Chapter 80 Chapter Eighty
Lyressa woke slowly the following morning, the pale glow of afternoon sunlight spilling across the high windows of her chambers.
For a moment she simply lay there, staring at the carved ceiling above her bed as her thoughts struggled to gather themselves.
The memories returned in fragments.
The forest.
The clearing.
Draevyn.
Her breath caught slightly as warmth spread through her chest.
She didn’t remember returning to the palace.
Perhaps he had brought her back.
The last thing she remembered was the overwhelming exhaustion that had settled into her bones after everything had finally quieted between them.
They must have made love for hours… or perhaps they had simply stayed there until the night surrendered to dawn.
Lyressa shifted beneath the silk sheets, feeling the pleasant heaviness still lingering through her body. Every muscle carried the faint ache of a night spent in ways she had never imagined for herself.
The thought made heat creep up her neck.
She closed her eyes briefly.
What had she done?
A Seelie queen entangled with an Unseelie commander.
The court would have fainted where they stood if they knew.
Yet the memory of his voice—low and warm against her ear—pushed the guilt aside far more easily than it should have.
By the time she finally rose from bed, the sun had already begun its slow descent across the sky.
Most of the day had slipped away.
Her council had visited more than once throughout the afternoon, checking on her with varying degrees of concern. Several of her advisors—and more than one of her commanders—had gently insisted she take the day to recover.
“You’ve been pushing yourself for months, Your Majesty,” one of them had told her firmly. “The investigation will not collapse if you rest for a single day.”
They assured her Draevyn had continued the work in her absence, moving through the court with the same quiet focus he had shown since his arrival.
Questioning.
Observing.
Searching for answers the Seelie themselves had failed to uncover.
Knowing that seemed to ease something inside her.
So for once—
Lyressa allowed herself to rest.
The quiet hours passed slowly after that.
The sun dipped lower, staining the marble terraces outside her windows with amber light. Servants came and went quietly, bringing fresh water and lighting the lanterns that would guide the palace into evening.
And when night finally returned—
so did Draevyn.
He appeared at her chamber doors carrying a tray of food, the faintest smile touching his mouth the moment he saw her.
“Your Majesty,” he greeted softly.
But the formality lasted all of two seconds.
His eyes warmed as he crossed the room, setting the tray aside before stepping close enough that she could feel the heat of him again.
“I missed you today,” he murmured.
The confession came easily.
Too easily.
He spoke of how the court had felt strangely dull without her presence. How he had caught himself thinking of the previous night more times than he could count.
How he had nearly abandoned the investigation entirely just to come see her sooner.
The words settled around Lyressa like sunlight after a long winter.
Dangerous.
Comforting.
Everything a young queen who had carried the weight of a crown alone for far too long would want to hear.
And Lyressa found herself believing every one of them.
In the weeks that followed, the bond between Lyressa and Draevyn only deepened.
Their days remained disciplined—measured, careful, entirely proper within the eyes of the court. They continued to work side by side in their search for answers. To anyone watching, they were nothing more than a queen and a visiting commander united by a shared concern.
But the nights belonged to them.
Long after the palace had quieted and the lanterns along the halls had burned low, Draevyn would appear within the shadows of her chambers—stepping from the veil between courts with the same effortless ease that had first unsettled her.
At first Lyressa had questioned the secrecy.
Draevyn had simply smiled and taken her hands in his.
“Not yet,” he had said gently. “There is already enough unrest in your court. Let us not add fuel to the fire until the truth behind these deaths is uncovered.”
It made sense.
The court was already tense with fear and suspicion. News of their union—Seelie queen and Unseelie commander—would ripple through both courts like a thunderclap.
So Lyressa agreed.
But keeping their love hidden did nothing to temper the way her heart opened to him.
If anything, it only deepened it.
She loved him.
There was no denying it anymore.
And when the investigation finally ended—when the court was no longer trembling beneath the weight of unanswered deaths—she would name him openly. She would place a crown beside her own and make him her king.
Let the court whisper.
Let them protest.
She would not spend another second without him ruling by her side.
Draevyn insisted he cared little for titles or thrones. Yet there was a quiet warmth in his eyes whenever she spoke of it—an unmistakable satisfaction in knowing she wanted him just as fiercely as he wanted her.
For a time, the secret felt like a sanctuary between them.
Until the first signs appeared.
At first Lyressa attributed it to exhaustion.
Weeks of investigation had worn her thin long before Draevyn arrived. Sleepless nights, endless meetings, and the growing weight of responsibility had drained even her normally boundless energy.
But the fatigue did not fade.
If anything, it worsened.
Each morning she woke feeling more depleted than the night before—as if something within her had been quietly siphoned away while she slept.
Her reflection began to change.
The glow that had once marked every Seelie faded from her skin, leaving it pale and dull beneath the palace lights. Dark shadows gathered beneath her eyes, no matter how much rest she forced upon herself.
Even her hair began to thin—strands of platinum slipping free when she brushed it.
Worse still was the strange hollowness she felt inside.
Not just physical weakness.
Something deeper.
Something spiritual.
As though the very essence that made her Seelie was slowly being drained away.
And no healer within the court could explain why.
As the days passed, Lyressa’s concern slowly hardened into something colder.
Fear.
The same question kept returning.
What if she had caught it?
