Drothiker

16.

Syrene did nothing the whole day.

Nothing.

After Azryle left, and she ate until her stomach could endure no more, she decided to sleep, to get all the rest she hadn't been treasured with before today.

So she did. She slept and slept in the cloudy, heavenly bed. Until it was evening and she could lie in bed no more. The pain in her waist and neck was numb—that tonic must have been of mejest—though too much movement did invite the stinging and protesting.

After draining fifteen minutes lying there, she watched the city below from the floor-to-ceiling glass windows beside the armoire to her left. Nofstin. Sun-City, Syrene would call it. For the sunset, the way pink and blue and orange painted the sky in the most beautiful hue, as a goodbye to the sun, the city beneath was a mirror to it. The sea in horizon like a liquid form of it.

But as the dark began swallowing Nofstin, she averted her eyes, unable to see as the light slowly began eddying away.

So Syrene slid out of her bed. Not to shut the drapes but—to bathroom.

And when she emerged, something in the apartment clicked. Her heart climbed to her throat, but then a familiar female voice called after the door shut, "Ryle?" The lady began humming beautifully as she approached Syrene's bedroom, her footwear clinking to the tiles. "I'm just here to check on your foe."

Foe—

Syrene. She meant Syrene. The healer was here—Ferouzeh.

She knocked at the bedroom's door, but Syrene was already there. She opened the door.

Abyss claim her.

Yesterday, she had not perceived Ferouzeh's face through the fuzzy sight, had not grasped the otsatya-kind beauty.

Beautiful was not the word. No, Ferouzeh was ... devastating.

The hazel in her slender, uptilted eyes seemed to be glinting in the light venturing from the windows behind Syrene. Her round cheeks and pointed chin so smooth that they caught the light of the room. Full rosebud mouth was parted in a beautiful smile. Her silken sheet of hair darker than Azryle's falling off her shoulder in a fluid grace. Obsidian. The ripper's hair was midnight dark with a shade of blue, but hers ...

The freckle atop her lips' side somehow playing a part in her exquisiteness.

She wore a sleeveless blue shirt—elegantly showing off her beautiful collarbones—tucked in her pants, those were, too, a darker shade of blue.

Gold-cored hazel eyes descended to Syrene's waist—to the wound, and Ferouzeh frowned. "I see you have taken the tonic."

Syrene tore her glare. "Yes—yes ... in the morning."

Ferouzeh angled her head in inquiry. "Have you been sleeping?" Her gaze ... monitoring each breath, each different color on Syrene's skin than yesterday.

"Yes ..." Syrene cleared her throat. "There wasn't much to do."

A smile pulled at her rosebud lips. "That's good. You need to sleep and eat as much as you can, girl, if you expect to win that duel with Az." She stepped forward and slid an arm around Syrene's shoulders. "And you needn't isolate yourself in one room."

Ferouzeh began towing Syrene to the living room. Syrene didn't protest, for there was dark seizing that bedroom.

"Where's Azryle?" the healer asked as she settled Syrene on the grey couch.