Page 17

H aruko’s presence in Hellebore’s lab was not one she’d anticipated, but there her sister-in-law was, the door flung open, crashing into the wall while Hellebore leaned over Taiyo’s shoulder, going over the healers’ records of his condition that he’d brought with him.

Haruko’s eyes darted around the room before they landed on them, the pair of them completely frozen.

Why was Haruko there and what exactly had she expected to come bursting in on? Hellebore elbow deep in his guts?

Taiyo, however, immediately rose from his seat and said, “Haruko, outside, now.”

Then the siblings were gone, and Hellebore was thoroughly confused. There was no way Haruko knew that Hellebore knew about Taiyo’s condition, given she’d only discovered it the night before. So what was Haruko doing rushing into her lab?

Elaine and Phoebe had been all a titter when Taiyo had joined her in heading to her lab. In the past he’d only visited briefly to collect her to go to the garden. Although, it probably didn’t matter how Haruko knew now that she was there.

Hellebore just picked up the records again and continued reading, ignoring the muffled voices out in the hallway. Soon enough, the door was flying open again and Taiyo was hissing, “—ko, don’t!”

“Alchemist, if you think that you’ll be running experiments on my brother without anyone to observe, you are sorely mistaken. While he might trust you with his life, I certainly do not!” Haruko came to a stop in front of the chair Hellebore was sitting in.

“You’re free to observe, but don’t even think of getting in my way.” Hellebore lifted her gaze only slightly. “I won’t let your desire to secure your son as heir to the throne stop me from saving my husband.”

She received silence in response. Taiyo’s expression shifted once more and he took a little, short breath, lips twitching up before he turned his head away.

Haruko narrowed her eyes, crossing the distance and glaring down at her. “My brother’s life means more to me than it ever could to you. I won’t let you steal his blood for your sick experiments while he trusts you wholeheartedly. I won’t let you kill him.”

“If I wanted him dead, all I’d have to do is wait.” Hellebore huffed, pushing herself out of the chair. She fluttered the pages in Haruko’s face, disorienting the elf and thus clearing the way for her to pass by and reach the table with her sterilized tools waiting for her to draw blood. “Not to mention, his blood is so thoroughly corrupted that there would be nothing I could do with it other than analyze it. I can’t use his blood for my own benefit. You, on the other hand—”

“Haruko, Hellebore is the only chance I have. Trust me on this, don’t make this harder,” Taiyo said, cutting Hellebore off before she finished the threat as he took the seat beside the table.

Hellebore finished disinfecting her hands and moved to put on the sanitized leather gloves. She looked over her shoulder and said, “If it would help you feel more comfortable about this and be closer to me, feel free to call me Hels. If I succeed, we’ll be sisters by marriage for at least the rest of my life.”

Taiyo rolled the sleeve of his shirt up to expose his left arm. He looked up at Hellebore. “Why haven’t you told me about this little nickname?”

“You didn’t ask, and then you made your own. Don’t be greedy.”

“Not one based off your name. I like Hels.” Taiyo’s eyes never left hers as she stepped closer, needle in hand, Haruko looking like she was going to be sick in the background.

“Of course you would, Hellebore is a mouthful.” Hellebore positioned the needle, finding his vein. “But if you get to use two nicknames, then you’ll never call me by my full name again.”

“I see.” Taiyo smirked before it quickly turned into a wince as she pushed the needle in. He, however, never looked away from her face as she drew his blood. “This is just about how much you love the way I say your name.”

Hellebore ignored his smug, teasing lilt and focused on her work. If Haruko got any greener, she was going to need a bucket. Taiyo’s blood wasn’t a pleasant sight, but was drawing a syringe of it really enough to make her so squeamish and disgusted?

Hellebore finished, pulling the needle out and setting it to the side so she could clean and bandage his arm, fixing him with a stern look. “Your name is too short for a nickname, so it’s hardly fair for you to get two and I none.”

“You can always come up with one unrelated to my name.”

“You really want me to start calling you sunshine?”

Haruko cleared her throat, nodding at the syringe. “What exactly will you be doing with that?”

“Analyzing it. I need to know the makeup of it inside and out if I’m going to find a way to cure it.”

“What makes you think you can do this? You’re not a healer,” Haruko said.

“You should be grateful I’m not. Your healers for years have been trying and failing.” Hellebore laughed and gestured to her lab. “I’m an alchemist. I’m the only one who can.”

And that was that.

If Taiyo had been spending a fair amount of time with Hellebore before when she’d been focused solely on the plants, it was nothing compared to now.

He was always in her lab, at her side, either sitting in silence when she needed to focus or discussing his condition with her when she needed more answers or talking to her about any manner of things when she needed a break. He never complained when she needed blood. He never seemed worried each day that passed and she still didn’t have an answer.