What if the sickness that had been stealing the lives of the Seelie women had finally found its way to their queen?
The thought alone sent a chill through her.
Draevyn refused to entertain it.
“It’s not the same,” he told her firmly one evening, kneeling beside her bed as she struggled to sit upright. His hand closed gently around hers, grounding her when her strength threatened to fail.
“The women who died showed no signs of illness before they were found,” he continued. “No fatigue. No weakness. Nothing.”
His thumb brushed slowly across her knuckles.
“This is something else.”
Draevyn began sending word to the Unseelie Court, requesting the most skilled healers they possessed—those whose knowledge reached beyond the traditions of the Seelie Court.
“If anyone can uncover what’s happening to you, it will be them,” he assured her.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Lyressa wanted to believe him.
She truly did.
But each passing day seemed to steal more strength from her.
What had begun as simple exhaustion slowly became something far more difficult to ignore. Standing for long periods left her dizzy. Walking across the chamber drained her breath as though she had crossed miles instead of stone floors.
Soon Draevyn was helping her back to bed each evening, guiding her carefully as though she were made of glass.
Eventually…
she could no longer rise from it at all.
Whispers began to ripple quietly through the palace halls.
The queen had fallen ill.
Her council grew increasingly uneasy, their concern barely concealed during the brief moments they were allowed to visit. They spoke in hushed tones outside her chambers, their voices heavy with questions no one dared ask aloud.
Was their queen dying?
Draevyn would not allow the uncertainty to spread further.
His patience with the palace’s endless stream of visitors finally snapped.
“The queen needs rest,” he declared sharply one afternoon, his voice echoing through the corridor outside her chambers. “There will be no more audiences, no more consultations, and no more wandering courtiers disturbing her recovery.”
The command carried the unmistakable weight of authority.
Soon the palace halls fell quiet.
Visitors were turned away.
Guests dismissed.
Even many of the servants were reassigned to other wings of the palace.
And within the stillness of her chambers, Lyressa lay beneath the soft glow of lantern light…
growing weaker by the day.
One night, Lyressa woke suddenly.
For a moment she lay still, her mind heavy with sleep as she tried to understand what had disturbed her.
The room was quiet.
Too quiet.
Instinctively, she reached across the bed beside her.
Cold sheets met her fingertips.
Lyressa frowned faintly, her hand searching the empty space again.
“Draevyn?” she murmured softly.
No answer.
She waited a moment, listening.
Perhaps he had stepped away briefly. The palace was vast, and he often rose in the night to continue reviewing reports or meeting with the healers who had arrived from the Unseelie Court.
Still…
Something about the silence unsettled her.
He had promised.
Promised he would not leave her side.
Ever.
Lyressa pushed herself upright slowly, her body protesting the effort. The weakness that had plagued her for weeks had not yet released its grip, and the simple act of sitting made the room tilt slightly around her.
She waited until the dizziness faded.
Then she slipped carefully from the bed.
Her legs trembled the moment her weight settled onto them. One hand caught the edge of the bedpost as she steadied herself before moving toward the chamber door.
The palace corridors beyond were dark and unnervingly still.
Draevyn’s orders had seen to that.
With visitors dismissed and most of the palace staff reassigned to distant wings, the halls had fallen into a strange, hollow quiet.
Lyressa moved slowly along the wall, her fingertips gliding against the cool marble for support as she made her way down the corridor.
“Draevyn?” she called again, softer this time.
Only silence answered her.
The quiet stretched on.
Too quiet.
She was beginning to wonder if she should simply return to bed when something drifted down the hallway ahead.
A sound.
Faint.
Lyressa paused.
The sound came again—low and muffled behind one of the heavy doors at the far end of the hall.
The briefing room.
Of course.
Relief flickered briefly through her chest.
That made sense. Draevyn had spent countless hours there since arriving at the Seelie court, poring over records and theories in his relentless search for answers.
He was probably still working.
For her.
Lyressa continued down the corridor, moving as quickly as her weak legs allowed.
But the closer she came, the more the sound sharpened.
It wasn’t the quiet murmur of voices.
Nor the rustle of parchment or the shifting of chairs.
It was a woman’s voice.
Not speaking.
A soft sound escaped again from behind the door.
Lyressa stopped.
Her brow furrowed.
Pain?
No…
Her stomach tightened.
Not pain.
Pleasure.
The realization hit her like ice sliding down her spine.
Lyressa approached the door slowly, her hand trembling as it reached for the handle.
She hesitated.
Just for a moment.
Then she turned it.
The latch gave with a quiet click, the heavy door easing open just enough to leave a narrow crack between the frame and the wall.
Just enough for her to see what was happening inside.
Lyressa froze in the doorway.
For a moment her mind refused to understand what her eyes were seeing.
Draevyn sat in one of the briefing chairs near the long table, his dark hair falling loosely around his face, his hands gripping the sides of the seat as if he had no intention of moving.
And on his lap—
A young Seelie woman.
One of the palace servants.
She straddled him boldly, her pale skirts gathered around her hips as she bounced on him with eager urgency, her head thrown back as soft sounds spilled from her lips.
Lyressa’s heart sank.
The room tilted.
For a heartbeat she simply stared, unable to look away—unable to reconcile the man she had trusted, the man who had sworn he would never leave her side, with the one sitting there beneath another woman.