The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 15

"Don't tell me, you're probably already written to mummy, too, haven't you?" I asked. When he pursed his lips again, I blew out a sigh, scrubbing my face with my free hand.

"Now that you've arisen alive and well, I'll be writing to her again to allay her fears," Giles replied. "I don't think you quite understand the scare you gave me when I came to wake you this morning. Sprawled out on your bed, barely breathing, with your body weight's worth of vomit on the floor and a glass vial of panacea on the ground."

"Panacea?" I repeated, inspecting it once again.

"I'd recognize a vial like that anywhere. Lord Amberly brought a supply of it with him whenever he left Pretania. The cure for all poisons, apparently. More valuable than gold," Giles said, starting to make the bed now that I'd made some efforts to rise. "And only the Ardalonian royal family knows how to craft it."

As I lifted the vial to my nose, the rosewater-sweet smell of it ignited another memory, this one far less fuzzy than the others...

The marble was cold against my face. Something smelled foul. My mouth tasted foul. My throat burned.

Vomit.

An entire puddle of it, shining in the moonlight.

I was being lifted again, my arm thrown over someone's shoulders.

She was muttering to herself in Ardal, curses mostly, before she spoke to me.

"Sit down."

I was on the edge of the bed. The floor seemed to be where the ceiling should have been, or maybe that was just the room spinning again. Then everything went dark, darker than it should have been in the middle of the night. Maybe my eyes were closed. But if they were, they wouldn't open.

"Open your damned eyes."

"You could ask nicely, darling," I slurred.

That earned a slap to both my cheeks. The world appeared again, flickering with candlelight. A pair of brown eyes inches from my own, inspecting my face. The world went dark again.

"Open your damned eyes. Please." Punctuated with another slap of my cheeks.

The world stayed dark.

"Damn it all to hell."

There it was, the sweet rosewater smell.

"Open your mouth."

"Say please."

The world spun, flickering in candlelight again. Now I was flat on the bed, a pair of fingers prying open my mouth as a weight sat on my chest.

"You didn't say pl-"

I choked on that rosewater smell. Bitterness coated my tongue. I coughed, but a hand clamped itself over my mouth. The liquid seared down my throat.

The weight vanished.

"You are going to have the worst headache of your life tomorrow, but you'll live."

The voice was behind me now. My shoulders were being dragged across the bed. I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't move.

I was flipped onto my side, propped up with pillows, my arm beneath my head.

"Sleep it off. The paralysis is only temporary..."

"...even listening to me?" Giles demanded, stooping down to peer worriedly into my eyes. I blinked myself free from the memory, my fingers still toying with the vial.