Each day he made himself move further, pushed his body to build itself up. He had lost so much time, and the world had changed so much during his illness that he knew he didn't have the luxury of being gentle in his recovery. Shiar needed to be up and fighting, yesterday, and he was still having trouble getting up the energy to leave his room.
The first day he had Lyana move a chair a few feet from the bed, then further and further each subsequent day. Today he had made it to the table at the window and that was where Shiar sat, staring out into the ocean catching his breath. He was doing his best to shake off the weakness in his limbs, the cobwebs in his mind, and the itching pull that he was missing something that his body needed. He was coherent enough now to know that it was merely what his body thought it needed and he could and would survive without it. Even with the conscious understanding, every so often, his body would break out into sweats, tremors, or the sensation of his skin being raked by needles.
He knew that he didn't need the drug he had been administered and he didn't want it either; he had never truly wanted any of it. Something about that woman had infected him, addicting him to her very presence, and it was getting easier for him to bite back those desires and let the truth glare mercilessly back at him in his reflection.
Shiar had been overcome so easily and was now as weak as a babe.
Those fits would go away with the effort and after a couple hours of rest, he could eat and drink and perhaps walk back and forth around the room a couple times. He struggled with himself and his own arrogance, trying to come to terms with how easy it had been for him to be brought down so low.
But today, he was merely suffering from the strain of walking across the room and his own regrets at being useless when a war was brewing on the horizon.
"Lord Shiar" The words came softly from his doorway, and he turned to see Lady Wyn step in through the door, carrying a tray with his lunch. "I caught them bringing this to you. I was coming anyway, so I figured I'd join you, if that's alright?"
He nodded to her, pulling himself up out of the chair to stand as she approached. "Of course, M'Lady. It's been a couple days since I've seen you."
"Yes, sorry. Lyana doesn't really need me to help here anymore, so I've been keeping myself busy with other things." Wyn placed the tray down on the table and sat down on the other chair, smiling gently to him "You look well."
"I look like death." Shiar shook his head, smiling ruefully to her. "Lyana has told me all you have done here, with everything. And I am told that you are to be considered my defender and champion according to Sellexun law."
"You looked like death a month ago. Now you look well." She smiled sheepishly, shaking her head with a deep blush. "I wouldn't say that, I just did what any friend would do, given the situation."
"You saved my life and quite possibly my sisters, Caelur's or both. You should not be so depreciatory of your worth, m'lady." Shiar began eating slowly, glancing out the window to allow her to regain her composure. "You're leaving soon, I'm told."
When he turned back to look at her, Wyn smiled sadly, and nodded. "I'm afraid I haven't been forgiven for that. But yes. I wanted to go to Alliance, to help settle things there, perhaps be of more use to my friends, now that you're well and due to be following in another month or so."
"Forgiven?" He paused, glancing back to her curiously. When he noticed the pained look in her eyes, he smiled gently. "Oh, Caelur."
"Yes. He hasn't spoken to me since I told him I was going to be leaving. I can't figure out what offence I may have given him. Lyana has been little help in figuring it out, but I'm sure I must have missed something, that I offended him in some way." Wyn sighed softly, watching Shiar for a long moment.
Shiar laughed and shook his head. "No. There's no arcane Sellexun custom that you've missed. That's just Cael, to be honest. He wants you to stay, and he's upset that you want to leave. As much as he's a well-balanced person, he's still been raised to be a King, to think that people should love his company."
Wyn nodded, her expression growing thoughtful. "Oh. It's nothing personal against anyone, I just feel like I'm running out of things to do here and I know I could be doing something of use in Alliance."
"Don't apologize, M'lady. He doesn't really take offence to it, he's just handling it badly. We all understand, and he'll catch up, eventually." Shiar paused for a moment, then offered a little more information. "It just bruises his ego that he's not enough reason to stay."
Wyn's expression was confused and surprised, as if she did not believe him in that. "I'll take your word for that, Lord Shiar."
He laughed and sat back in his chair. The woman was genuinely oblivious to Caelur's motivations. The two of them were dancing around one another without a clue in the world.
