopeful look and a hand outstretched like he wanted to meet me in the middle.