From sunup until sundown, they worked in her lab. Princess Haruko, after much convincing from Taiyo, had taken over his duties as king so he could focus on helping Hellebore save his life. They always left right before sunset. If a normal Sun Elf was weaker at night, Taiyo was doubly so. His heart had already been straining and struggling during the day to pump his thick, rotting blood through his veins, but at night it had to work twice as hard. Which is where the pain came in.

But the tincture the elven healers gave him didn’t work well.

So within a week of examining his blood, Hellebore spent the night awake, a chair pulled up to his bed and an open notebook in her lap so that she could observe how his condition changed at night. All she could see was his expression screwing up in agony. His pained breaths and huffs were so soft, she understood why she’d never heard them before, but somehow the sound of them seemed to embed themselves into her mind.

She’d been working on the rot for months now and factoring in Taiyo’s condition and his magic fighting the rot for a week. While her progress wasn’t inconsequential on either end, it wasn’t successful either.

She only had a little under four months left.

She made good on her promise to come up with a sedative to help Taiyo sleep without pain, this time ensuring the original tincture was fully out of his system before he took hers.

That first night she still watched over him, observing to make sure there were no side effects. The next night, as soon as he was out, she pulled her hand out of his and quietly crept out of his room and back to her lab. She continued working through the night.

She had to.

She couldn’t add hours to the day, but she needed more time.

The next morning, she slipped back into her room right before dawn and put on the act of waking up for her maids when they arrived.

When Taiyo stood in the doorway connecting their rooms, waiting for Phoebe to finish braiding Hellebore’s hair, he said, “Are you alright? Do you want to go back to bed? You look exhausted.”

She forced down the yawn rising in her throat. “I’m fine. Just a little restless. Nothing a day in the lab can’t cure.”

That night, she hovered in the doorway, waiting for Taiyo to take the sedative so she could slip out again. But as he held the vial, he held out his other hand. “Why don’t you stay, Hels? See if you sleep better here.”

“I hardly think a few feet on either side of this wall will make a difference.”

“No, but sleeping beside your husband might.” He gave her a grin. “Who is asking so very nicely because he appreciates all the work she’s doing for him.”

Arguing with him was wasting precious time. If she refused, she’d have to come up with an explanation, and it would be so much easier if he would just take it and pass out.

“Well, when I hog the blankets, I expect no whining from you about it in the morning. You’ve brought this upon yourself,” Hellebore said, stepping into the room and moving to climb into bed beside him. His mouth fell open at her acquiescence.

If he hadn’t thought she’d do it, why give her the option?

He looked over his shoulder at her as he sat on the edge, ready to drink the vial. His eyes skimmed over her as she fussed with the covers, and there was something sad in them and something longing in his voice as he said, “Yes, I have.”

Then he took the sedative and lay down, turning to face her as quickly as he could. He stared at her even as his eyes began to flutter. She was the last thing he saw before the sedative took him under.

His breathing evened out, and then Hellebore was carefully climbing out of bed and hurrying back to her room to change again and get back to her lab.

That night she watched her seventh attempt at the formula she needed to cleanse the irises of the rot fall onto the leaves, and nothing happened.

Hellebore’s eyes watered beneath her goggles and she quickly stepped away from the table so she could remove them and scrub the emotion away. She took a few deep breaths. She might be cracking, but she would not break.

She could do this. She had to do this.

She pulled her goggles back on, opened her notebook, and recorded the results. She spent the rest of the night trying to break down what it had done and where to go from there.

She barely made it back in time to change and slide back into bed beside Taiyo before he woke up.

He stirred as she laid her head on the pillow, and she steadied her breathing, blinking her eyes right as Taiyo opened his, still facing her. He stared at her for a moment and his voice was thick and raspy from sleep. “You look exhausted. Did you sleep at all?”

“Good morning to you too. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how rude it is to tell a woman she looks tired?”

“You’re not just any woman. You’re my wife. Your wellbeing is my concern.”

Hellebore made a note that she was going to have to find some way to hide her exhaustion to throw off his suspicion.

“I’m also human. You’re an elf. Sorry to break it to you, but this is what humans look like in the morning.” She quickly flung the covers off and hit him in the face with them as she shot out of bed. “And I’m not even the one dying.”

When he insisted on her sleeping in his room again that night, Hellebore went through the same routine, this time prepared, and the next morning he woke up and she received no comment from him thanks to the mineral she’d used her alchemy to turn into a cosmetic to hide the dark bags under her eyes.

But she knew this was unsustainable. She had to sleep at some point.

