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Zavian bent to put his forehead against Freya’s mattress and closed his eyes for a while. He wasn’t only tired emotionally, but physically as well. The only decent amount of sleep he had managed to get was for an hour, and that was with his head bent over the tons of papers on his study table.

If he could get away from it all... the thought was tempting, alluring, seductive. Just to go far away, a coward’s wish only to be entertained within the walls of his thoughts and nothing more.

Some days he would imagine getting away to some clearing in a lush green forest with a big cabin, and with Neera there as well. He would try to blot her out, like a stain on cloth, but she stood there, her visage stubborn, sometimes standing in the kitchen, singing and cooking, sometimes in the chambers, her smile untarnished and pure, her arms wrapped around him in a long, long embrace, and she wouldn’t let go.

It was insane how someone who caused so much havoc would be the one that gave him peace at the same time.

“We are preparing for war, Freya,” Zavian said, head still bowed and eyes closed. “We don’t know how far Aloysius has come, or if he is here. But I have witches summoned to check the portal. I have soldiers readying themselves. I have everything, but I don’t have you.

“I took your presence for granted, I know, and I am still waiting, Freya,” he said. “I am waiting. And I will keep waiting. Even if we go to war and come back, I will wait. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t here to fight. It doesn’t matter if you wake up healthy or not, as long as you are alive, that’s all I want.”

And so, sleep came in, and he didn’t try to fight it like other times. He allowed it to take him to a temporary place where he’d be suspended in the unknown, and nothing mattered – feelings, reality, nothing for just a little while.

But sleep’s touch felt so real, and he could feel its touch running through his hair, and he welcomed it. Sleep touched his face, and just as it was about to welcome it into its realm, he heard sleep calling his name, a distant croak.

.....

Zavian’s eyes snapped open, and he raised his head.

Before him, Freya was looking right at him, eyes wide open.

….

Penelope raised her fist and hammered knocks on the door.

Enough was enough. Neera might be a powerful Queen, but she was still her friend, and she had been worried sick about her. So her sole mission that day was to keep knocking and knocking until she opened the doors.

“Hey!” One of the guards stationed around the chambers yelled at her. “You can’t do that! It’s the royal chamber!”

“Then please consider me the royal friend who needs to get into the royal chamber,” Penelope said, sending another wave of heavy knocks, heavier than the last, upon the chamber doors.

“Hey!” Another guard came, scowling. “You heard him. If you continue, we will haul you out of this place, Queen’s friend or not.”

“Yes, one more impolite knock and you are out,” the first guard jutted his thumb toward the passage leading to the exit. “I have had enough of your knocks over the days that I had a headache. Now you want to give me a migraine?”

Penelope didn’t respond to any of them, and she looked away from their glowers and to the heavy doors of the chambers. Just one more time, she told herself.

As if hearing her thoughts, the guards stepped forward.

Penelope banged both fists on the door. “Neera!” She screamed for her. “Neera, open up! Please!”

Arms wrapped around her waist, and she fought and struggled, her fists returning to the door. She was overpowered by the other guard who seized her hands, and with her lower half in one of their holds and her upper body in their other hold, she could only wiggle herself like a worm as they carted her away.

“Neera!” Penelope screamed out her lungs, using her mouth as her weapon of escape. “Neera! They are carrying me away! Neera, please!”

“If we stuff her mouth, the Queen will understand,” the guard holding her lower body said.

“I don’t have anything for that,” the other guard heaved as Penelope’s squirming made it hard for him to haul her. Just as her mouth opened to yell again, he clamped his hand down on the scream.

“Ugh! What did you do?” The guard removed his hand immediately, disgusted at the wetness of Penelope’s tongue on his palm.

“What are you doing?”

The guards stopped moving, and Penelope used that opportunity to free herself from their hold. They bowed in greeting to the Queen, who watched them from the threshold of her door.

“She was causing a disturbance in the quarters, my Queen,” one of the guards said.

“Penelope isn’t a disturbance of any sort,” the Queen said.

“We are sorry, your Majesty,” they apologized.

Neera waved a hand at them. “Go on.”

When they bowed before they returned, the guards looked at Penelope, clearly displeased she had won them. Penelope had the sweet urge to stick out her tongue like a child to rub it on their faces, but thought against it. From another person’s point of view, probably anyone else’s point of view, they were only simply doing their jobs.

When Neera returned to the chambers, Penelope followed after her. The room was still the same. Penelope didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t in disarray and neither were the curtains closed off to block the sunlight. Even the bed was made, which made Penelope wonder what Neera had been doing.