He didn't push it though. "Things will be right as rain when we see you again in Alliance."
Wyn hesitated, her expression darkening. Shiar met her eyes, raising one brow curiously. He was about to ask her what was wrong when she spoke.
"Lyana says you've been having dreams. Nightmares, and you think they're about Nerini." Wyn was cautious, but her expression had a little bit of concern in it.
"Every time I go to sleep. Same dream, sometimes it starts or ends at different points, but each time, I'm certain she's being killed." Shiar drawled, fighting back his frustration at the dreams that had been plaguing him. "Lyana says that it's possible that my help with healing has connected us in some way, or perhaps it's something to do with the Alliance stone. Or I could just be upset that I'm not able to be out there helping her find her brother and my already troubled mind is creating this scenario that I'm seeing."
"I worry that you weren't supposed to be out there, that someone didn't want you there helping her. That this may not have been a coincidence." Wyn frowned softly as she watched Shiar for a long moment, her eyes distant as she mulled something over before continuing. "Nerini is horrible at really giving a lot of the details, but I received word this morning that she fought something and it out-matched her quite badly. She was lucky to live."
Shiar tensed at her words, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Was it large, like a giant shadow that moved incredibly quickly, and tossed her around like a rag doll? With a voice that contained a thousand other voices at once?"
Wyn gave him a careful look, though there was a confirmation in her expression. "Well, I was told that the thing was faster than her, so fast she couldn't keep up with it, and strong enough to pull a head off a horse."
"That's it." He whispered and shuttered, inclining his head as he grew faint from the thought of it. "That's what I saw."
"Oh Shiar, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking to you about this." Wyn breathed, reaching over to lay a hand on his forearm.
"No. You don't know how much it relieves me that I'm not going insane." Shiar forced himself to smile thinly, knowing he wasn't fooling anyone. "Is she ok?"
Wyn smiled to him in understanding. "Yeah. Beat up a bit, probably could use Lyana but she's alright. She sent Rael the thing's head, and one of its hands. Apparently, most of the size is magic, and she thinks that it might be the same with the speed and strength, they create a body for themselves, out of magic. But we can kill them, Nerini wanted us to know that more than anything else."
Shiar frowned though, looking down at her hand for a moment, then back up to her, his expression dark with self-loathing. "I should be there, I should have been with her this entire time, helping her. How is she going to do this alone?"
"She's not alone anymore." Wyn shook her head, squeezing his arm again, her expression a little withdrawn as she murmured her next words. "She ran into a very old friend of hers, who has a lot of resources."
"Who?" Shiar could see that there was something else in the expression, something beyond just Nerini finding an ally.
Wyn winced a bit at his demand, her words coming out carefully. "Well, from what I know, he's... well, he's a Rogue, a shadow runner, he runs a company."
"An assassin? She's teamed up with a band of assassins?" Shiar felt the anger race through him, worry building up in his chest.
Sellexu had its own, but Aupana had an entire network of cutthroats, thieves, hired killers and spies that were only worth the amount of gold you paid for them. He had learned of strategies of paying the Aupanan assassins to kill their own nobles, the Rogues not caring about loyalty to the country in the face of money.
That wasn't a reassuring ally to have.
"Nerini is nothing if not resourceful." Wyn shrugged again, giving him a careful smile, and appearing unconcerned. "He taught her a lot of what she knows about all that stuff. She told me about him before all this,"
Shiar frowned and sat back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly. "I should still be there. We're partners, we're supposed to work together."
"How do you think I feel? I'm her closest and longest friend, and I'm sitting here, with barely anything to do, while she needs me beside her." Wyn snapped back at him, shaking her head, though it did nothing to dispel the fire in her eyes and voice. "I know things needed to work this way, that I was more good here at the time, to help with you and your sister, and that I may have done more harm than good with her had I gone, but now... now I want to be taking a ship there, instead of going to Alliance or sitting here."
Shiar paused for a moment, turning to look at her curiously as an enormous grin spread over his features. "Why don't you?"
Wyn watched him for a moment, before smiling ever so slightly. Sellexu had a fleet of incredibly fast ships, just waiting for the King to put to use, after all.