So that night, she came back early, her eyes drooping, and wrangled herself out of her clothes and into her nightgown and crawled back in next to Taiyo and let herself get a couple hours of sleep to tide her over for the next few days.

When she woke up, Taiyo was already awake, staring at her. “That’s not the nightgown you were wearing last night.”

Infuriating elf. Of course he would notice; he refused to take the sedative unless he was able to look at her while it took effect, and she was always the first thing he woke up to see.

“I got up in the middle of the night for some water and spilled it, so I had to change. Is that a satisfactory explanation or are you going to question why my hair isn’t in the exact same place after sleeping on it all night too?”

She managed another two nights, slowly moving forward. She had just finished a blood thinner for Taiyo which would ease the strain on his heart and was a step in the right direction to a cure, but she could feel her exhaustion catching up to her. Her hands were shaking as she corked it.

They were shaking too much.

She tried to pull her hand back from the stand, but it was too late, she had no control. Her hand knocked into the stand and the vials went flying through the air. They shattered on the ground, the glass pieces spilling across the floor as the liquid ran across the stone. A whole night’s worth of work wasted.

She sat on her stool and stared at the broken glass in silence for a moment. And at least there was no one around her to hear the embarrassing sob that fell from her lips.

No one was around to do anything when she cut her hands trying to clean up the glass so Taiyo wouldn’t see it in the morning when she drew more blood. She bandaged her hands herself and went back to Taiyo’s room early, climbing back in bed beside him. And if she was close enough to rest her good hand over his heart and hear its sluggish beat, no one was around to know.

When she woke up two hours later at dawn, Taiyo was holding her hand in his.

In hindsight, she should have been suspicious that Taiyo didn’t ask her about her bandaged hand the next morning. She’d thought maybe he hadn’t noticed it, given how his focus had instead been on the one resting over his heart.

Everything went as normal that day, and she was ready to take control of herself again and not waste any more precious time.

She was in her lab after having snuck out for approximately all of two minutes when the door opened, and she whipped around, beakers in her hands, to see Taiyo in the doorway, looking as ragged as he usually did at night.

Her breath hitched. She’d been caught.

Before she could even ask, he held up two vials, one full and one empty. He’d faked taking the sedative. “I don’t even have the energy to be angry with you right now.”

“Go back to bed, Taiyo.” Hellebore moved back to her table, setting the beakers down and her hands on the table as she ducked her head so he couldn’t see her expression. “I’m fine. I’m making progress, and I need every second I can get if I’m going to save you.”

“You need rest as well.”

“You need a solution.” Her voice cracked and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“I need my wife.”

His arms slipped around her waist as his front pressed to her back while he curled around her. She could feel his breath brush her skin. “And I need her to be healthy and well rested, not running herself into the ground for my sake.”

She tightened her grip on the table, not letting go. “I’ll survive. You won’t.”

“I have the utmost faith in you. And even so, if I am in my last days, that means you should heed a dying man’s request.” He leaned down farther, resting his chin on her shoulder. He turned, pressing his lips to her neck, and whispered, “Come back to bed, sunshine.”

She let go of the table, sinking into his arms. She whispered, “Only—Only because I’m getting sloppy without sleep.”

Taiyo hummed as he lifted his head, brushing his lips against her jaw too slowly and deliberately to be an accident, causing her heart to stutter and him to smirk. “Of course. That’s why your heart is racing right now.”

“I’m sleep deprived and you startled me. It’s—” Hellebore sighed as he pulled back, moving to take her hand in his and walk backward to the door. She said, “It’s just a normal physical response to my state. It has nothing to do with you. I’m not coming back because you asked me. Don’t think this means anything.”

Taiyo’s gaze never left her even as he reached for the door. “Believe me, I’m not that foolish. It’ll mean something when your maids aren’t the ones helping you out of your clothes.”

Hellebore ignored the heat flooding her cheeks. “If you’re waiting for any sort of affection from me, you will be waiting for the rest of your life. However long that might be. You’re dying. You should be doing nothing that could hurt your already failing heart.”

Taiyo laughed, full of the same bitterness as the blood that was coursing through his veins. “It is far too late for that.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her when he said that.

But they returned to his room and climbed into bed. Taiyo didn’t take the sedative. Instead, the second she’d crawled under the covers an arm looped around her waist and she let out an undignified squeak as he pulled her to him. He breathed out a sigh as he settled against her back, curled around her once more. He muttered, “To ensure you don’t get any ideas about sneaking off again.”

Hellebore told herself when she woke up the next morning the only reason she was smiling was because of how rested she was from sleeping a full eight hours. It had nothing to do with the way Taiyo was tracing “sunshine” on her palm.