Page 84 of Somber Prince

“Please let me.” I held out a tendril, aiming at the leilatha on her arm closest to me.

She shrugged. “All right. Suit yourself, but I’m warning you…”

I connected a tendril. Just one, which would reduce the effect of her feelings by a significant degree. Yet the pain came in like a punch. It churned my insides, as if a fist gripped my organs low in my belly and twisted them in a merciless torture. The agony spread down my thighs and resonated with a crippling pain in my back.

I yanked my tendril out, gasping for breath.

Dawn shook her head.

“I did warn you, didn’t I?”

“What’s happening to you, my sweet? Who did this to you?” I gritted through my teeth in murderous thirst for revenge. Was it a curse? Did someone try to poison her? Whoever it was, their heads would roll.

“What are you talking about, Rha? I’m on my period, that’s all.” She glanced up at Sigid, who stood by the bed with his basket. “What else did you bring?”

“More pads?” The Keeper held the basket out to her.

“More? Honestly, Sigid, how many pads do you think I need? I already have enough gauze to stock a field hospital during a bloodbath of a battle.”

My blood ran cold with dread. “What does she need the gauze for?”

“To absorb blood,” Sigid replied.

Blood.

The word exploded through my brain, turning my vision red and blurry.

“You’re bleeding, my treasure? Where?”

She squirmed, looking uncomfortable.

“Well, if you don’t know already, I’d rather not tell you where exactly. Sigid?” She raised a pleading gaze to the Keeper. “How come you knew what I meant when I told you what happened and your prince acts like he’d never heard of a woman having her period?”

“What kind of a period?” I frowned, moving my gaze from my favorite Vessel to her Keeper.

“The normal, regular kind,” she said. “Well, mine might be a bit heavier than some, even after I got my IUD, but still nothing to freak out about. It’s normal.”

“How can the pain you’re feeling be normal?”

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t understand how she could even still talk with that agony rocking through her body.

“It was new for us too,” Sigid said. “The Joy Vessel Keepers from Kalmena shared the knowledge they’d gained about humans from the queen’s sarai. Then, Joy Vessel Lucia further enlightened us on the matter when she had her period a week ago. We are well prepared to handle the situation now.”

Sigid took the basket to Dawn’s dressing room.

She gazed at me with sympathy. “You don’t look so good, baby.”

Baby.

From the mouth of anyone else, I’d take it as an insult, punishable by public whipping. When Dawn uttered the word, however, it came with a warm note of tenderness in her voice. It made me wish to be closer to her. I climbed onto her bed and lay on my side, propped on an elbow.

She caressed my cheek. “I’m fine, promise. You worry too much.”

How could I not worry when she was suffering?

Sigid returned from the dressing room.

“Fetch the royal hag,” I told him. “Tell her to brew the tea she makes for the wounded in battle. And if it so much as upsets my Joy Vessel’s stomach, the hag will die. I’ll also make sure her death is not a quick or an easy one.”

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