Chapter 205: Beneath the Bed
Chapter 204: Beneath the Bed
Lyria’s POV
The corridor was empty when I reached it.
I had expected as much. There was never a guard stationed outside my mother’s chamber these days. The first few times I had noticed the absence, I had felt a flicker of something—relief, perhaps, that I might enter unseen, and irritation that no one thought her worth protecting.
Now I felt nothing at all.
It had become usual. As though the lack of a guard were simply another piece of furniture in the corridor, too familiar to remark upon.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me with a soft click.
The room was dim.
The single lamp burned low on the side table, its flame turned down to the smallest permitted glow. The curtains were drawn, though not tightly; a thin line of grey light crept through the gap between them, falling across the floor in a long, pale rectangle.
My mother lay upon the bed as she always did. Still and silent.
Her chest rose and fell in even waves, each breath shallow but steady. Her hands rested atop the blanket, pale and thin, the bones visible beneath the skin like the structure of a leaf after the autumn had taken everything else.
I crossed to her bedside and sat upon the edge of the mattress.
The frame creaked softly beneath my weight.
I took her hand in mine.
It was cool. It was not extremely cold, but I did not like it, so I chafed it gently between my palms, trying to warm it, though in honesty the gesture was more for my own comfort than hers.
She could not feel it.
She could not feel anything.
Her eyes remained closed. Her lips remained still. Her chest continued its slow, even rhythm, and I sat there holding her hand and wishing, with a fervour that bordered on prayer, that she would open her eyes and look at me.
Just once.
Just to know that she was still there beneath the stillness.
I swallowed as that same sadness I felt whenever I came here washed over me.
I opened my mouth to speak when I heard the sound of footsteps.
And they were close, hence the real reason why I could hear them, and they were already nearly upon the door.
I rose at once.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I looked around the room frantically—the wardrobe, too far; the curtains, too thin; the space beneath the window, too exposed.
There was nowhere.
No closet. No adjoining chamber. No second door.
The footsteps stopped outside and without a second thought, I dropped to my knees and scrambled beneath the bed.
The space was narrow, barely enough to accommodate me. Dust clung to the underside of the frame, and the smell of old wood and disuse filled my nostrils. I pulled my cloak tight around me, tucking the fabric close so that nothing hung over the edge.
My heart pounded.
I had masked my scent before leaving my chambers. That was something. That was perhaps the only thing that might save me.
The door opened then and two sets of footsteps entered the chamber. The kind of footsteps that belonged to men.
They did not speak as they walked in.
They crossed to the bedside. The floorboards creaked as they stopped—one near the head of the bed, the other near the small table where the lamp burned.
A drawer opened.
I could not see which one, but I heard it—the soft scrape of wood against wood, followed by the clink of glass against glass.
Then silence.
I strained to hear. The faint sound of liquid being measured. The soft pop of a stopper being removed from a bottle. The rustle of fabric—linen, perhaps, or bandages.
The smell reached me a moment later. It was quite faint, but I knew it well enough.
Herbs for my mother.
They were tending to her.
That was what they were doing. The physicians, or whoever the Queen had sent in their stead. They were administering the treatment that kept her alive.
I listened to the sounds of their work.
The soft click of a glass vial being set down. The gentle press of fingers against skin. The quiet exhale of a man focused on his task.
None of them spoke.
Not a single word passed between them.
Minutes passed and then I heard the drawer close, the glass vials gathered, and the footsteps back toward the door until they left.
And silence descended once more.
I did not move from where I was.
Not immediately at least.
I waited, counting the beats of my heart, listening for any sound that might suggest they had forgotten something and were returning.
Nothing.
The corridor remained quiet. The room remained still.
Slowly and quite carefully, I slid myself out from beneath the bed.
Dust clung to my cloak and I brushed at it absently, my eyes already moving toward my mother.
She looked the same. And here I was thinking there would be improvement since the herbs had been administered by professionals.
I crossed to the bedside and retrieved the cloth I kept hidden near the pillow, where no one thought to look. It was small and thin, but it would do.
I dipped it in a water basin and wrung it out.
Then I began to wipe her face.
Her forehead first, soft and cool beneath the cloth. Her cheeks. The corners of her eyes. The line of her jaw.
I worked carefully, the way I always did when I tended to her—as though tenderness itself might coax her back.
When I finished, I set the cloth aside and took her hands in mine as I said a short prayer to the goddess.
When I was done, I pressed a kiss to my mother’s arm.
Her skin was cool beneath my lips.
"I w-will get y-you out," I whispered. "Soon. I promise. Just f-focus on recovering. J-just hold on a l-little longer."
I smoothed the hair back from her forehead.
The strands were thin now, brittle from years of illness. I arranged them carefully, tucking them behind her ear as she used to do when I was small and she was teaching me to paint.
"R-rest well, Mama," I said with a soft smile.
Then I turned and slipped out of the chamber, pulling the door closed behind me with a soft click.
