Page 118 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
She unlatched her fingers from his, and went to fetch a blanket from the side, something to cover him with.
Dimitri caught her hand as she draped the blanket over him. “I can’t keep living like this,” he muttered, his words shattering her heart as he slipped once more into unconsciousness.
They took Dimitri back to his room, where Adeline and Mrs Minton scraped every last trace of blood and muck from his skin, layered cloths underneath him, dressed him, and tucked him tightly under clean bedsheets.
There was no question of where Adeline was going. She would remain right beside him until he woke up.
“I’ll engage a nurse to assist you,” Mrs Minton offered.
“There’s no need. I know what I’m doing.”
“You’ll need a break, at some point.”
Adeline shook her head. “You don’t get a break from something like this.”
“Very well. I’ll have food and clothes sent up for you.”
“Thank you.”
The minute she was gone, Adeline went over to his bed, and touched his pale cheek. “The healer says you will be fine,” she whispered. “And I believe you will be. But you and I know there are other kinds of wounds, ones not so easily stitched back together. Wake up, and we’ll work on the others. Don’t quit on me yet, Dimitri, don’t you dare.”
And then, because no one else was watching, and there was nothing to lose, she leaned over and kissed his still, warm lips, lingering there in a way she wouldn’t have dared to do so before.
Nothing changed, because even though magic was real, nothing as simple as a kiss could save a person. She’d been a fool to even consider it.
I’ve been condemned by your kiss,she thought bitterly, as the tears slid down her cheeks.
There was no one to see her. She let herself sob, curling her fingers into the blankets, bawling into his limp hand.
A little while later, there was a knock on the door. Adeline half-murmured a response, assuming it was a servant.
Prince Alexei stepped into the room.
Adeline stared at him, quite forgetting herself, before scrambling upright and dropping into a hasty bow. “Your Highness—”
“Please,” Alexei raised a hand. “None of that. Sit down. I gather you’ve had quite the morning.”
Adeline was in no mood to disagree. She sat back down. Alexei drifted towards the bed, hand hovering over his cousin, over the layers of bandages on his arm, chest, neck.
He jerked his hand back. “Mrs Minton informs me he should make a full recovery.”
“That’s what the healer said.”
“Was it… was it so very awful?”
Adeline stiffened. “I watched my mother bleed to death,” she whispered. “And I think that that was worse.”
It was the pain, she told herself. That was all it was. Her mother’s death had been so quiet, almost peaceful. That was the only thing that made Dimitri harder to watch. Nothing else to it. It had nothing to do with the pulsing fear, the worry that he wouldn’t make it, that he’d lose the arm…
Not that she cared, but he would. And she would have to watch him suffer more.
Alexei went very quiet. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That that happened to you. That you feel that way…” He shook his head. “I will sit with him for a while, if you wish to, er…” He gestured to her clothing, and she realised with only slight embarrassment that she was in a blood-flecked nightgown in front of royalty.
“Mrs Minton is bringing up my clothes,” she assured him. “I shall not leave his side until he wakes.”I shall not leave his side ever.
