Back in my chambers, the fire crackled weakly in the hearth.
Thunder roared outside, and raindrops splattered against the window, tapping like impatient fingers.
Maids trooped in and out, carrying steaming bowls of soup while Jacquie fussed over me for nearly an hour, drying my hair, wrapping me in blankets, and muttering things I half-heard but didn't care about.
"Leave. All of you."
They hesitated, lingering as if afraid of offending, but then bowed and retreated in a perfect line.
"You too Jacquie."
She shook her head, eyes glinting with stubborn worry.
"Don't worry. I won't jump out of the window." I said lightly.
Her lips twitched, a half smile, half-frown. "Yes, my lady."
When the door finally clicked shut, I just sat there...quiet, my thoughts dripping like water.
The world was still spinning, but not from the fall.
It was the argument. With Tristen. The way he had spoken, eyes blazing, jaw tight.
The words he had said...they weren't just anger, not entirely.
There had been… care, buried under all that fury. It made my chest tighten in a way I didn't like.
Still, icouldn't shake off the feeling that I almost died.
Like, for real this time. Not dream-dead. Not magically-trapped-in-someone-else's-body dead.
Dead dead.
And I hated that he had saved me.
Hated that he had caught me in the moment I was trying to vanish, that he had reminded me how close I'd been to truly disappearing.
And yet, a small, stubborn part of me was grateful.
I shuddered, gripping the edge of the blanket tighter and pacing the room.
I had been one breath away from vanishing entirely. And that… unnerved me.
Not because I'd been saved, but because I needed saving. By him, no less.
My wet hair clung to my skin, leaving cold trail on my neck.
I should've known it wouldn't work. Just jumping off a cliff, Liana? What did you expect, a teleportation coupon back home?
I sighed and slumped into the chair by the window.
Outside, the rain hadn't stopped. It poured endlessly, mocking me in a way that only storms know how to.
Still… it wasn't over.
If this fall didn't send me home, then I'd just have to find another way.
Sleep didn't come that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I was back under the sea...the suffocating weight, the muffled silence...
And that figure. That strangely familiar silhouette on the cliff.
Even now, it lingered in my mind, etched in shadow and moonlight. Watching. Patient. Silent.
The memory of it made the room feel colder than the storm outside, as though eyes unseen were still on me.
I sat up, pulling the blanket around me tighter as I stared into the mirror.
Her hair was tangled, her eyes hollow, her lips set in that careful, royal kind of calm that she must have mastered.
"Why did you bring me here? I whispered to the reflection. "What do you want?"
No answer. Just that tingling sensation in my chest, like the echo of a warning I couldn't ignore.
I stood, pulling open the window. The rain had stopped, but the scent of wet earth still clung to the air.
And somewhere down the hall, I could hear the faint echo of music...a harp, maybe.
I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply.
"I almost died once," I whispered. "You don't scare me anymore."