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H ellebore was perfectly content where she was, but where she was, however, was not perfectly content to let her stay that way.

She woke up, blearily blinking in the early dawn to see Taiyo pushing himself up and throwing one leg over to the other side of her so he was straddling her waist. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Dare I ask what you think you’re doing?”

“I’m keeping my word.” Taiyo sat back on his knees enough that he wasn’t completely cornering her in. “It’s morning. Now I get to be frustrated with you.”

“And you can only do that hovering over me and looking down at me?”

Taiyo raised an eyebrow. “I’m making sure you don’t bolt and almost get yourself captured again.”

Hellebore huffed but made no protest or attempt to shove him away. She just gave him the cool, indifferent look that always had his eye twitching.

If he got to be frustrated, she got to be emotionless.

“You went behind my back.”

“I did. And it was for nothing because my aunt didn’t even reply to the message.” And now Taiyo knew she’d been trying to pry into the past after they’d made it part of their rules not to.

“Not today, but soon, I will tell you what happened.” He didn’t even give her a chance to respond, breezing past it to continue, “More importantly, what concerns me most is that you knew it was likely a trap, but instead of thinking it through and trusting me, you only trusted yourself and didn’t think of the consequences.”

Hellebore gaped at him, processing his promise he would tell her and trying to catch up to what he’d just said. After opening and closing her mouth a few times, she started pushing herself up onto her elbows as she choked out, “I admit it. Yes, I was foolish.”

“I don’t think you realize what the real problem here is. You thought you could handle anything because you’re a skilled alchemist. That’s the only thing you were thinking.”

And now she’d exposed the truth. Everyone else was right about her, and he knew now he was stuck with a mediocre alchemist at best.

“I overestimated my own abilities, I am aware,” Hellebore said through gritted teeth, glaring up at him.

“No.” Taiyo leaned in closer, his hair spilling over his shoulder and the orange ends brushing her cheek. “You underestimated your value.”

His words slammed into her, nearly taking her arms out from under her. She shrank back slightly into the pillows helping prop her up, unable to make any sense of his words. How could he possibly think that?

“You still think of yourself as an alchemist exclusively. The fact that you are my wife, the queen, never crossed your mind. It never occurred to you that our enemies would take you because of your value to me and not because of your alchemy.”

He was right. But did she admit it? She’d done an awful lot of admitting to him the night before.

She whispered, “Should it have?”

“You are my wife.”

“Only so you could have an alchemist.”

His gaze darkened, and he shifted lower. His fingertips brushed her cheek, moving to gently cradle her jaw. “You might be my alchemist, but you are my wife first. Not the other way around. Is that clear?”

A knock sounded on the door, saving Hellebore from questioning what he was trying to imply by that specific phrase. “Your Majesty, did Queen Hellebore leave already?”

Her maids.

“No,” Taiyo called out, sitting back on his heels again, a smug grin on his face. “She’s right here. Go ahead and draw her a bath and she’ll be right in.”

Heat flooded Hellebore’s cheeks at the implication, and she quickly pushed herself up, glaring at Taiyo as her maids stammered an embarrassed assent from the other side of the door. Taiyo easily shifted back, letting her scramble off the bed.

She brushed off her clothes, but there was no use as they were filthy, and so were his. He was right, she did need a bath. She said, “While I will attempt to be more cognizant of my full position the way the rest of the world views me and I will promise to take more care and not go behind your back again, don’t think that or last night changes anything on a fundamental level about this arrangement.”

“A romantic, aren’t you?”

Hellebore didn’t dignify that with a response and simply headed back to her room to clean up. He was just trying to get under her skin.

Her maids didn’t look at her directly the whole morning, but Hellebore was the one blushing every time they looked away. It was ridiculous. Nothing had even happened, and even if it had, they were married.

As soon as she was dressed, as much as she could be with her belt, goggles, and mask on the floor of Taiyo’s room, a healer was coming in on Taiyo’s orders to look her over. Hellebore let the healer do his job, but she rolled her eyes the whole time. She was perfectly recovered. It had just been a little paralytic, nothing major.

What concerned her most was the fact that Taiyo was dying, and she still hadn’t gotten answers about it. But when she finally got rid of the healer and tried to burst through his door since it was her turn to corner him, he was already heading through the other door, cleaned up, saying, “I have to go deal with the fact that two Moon Elves managed to get past our guards, into the palace, and find you without anyone seeing them. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Hypocrite!” Hellebore called out as his door shut behind him.

Fine.

She went about her day like usual. Only her “like usual” was plagued by a strange pit in her stomach as the leaves in her samples crumbled to black rot. When she looked at her vials of the petals suspended in liquid, she only saw Taiyo’s thick, black blood on the stone.

When she dropped a beaker and the glass shattered, all she could do was stare at it, unable to feel her own fingers like the paralytic had returned.

She was here, playing with plants, while Taiyo was dying. She had a thousand questions, but what was most disconcerting to her was the fact that she was wondering… Was there a way to save him?

Why did she care if he died? Why would she want him to live?