The Dark Side of Power

Barely There

Two days and Rhodri wasn’t getting any better. His temperature was barely containable, and nothing was working to reverse any of the symptoms. Lanzijm hadn’t slept since, and neither had Sion, and it was starting to show. They looked exhausted, even when Awen tried to place glamours over them, and though she knew they were worried about Rhodri (and their jobs if they couldn’t find out what it was that was making him so sick), it was making her worried about them.

“Is there anything we might have overlooked?” Sion asked, half asleep.

Awen made coffee, delivering steaming cups of it to both of them with only a small nod of her head. “If you’re not going to sleep, at least drink this before speaking, it might make you think first.”

Lanzijm snorted, almost choking on his coffee.

“I’m serious.”

“You think I’m not?” Awen smirked as he rolled his eyes.

Sion sighed, “no, ok, ignore the fact that his skin has turned purple.”

Lanzijm laughed, “what? That’s like… the most obvious thing that’s wrong with him.”

“No, look, ok, think about it. If you take away the purple skin, what are we left with?”

Awen shrugged, “general symptoms of a fever?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t get it.” Lanz frowned. “We can’t just-”

“Shut up, Lanz, Sion might be onto something,” Awen rushed to the blackboard kept on one wall of the room, knocking over a stack of books in the process. “Look.” She picked up the chalk and wrote down all of Prince Rhodri’s symptoms excluding the purple hint across his skin. “Look at this.”

Lanz raised an eyebrow, almost amused by her outburst. “Ok, and…” He made a vague gesture towards the board.

Awen rolled her eyes, sighing, “look at what we’re left with. Sion’s right, we might have overlooked the obvious. We’re so caught up in the whole… skin thing that we haven’t stopped to consider this. It might be something entirely different doing that to him, he might be sick, but the purple? It might not be a symptom of that. It could be something else entirely.”

Sion nodded almost comically, a grin across his face, “Exactly!”

“Seriously?”

“Why not?” Awen shrugged, “it would explain a lot, especially the fact that none of us has ever come across anything like this.”

Lanz considered for a few seconds before saying, “convince me.”

Jumping to his feet, Sion said, “challenge accepted.”

Awen sat back as he did his best to convince Lanzijm that he was right. She smiled softly, making eye contact with Lanz, who was leaning back in his chair, obviously enjoying this. Shaking her head, she turned away back to Sion with a grin; he’d already been convinced, but Sion was doing a good job of keeping them entertained and giving them a short break from the mental strain it was putting on the three of them.

“Ok, ok.” Lanz stopped his theatrics with a small laugh, “I’m convinced. So let’s get started.”

“With?” Awen raised an eyebrow.

“If we write down everything that fits these symptoms, we at least have a base, then we can start ruling things out.”

Awen and Sion nodded, and they all got started, adding things to the board as they came across something else that could possibly be making Rhodri so sick. By midday, it was so full that Awen and Sion were using magic to write in the air to add more and more to the ever-growing list of illnesses.

“This is endless.” Awen sighed, throwing another book to the side as she reached the end.

“Sion, go get us some lunch?” Lanz asked, putting his medical journal to the side.

“Why me and not Awen?”

Awen smiled, “Cylla likes you better. Plus, you always get the good cakes, they never let me take any.”

Sion laughed, nodding, “fair enough, can’t argue with that one.”

Lanzijm waited until the door closed before saying, “you don’t even like cake.”

“Sion doesn’t know that.”

“Yet.”

She rolled her eyes with a small smile. “This is never going to end. And Emyr…”

“You let me worry about that, if it gets to it.”

“I think we’re already there, Lanzijm.”

He turned away for a few seconds. “Not yet. As long as Rhodri is hanging on, we have nothing to worry about.”

Awen nodded, not quite meeting his gaze.

“Besides, do you really think we’d let anything happen to you?” Lanz smiled softly, trying to make her look at him. “Nox would tear the place apart before that happened.”

She laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Luckily for her, Sion arrived with their lunch, so she didn’t have to answer.

“Ok, we’ll have lunch and then start crossing things off. But I don’t want anyone talking about it until we’ve finished eating,” Lanzijm instructed.

The two nodded, but they all knew it was going to be on their minds, regardless of if they were talking about it or not. They finished quickly, all wanting to just get on with it; they weren’t sure how much longer Rhodri had, though no one was going to talk about it; that would make it too real for everyone.

Awen lasted all of an hour before it was too much for her. “Ok, that’s it, if I read one more sentence about fevers and comatose states I’ll hex Sion into next week.”

“Go relieve whoever’s with Rhodri. And no hexing anyone along the way!” Lanz laughed as she stuck her tongue out at him.

It didn’t take her long to get through the halls to Rhodri’s rooms. The castle felt almost desolate, her shoes clicking a little against the stone floors. Since the prince had been taken ill, it was rare to see anyone walking the halls; guests weren’t permitted, and neither Elyn nor Emyr left his side - so she wasn’t surprised to find Emyr crouched by Rhodri’s bedside.

“I can take over now, sire,” she spoke softly, curtseying as she did.

“I’ll stay.” He didn’t even look at her, studying the Prince’s face.

“Of course,” Awen barely spoke above a whisper, slowly walking over, “but please, I need to monitor him.”

For a few seconds, she wasn’t sure he’d even heard her, but eventually, he stood, hands clasped behind his back, and moved away from the bed. “Yes, I… yes.”

Awen smiled softly, ducking her head on instinct as she moved around to the side of the bed where Rhodri lay. He was still comatose, and the purple hue on his skin wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. It was almost like death had already descended, especially with the closed curtains blocking out any kind of air or light from the room, but she didn’t want to open them and anger Emyr, so she left them closed.

