Page 50 of Brutal Fae King
Something cold touches my forehead—it gives me a little shock as it touches on me, and I flinch. Sound reaches me, completely muffled.
Because of the softness around my head? Or am I still coming back to consciousness, and my hearing hasn’t come back?
I just wait, and more feeling trickles back into my body. After a while, I start to see some light behind my eyes. I take a deep breath and summon the strength to open my eyes.
At first, it’s all dim blurs of color. I blink hard, and all becomes clear.
I’m in my room, and it seems to be evening time now. I’m tucked up in bed, with something fluffy folded under my neck to keep my head up. Cold spreads over my forehead, and I look up to see the king dabbing a wet cloth on my face.
When I look at him, he sighs in relief.
“Ah! You’re finally awake!”
“Vicmar,” I murmur quietly.
“So I wasn’t inventing it,” he chuckles. “Youdidsay my name. I wasn’t sure you even knew it.”
I smile wanly.
“Of course I knew it,” I say. “Just like you knewmyname but didn’t use it before.”
He chuckles lightly.
“Touché,” he says.
I start to struggle into a sitting position, but Vicmar puts a hand on my shoulder and presses me down.
“No,” he says. “Be careful. You must be exhausted.”
“Not that exhausted,” I say. “I feel all right.”
He releases his hand from my shoulder, and I sit up.
“What happened?” I ask. “We were talking and…” I clear my throat. “And my powers went out of control for some reason.”
“Well,” he says. “my guess would be that you’ve been repressing your powers for a long time.”
I hang my head. He nods at me.
“I thought so,” he answers. “Repressing your powers is terrible for your magical control. For your powers to explode like that, I’d guess that you’ve seldom used them throughout your entire life.”
I smile weakly, my hands clenching on the duvet.
“I didn’t have a choice. I only used my powers a few times in Thawallow, and I became a pariah,” I murmur. “If I used them much more, they might have run both myself and my family out of the village. I couldn’t do that to Maribelle.”
Vicmar sighs deeply. He dips the cloth into a bucket by the bedside and spends a second wringing it out before he looks at me with a firmer gaze.
“You can’t keep doing that,” he says firmly. “Here in the castle, you will not be treated like a pariah for using your powers—if anything, I encourage you to use them; repressing them for so long could do a lot of damage to yourself or even get yourself killed.” He reaches forward and dabs the wet cloth against my forehead.
I don’t answer. The wet cloth is very soft, but what’s even softer is his eyes, looking over me gently.
I… don’t remember the last time someone cared for me… Has anyoneevercared for me?
I just lie for a second, my eyes scanning over his strong jaw, his sharp features, and his eyes, looking over me… his lips…
A spark jolts out under the duvet. Vicmar blinks and looks down, then back to me.
“Are your powers still out of control?” he asks.
