Page 99 of The Nightbound Soldier

Leroy walks up and starts closing the doors. The Summer prince protests, but Leroy slams the doors closed, and I hear them arguing outside, their voices fading as the sun ascends, pressing down on my mind.

I arrange Fleur so I can also fit onto my bed, then hop in, immediately regretting I didn’t commission a larger bed back in the span when I could have. I can’t now. The spells protecting me while I sleep are ancient, and, as such, long lost.

I prop my head on my elbow as my eyes start closing, the last image for the span of her radiant beauty.

* * *

Fleur has been asleep for over seven spans. Since she’s alive and breathing, and Augusta offered us some reassurance about Fleur’s well-being, her brothers are less worried than they were at the start, but they haven’t departed for the Summer Court.

The Summer king, who’s been visiting his sister several times over the course of a single span and using hisvocamagic on my mental walls many more times (persistent little shit), is becoming restless. He is needed at court and wants to take his sister with him.

I won’t let her out of my sight or room or bed, so we’re quarrelling all the time.

Aamako is entertaining at the court. People are returning and asking for audiences with him. He even held a reception once, but I hear it was to show off his new regiment made entirely of gargoyles. Not something the courtiers of the Unseelie Court wish to see, though I can hardly wait to see how his magic animates them in battle. Not that there will be a need for battle.

There won’t be. Unless the Summer king takes my siren.

Which, according to the fate, won’t happen even if it looks that way now.

Just to be sure everything remains peaceful, Augusta is staying in the Ice Princess. She’s the only living person who can walk in and out of this room, thus the only one both the living and the undead trust.

I miss Fleur.

Particularly her life force. The radiant smile, her energy and sensuality that makes my body come alive when I’m around her. She is my sun. I miss her so terribly that sometimes I want to claw at my chest from the pain.

Alas, that won’t wake her.

* * *

It’s been forty spans since Fleur fell into sleep.

During this time, her belly has grown into a visible bump, and that’s the only sign that she’s well.

Augusta reassures everyone that everything is fine, but it’s no longer enough. Not when I’m aware that any event can change the future the fate sees.

I’m at the edges of my sanity.

El’jah insisted I make his sister more comfortable, and by that, he meant changing the bedding, so now I wake up on a large, pink, fluffy down-feather pillow that runs the length of the box. We’re covered in a light blue comforter with real seashells sewn onto the hem, and they jingle when I move.

He even made me decorate the room with dry flowers so it can look pretty in a space that doesn’t allow living things.

El’jah is still sleeping in the pillow fort camp he set up when Fleur first fell asleep. I can’t bring myself to tell him off because he reminds me of my little brother, the boy who didn’t let me die through the sheer force of his magic. Unknowingly, but still, it was the undying love of my brother that brought me back to life. If it takes brotherly love to wake up Fleur, then El’jah stays.

This evening (morning for me), Ledger opens the door and pauses in question the way he’s done every evening. I shake my head no, telling him she’s still sleeping. Behind Ledger, El’jah sighs. My lieutenant leaves, and Fleur’s brother leans against the doorjamb.

The uncombed hair, piled on top of his head reminds me of a nest, and he’s wearing a plain white sweater and black sweatpants with unlaced combat boots that are part of the uniform of one of my males. An empty bottle of bourbon lies on the floor next to his pillow bed just outside in the hall.

Ledger wants him to live at the Winter Beauty, but I won’t order the removal of the prince, although I could. The Ice Princess is the undead stronghold, and he doesn’t belong here.

Lying next to Fleur, I prop my head on my palm and look at her beautiful face framed in golden strands of hair and think about what I’ll do if she never awakens.

“I don’t pray often,” I say in an old fae tongue. “Or believe in prayer or even the fates. Shhh,” I press a finger over her plush lips. “Don’t tell them that and don’t begrudge me for it. Your brother told me you’re a devoted fate follower, so if you can hear me, pray. I want to wake up next to you…” I pause because I have no idea what I’m saying, but I need her to hear me and come back to me. “Siren, let me into your memories again so that I can see you, so that I can smell you, touch you. I miss you, Fleur.” I lean in and whisper, “And if it’s the choice between you being alive and well again and our baby, I will choose you. I will choose you every time until the end of our time. I love you, Fleur. Wake up so I can tell you that.” I give her shoulder a shake.

Her flesh feels colder than mine, and that scares me. I’ve not felt fear in so long, but I remember it well. I remember touching my mother, my siblings, the people in my village. I remember running around helpless, not knowing what to do, how to fix what had happened.

“Wake up,” I command her, then press my lips to hers, close my eyes, and pray in my head,Wake up, my love, wake up.

When I open my eyes, her eyelashes flutter.

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