Chapter 29 Five Months of Mercy
The Next Morning
“Please… at least take one small bite,” Clara pleaded, her voice soft with worry as she hovered beside the untouched plate. The food had gone cold long ago.
Leitana turned toward her with a fragile smile that never reached her eyes. Those eyes, once bright with curiosity and a spark that had enchanted the entire staff from the very first day she arrived at the villa, were now dull, shadowed, lifeless.
“Mi no really hungry, Clara,” she whispered, the words barely louder than a breath.
Clara opened her mouth to protest, but the air in the room suddenly thickened, charged with something dark and electric. Both women turned toward the doorway.
Ravial stood there like a storm given human shape.
“Leave,” he said. One word. Flat. Final.
Clara didn’t wait to see if it was meant for her. She dipped a quick curtsy and fled.
The moment the door clicked shut, Leitana froze. Her spine went rigid, shoulders curling inward. She stared fixedly at her lap, hands twisting together so tightly her knuckles blanched. Her heart pounded so violently he could hear it across the room, frantic, terrified, desperate to escape her ribs.
The scent of her fear flooded the air, sharp and metallic. It clawed at him. His jaw clenched; his fists tightened until the knuckles cracked.
He crossed to the head of the table and sat. His own plate steamed gently in front of him; hers, a careful recreation of a childhood dish from her village, sat cold and congealing. They had tried to comfort her. She hadn’t touched a bite.
All because of him.
He should apologize. The words burned in his throat like acid, but pride, or something uglier, kept them locked behind his teeth.
“You shouldn’t waste food,” he said instead, forcing calm into his voice. “The chefs went to a lot of trouble for you.”
Hypocrisy tasted foul. He didn’t give a damn about the chefs.
Leitana said nothing. Slowly, trembling, she lifted her spoon. Her hand shook so badly the broth sloshed. Just as she raised it to her lips, he spoke again.
“So now you’ll eat because I’m here? I heard Clara begging you a moment ago. Am I forcing you?”
He knew he should stop. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted her fire back, the defiance she’d shown in the library, anything but this suffocating silence that gnawed at his bones.
The spoon clattered back to the plate. Her hands vanished beneath the table, gripping her thighs.
Shut up, Ravial.
But his mouth refused obedience.
“I didn’t tell you to stop eating,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “Why are you acting like I’m some monster….”
BANG.
His palm slammed the table. Plates jumped. Silverware rattled.
Leitana jolted as though struck by lightning. A choked, broken sob tore out of her.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late; the sound kept coming, raw, heaving, terrified. Tears streamed down her face in sudden torrents.
Ravial shoved to his feet, chair screeching backward.
She flinched so violently she nearly toppled. “Plis—please—no hit me, please no shout, I’ll behave, I’ll be good—” The words tumbled out in a panicked rush, half in her native tongue, half in broken English.
Horror flooded him, cold and absolute.
He lunged toward her without thinking, and she screamed, throwing both arms over her head to shield herself from the blow she felt was coming.
His hand froze inches from her. Memory flashed: searing pain, flesh peeling away, the wrath of Heaven itself.
He dragged his hand through his hair instead, gripping until it hurt. “Fuck, I’m not going to touch you,” he rasped. “I’m not….”
Her crying stopped as suddenly as it began.
“Leitana. Little lamb…”
Her arms fell limp. Her body folded forward, forehead rushing toward the table’s edge.
He caught her before she struck.
Agony exploded where his skin met hers, white-hot, blinding. His glamour shredded; for one heartbeat his true form blazed beneath, wings of living shadow unfurling in fury and pain. He forced her down to the carpet anyway, cradling her through the fire until she lay safely on the floor. Only then did he wrench himself away, gasping, watching human skin knit back over star-fire bones.
Rosa burst through the doors, took one look at the scene, and screamed.
Ravial’s roar shook the chandelier. “CALL THE DOCTOR!”
Private ICU Suite
Two hours later
Dr. Elena Ramírez closed the chart with a soft snap that sounded too final.
“We have a diagnosis,” she said quietly. “Lyran-Floros Syndrome. Incredibly rare, fewer than forty confirmed cases worldwide. It’s a genetic mitochondrial disorder. Her cells are slowly failing to produce energy. Every organ is affected, but the decline is… mercifully gentle, in its way. No seizures, no paralysis, no loss of speech or mobility. She’ll remain fully herself, clear-minded, able to walk, speak, even laugh, right up until the end. Then one day her heart will simply… stop. Most likely in her sleep.”
She paused, meeting Ravial’s burning stare.
“The fainting spell this morning was the first major warning. Extreme stress or fear causes a sudden, massive energy demand her mitochondria can’t meet. Blood pressure plummets, oxygen to the brain drops, and the body shuts down to protect itself. It’s the disease’s way of saying the tank is almost empty. With rest and careful management she may avoid another episode for weeks, maybe months. But each one will come faster, and one of them… won’t let her wake up.”
“There is no treatment. No cure. No clinical trials. Nothing slows it. The damage is written into her DNA and it has already begun its countdown. Average life expectancy after diagnosis is four to six months. Given her current biomarkers, we are looking at five months. Perhaps a few weeks more if she lives calmly and avoids stress.”
The room was so still the ventilator’s soft hiss sounded like screaming.
Ravial’s voice, when it came, was cold and almost emotionless.
“She’ll feel normal until the last week?”
“Completely normal,” the doctor confirmed. “No pain. No weakness. No deformity. Just… a clock running out inside her that no one can hear but us.”
She hesitated, then added more softly, “She will be aware of every single day she has left.”
Dr. Ramírez bowed her head slightly (an unconscious gesture of respect, or surrender) and left the room.
The door sealed shut.
Ravial stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the girl who still looked like she might wake up and look at him in fear.
Five months.
Not of fading.
Not of suffering.
Just five months of living, bright, cruel, perfect months—followed by a single, silent heartbeat that would never come again.
He dragged a hand down his face.
“Five months of you being exactly as you are,” he said to the sleeping girl, voice ragged. “Five months of watching you smile, hearing you speak, feeling you breathe… and knowing the exact day the world ends.”
His fingers twitched, aching to touch her hair, her cheek, the pulse at her throat that was already borrowed time.
He couldn’t.
Not without burning.
He laughed once (sharp, incredulous).
“You didn’t come here to punish me with pain,” he whispered. “You came to punish me with joy. That’s so much worse.”
He pulled the chair close again, sat heavily, and rested his forehead against the cold metal bedrail (the closest he could get without Heaven scorching the flesh from his bones).
“I’ll give you everything,” he said against the silence. “Every sunrise. Every city. Every song you’ve never heard. Every flavor you’ve never tasted. I’ll give you the whole damned world, little lamb, wrapped in gold and laid at your feet.”
He promised.