He’d started pacing around the room, muttering to himself about Lanzijm and treatments and anything more they could be doing - Awen just tried to block it all out as best she could, focusing on the patient in front of her.

“Prince Rhodri, it’s Awen,” she whispered, “can you hear me?” No response. As usual. “Ok, I’m just here to see how you’re doing, ok?” Again, no response, but she was used to that, she just found it easier to talk him through what was going on. Lanzijm said it helped, anyway.

She placed a hand on his forehead and gasped sharply as she felt his temperature.

“Awen? What is it?” Emyr asked, jumping down her throat almost immediately, not giving her much time to mask her reactions.

Shaking her head, she hummed to herself softly. “I don’t think… nothing.”

Emyr frowned, but went back to his mumblings, pacing around the room again, going on about there being something obscure or something… Awen wasn’t really paying attention to him; she was more concerned with the fact that somehow, after two days, Rhodri’s burning fever had broken. It wasn’t much, but with a disease they knew nothing about, it was still something major. To Awen, anyway.

“Well, I suppose it’s something, and something is better than nothing,” it was barely above a whisper, even Awen herself could barely hear herself, and yet Rhodri managed to. She stared, heart beating at a million miles an hour as he turned his head towards her. “Prince- Prince Rhodri?” Her breath caught in her throat, making her feel like she was choking on her breath, but she fought it, trying not to draw the King’s attention without cause.

Again, he responded, minimally, moving towards her voice.

Awen could barely contain herself, eyes glued to his face as she sent a glow-message through to the medical wing to summon Lanzijm and Sion. Luckily, Emyr was still so wrapped up in his pacing that he didn’t notice.

“What’s wrong?” Elyn crashed through the door, eyes wild, hair falling around her shoulders.

“What?” Emyr stared at her.

“I saw the glow-message, what happened, what’s wrong? Is he- oh- Awen is he…”

“No, I- um, I…” she could barely think enough to string a sentence together, “I just need Lanzijm here, I think… I’m not sure- Lanz!” She sighed in relief as he and Sion arrived, both very out of breath.

“What’s going on?” He asked, frowning a little.

“I’m not sure.” Awen looked over to Emyr and his daughter-in-law.

Lanz nodded, “ok, let’s have a look.” He walked over, being closely followed by the King and Princess. “Sire, your highness, please, let me work. Awen, the curtains.”

She nodded, waving her hand slowly, the curtains paging themselves perfectly on the walls. “He’s not…” She whispered, doing her best to ignore the piercing stares from Emyr and Elyn. “He’s not comatose. Not anymore, and his fever… I think it’s broken.”

Lanz stared at her, Sion looking as though he hadn’t heard her quite right before they both rushed to his bedside. “Rhodri? Rhodri, can you hear me?” Lanz spoke, louder than Awen had, causing Elyn to audibly cry out, as she clutched onto King Emyr. Lanz stood back, a puzzled expression on his face. “Are you sure?”

Awen nodded, “I’m sure. Hold- hold on,” she spoke softly, not entirely sure what the standard procedure was in the situation but not entirely caring either - if it helped Rhodri, that would be fine by her, and probably also by both King Emyr and Princess Elyn. She ran around to the other side of the bed, pulling her skirt up and climbing on, crawling closer to the prince. “Prince Rhodri? It’s Awen. It’s Awen again, can you hear me?”

They waited for any sign of comprehension from Rhodri, and just when Awen was beginning to think she’d hallucinated the whole thing, he responded.

Lanz stepped forwards as Rhodri did indeed turn back towards Awen, though otherwise unresponsive. “Rhodri?”

Awen smiled, relieved that she’d been right about it. “His fever… it’s not burning. I thought it could be the drop in room temperature, but I lifted it and it’s still down.”

The tension could have been cut with a knife as Lanzijm and Sion confirmed that Rhodri appeared to be getting better - despite the obvious purple skin. “Ok,” Lanz nodded, looking towards the royals awaiting news with bated breath, “it does appear that some of the symptoms are lessening. He may be getting better.”

Emyr stepped forward tentatively, with Elyn still gripping onto his arm. “But- but, the… he’s purple. He’s still purple, how is he-”

“I don’t know, sire, but I’m - we’re doing everything we can to figure all of this out. Take this as a good thing. Awen, will you stay and monitor him? He seems to be responding better to you than any of us.”

Awen nodded, smiling softly as she climbed down off the bed. “I’ll stay.”

Emyr nodded, “thank you, Awen. I really am grateful for everything you’re doing for my son.”

Tears started dripping down Princess Elyn’s cheeks, and she turned away from everyone in the room.

“Ok, let’s clear out, there’s no point crowding the room without cause.” Lanzijm shot Awen a look as he ushered everyone out - including the King, leaving only Awen and Elyn in the room with Rhodri.

Once everyone had left and the door had closed behind them, Awen approached her. “Princess Elyn? Are you ok?”

She nodded, turning back as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m ok. I’m just… Oh, I’m so relieved, Awen. I thought- I thought for sure he was going to…”

Awen smiled softly, not entirely sure what to do.

“I know… I know our marriage was arranged, but we spent so much time together over our holidays, and being without him now, I-” Elyn cut herself off with a nervous giggle. “I need him to be ok, I need him to come through this. I’m not sure what I’ll do otherwise.”

The two stood in silence, just existing in each other's presence; it seemed to be enough for Elyn that Awen was there with her, and she wasn’t going to argue with it. But it didn’t do anything for Awen’s anxiety about Prince Rhodri.