"Who are you..."
I squinted after raising my head, the blackness of the night offering no help, although the white sky brought some light into the room.
"...Beautiful..."
He took Euria, who was crying, in his arms and held him close under his long, snow-covered cloak...
The fever made me lose all sense of touch; I couldn't see or hear clearly...but...
"Hitzac..."
"Everything's alright...everything's alright now..."
It didn't take long for me to lose consciousness from the shock of the situation.
I was convinced I was dying, but my mind was swirling with all sorts of nonsense, fantasies, and unpleasant madness. I didn't know what to believe about what I was seeing; I didn't even know if I was alive deep down. Too many doubts weighed me down, and I had no more dreams.
"Is she no longer sick?"
"He said it's no longer the virus's responsibility to cause this kind of trauma...her body inflicts this on itself out of exhaustion."
"Is it fatal?"
"He said it's delaying death to cause more suffering...he's not sure of anything. She could die tomorrow or in ten years if her condition improves..."
I woke up, unable to move a muscle, while Izua was at my bedside, wondering if I would wake up at any point. He was nervously stamping his foot on the floor, making the edges of my bed tremble unintentionally.
I glanced at him before closing my eyes without making a sound. It was difficult to wake up; my body was pulling...my lips, throat, and eyes were dry
Luckily, it didn't take him long to realize I was listening, and he began to tell me what had happened in a feverish voice.
"You were suffocating, I tried to fix things but it was no use. You must have stayed like that for almost an hour...and you didn't wake up. I really thought you were dead and I thought back to what you had done to our son, so I tried to keep your lungs open...but blood gushed out. Luckily the emperor's doctor arrived...you know the rest of my story. They said you were no longer sick, so I let the children sleep with you...they are sleeping now, the emperor is with them. The doctor is still here but he needed rest so I found him an inn."
I opened my eyes and tried to speak without my voice coming out. I closed my eyes again, breathless.
He leaned over me and, in a gasp of breath, whispered:
"Give me...my letter..."
Somewhere deep down, I didn't want to die alone. I was only 19, not even 20 yet... I had accomplished so much, but not what seemed essential. I hadn't seen my family again... I had forged another one, and it was a little bit of that old life I longed to find again.
I hoped Lorea would be like me... that she too would want to see me again. She was my sister, my family, and I missed her
His face was filled with suffering for stealing the man I loved, for saying all those nasty things about me... mixed with the happiness he gave me, reminding me of when my mother, Lorea, and I, the three of us, would play in the garden, singing songs, crushing flower petals to make perfume, gently watching the water turn pink and thinking, "I've invented the most beautiful thing in the world," without really knowing that the smell would be awful.
In the letter I had asked Lorea to come see me, or at least to visit my grave...which I hoped she would do because I desperately needed her.
Izua left my bedside within the hour, after helping me drink a little and telling me what had happened while I slept.
My ribs were burning terribly, so I couldn't stand or sit, but I slowly recovered in the hours that followed.
"I'm sorry I scared you, darling..."
Amaiera was still crying when he saw me lying there, but I ran my trembling hand over his cheek and smiled, which comforted him. He snuggled back under the covers, against my body, to calm himself
"So that's how it is... now that I'm here, you're miraculously healed."
Hitzac sat down with Euria in his arms on the chair where Izua had been just twenty minutes ago.
"I thought I was going to die..."
"I saw that. You were a hair's breadth away."
I looked at him with my wide-open gray eyes, aware of what they saw. They must have given me some medicine because I had that bitter taste left in my mouth and those bits of grass scattered in my gums...
"Thank you..."
He nodded, his blond hair falling along his eyes and his face lowering gently to hide his expression.
He had lost his mocking smile, replaced by doubt. He let go of Euria, who could finally come and hug me, and fell asleep against me, just like her brother.
"Why didn't you tell me the little one was sick?" he choked out, his voice full of resentment. I answered him softly, drawing on my reserves of energy :
"It seemed like a good reason...to think back to the fact that you are the emperor and I am the wife of one of your officials...and that the disease didn't just affect us but the entire empire...and...I wasn't afraid for my son...because I knew I could protect him. When it hit me, I was terrified...because there was no one to stop me from sinking. Even today, I don't feel safe. I feel like my heart...could stop beating at any moment..."
He stood up in turn and took off his jacket and boots. I watched him undress, my eyes full of questions and astonishment. Hitzac was unpredictable; it fascinated me as much as it terrified me
While he was untying his shoelaces, I asked in a strangely amused voice:
"Why did you come?"
"My messenger told me you were sick. Well, I had to pull the glasses out of his nose..."
"I see...I'm glad you came to take care of me."
The bed sank beneath his weight as he lay down where Izua used to sleep. Without realizing it, I understood that I had never seen him as the emperor...all those times I wrote to him, I saw him as a boy as scared as me, as lost as me, even though he too had a face to show the world.
"Where did your husband go?"
"I asked him something before I died..."
"Why talk about death? I came here to save you..."
Save me? I couldn't help but smile, his words echoing back to me, shaken by regret. His hands reached out towards me, grasping my forearm with his fingertips. I couldn't see his face; the weight of my limbs suddenly became too much for me to turn my head
I no longer felt suffocated or like I was slipping away. Deep down, I knew he had saved me just as he had described, but a part of me refused to believe it, or at least to submit to it.
There was this ember that wanted to leave, to escape everyone's grasp. To offer my life for his victory, was that really what I desired?
I was deeply ashamed to think of death next to the one who had taken it from me; he now carried the weight of having left me alive...
"God did not create pain to punish us but to make us realize the importance of things..." I maintained after resting for a few minutes. I didn't want his concern, but he replied in a heavy tone, broken with injustice and sorrow:
"What an angelic view of life. Suffering is far too high a price to pay for a simple lesson..."
Getting so sick had taught me something. I had to act because I could die soon, or become unable to do what I wanted to achieve. I also had to...gently forget my past, become a good mother, a good wife...and an even better person.