Chapter 74 Something buried beneath me
Maureen Laskovic
Even with Vuk beside me—alive, solid, breathing—I felt it.
That vast, aching emptiness lodged somewhere behind my ribs, like a thief had slipped in while I slept and stolen the part of me that knew how to feel whole.
It pulsed with every heartbeat, a hollow throb that whispered, You’re not all here anymore.
Get over it, I told myself, over and over, like a mantra against the dark.
It wasn’t real.
Just one of those cruel dreams the mind invents when it’s drowning in fever and despair.
A coma-dream.
A fragile illusion my subconscious clung to, painting warmth and life where there was only the cold edge of oblivion.
They said the fever had dragged me all the way to Death’s doorstep—burning me from the inside out, freezing my veins until my body started shutting down.
I’d nearly crossed over, they whispered, like it was some heroic tale.
Crawled right up to the brink and somehow… clawed my way back.
Lunar Blood, they murmured with reverent awe.
Lunar Blood saved you.
As if that explained the echo still ringing in my skull, the phantom kicks that ghosted across my belly in quiet moments, making me press a hand there instinctively, only to find flat, empty skin.
Two months.
Two entire months stolen from me while I was trapped in that vivid lie—a world that felt more real than this one, with its sharp edges and relentless truths.
Waking up didn’t feel like salvation.
It felt like being yanked back into a cage of flesh and time, into a reality that had marched on without me, indifferent to my absence.
The news crashed over me in waves, too fast, too merciless.
Eryx and Nyxara… together?
Gods, that one stole my breath, not with jealousy or betrayal, but with a stunned, aching wonder.
When had the world tilted like that?
When had I missed the quiet shift in their eyes, the way pain could forge something new from broken pieces?
And Edler Darius—the bloated, leering monster who’d haunted many lives, dead.
Gone.
Vanished like smoke.
It should have been a victory, a release.
But it only stirred unease, a quiet dread that his end had been too clean, too quick.
I’d always imagined it slower, more agonizing, a fitting echo of the horrors he’d inflicted.
What unsettled me most wasn’t the changes themselves.
It was the terrifying truth they laid bare: the world had kept spinning, relentless and uncaring… and I had been nowhere in it.
Erased.
A ghost in my own life.
“Little moon, have the tea…”
Vuk’s voice pulled me back, gentle as a caress, though it trembled at the edges like he was still afraid I’d dissolve into mist.
He knelt before me on the bed, cupping the steaming mug in his scarred hands, steam curling up like fragile prayers.
He said it was for my health—some herbal brew laced with Lunar essence to knit my strength back together—but I doubted it, the bitter scent alone singing of death wishes and desperate remedies.
I took it anyway, my fingers brushing his, and that simple touch nearly undid me.
His skin was so warm, so achingly real, after the glitches and fades of the dream.
“I can’t believe you’re real… gods… I missed you so terribly, I can’t…”
His words broke, raw and ragged, as he set the mug aside and surged forward, his hands cradling my face with a desperation that bordered on pain.
His thumbs traced my cheeks, my jaw, like he was memorizing me all over again, terrified I might vanish if he blinked.
Tears shimmered in his silver eyes, unshed but threatening, and the sight of them cracked something deep inside me.
Vuk—the unbreakable, the beast who’d torn through armies for me—looked so fragile, so utterly wrecked.
He pulled me into his arms then, crushing me against his chest with a fierceness that stole my breath.
His body shook against mine, not with rage or power, but with the kind of vulnerability that only love could carve out of a man like him.
“I love you,” he whispered into my hair, voice hoarse and thick, each word laced with the agony of those lost months.
“More than the stars, more than the blood in my veins. I thought I’d lost you… truly lost you this time. The world went dark without you, little moon. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—every second was torture, imagining you slipping away where I couldn’t follow.”
His arms tightened, as if he could fuse us together, shield me from the void that had nearly claimed me.
“I would never allow such a thing to happen again. Never. I’d burn the gods themselves to ash before I let anything touch you like that. You’re mine—my heart, my light—and I’ll guard you with everything I am. Promise me you know that. Promise me you feel it.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, hot and unbidden, soaking into his shirt as I nodded against him, my own hands fisting in the fabric at his back.
“I do,” I whispered, voice cracking with the weight of it all—the fear, the gratitude, the overwhelming love that threatened to drown me.
“It was you… you came as light in that darkness. Pulled me out, dragged me back from the edge. If not for you, I’d still be lost there, chasing ghosts.”
The admission left me raw, vulnerable, like peeling back layers of skin to show the wounds beneath.
I’d been so close to staying, to letting the dream swallow me whole.
But his voice, his pull—it had been the tether, the fierce, unyielding love that refused to let go.
We held each other then, tangled together on the bed, breaths syncing in the quiet.
His heartbeat thrummed against my ear, steady and strong, a rhythm that chased away the echoes of emptiness.
For those moments, the world shrank to just us—fragile, aching, but unbreakable in our clinging.
Tears mingled with soft kisses, whispers of forever pressed into skin, until exhaustion pulled us under, wrapped in each other’s warmth.
:
:
The next day…
Livia had dressed me with gentle hands, slipping a clean sundress over my still-weak frame—soft cotton that whispered against my skin like a forgotten breeze.
Sandals on my feet, simple and steady, as if she knew I needed to feel the ground beneath me again.
It had been so long since I’d moved beyond the bed, beyond the haze of recovery.
“Take it slow, my lady,” she murmured, her eyes soft with worry, but I waved her off with a tremulous smile.
I needed this—to walk, to breathe the air, to reclaim the pieces of myself that the coma had scattered.
The halls echoed with life as I wandered, guards dipping their heads in respectful greetings, maids pausing in their tasks to murmur welcomes that carried genuine relief.
“We’re glad you’re back, Lady Maureen.”
Their words wrapped around me like fragile armor, but beneath it, the vulnerability lingered—a quiet fear that I might shatter again at any moment.
My steps were tentative, legs wobbling like a newborn fawn’s, but I pushed on, drawn to the gardens where sunlight promised solace.
And there it was—a sea of jasmine blooming in the vast garden, petals unfurling like white stars against the green, their scent thick and heady, wrapping around me like a memory made flesh.
Rows upon rows, meticulously planted, turning the once-wild space into a living tribute.
My heart twisted, sharp and sweet, tears pricking my eyes as I reached out to touch a delicate bloom.
Vuk had done this—for me, while I slept through the world.
While he grieved and fought and waited.
Sadness flooded me then, deep and aching, a wave of regret that crashed over my chest.
I’d missed it all—the planting, the hope he must have poured into each root, the way he’d shaped beauty from his despair.
Gods, how I wished I’d been awake to see him on his knees in the dirt, silver eyes fierce with determination, building this for the day I’d return.
It was love, etched into the earth, and the thought of his loneliness in those moments nearly broke me.
Just then, I spotted him—Vuk, striding toward the south wing, his broad shoulders tense, white-gold hair catching the sun like a halo.
My heart leaped, a fragile joy cutting through the sorrow.
“Vuk!” I called, voice carrying on the breeze, laced with longing.
No response.
He kept walking, purposeful, as if he hadn’t heard.
Panic flickered—had the dream left me faded, my voice too weak to reach him?
I started after him, steps quickening despite the tremble in my limbs.
“Vuk, wait!”
The world tilted suddenly, shadows creeping at the edges of my vision.
A blackout—swift, merciless—swept over me like a tide.
My knees buckled, the ground rushing up to meet me as I dropped, limp and heavy, into the jasmine-scented grass.
The last thing I felt was the cool earth against my cheek, and a distant, echoing cry of my own name.
Then, nothing.