It was kind of unappetizing, but the doctor had said it was important to give his body what he needed to heal. Now, he was trying to heal someone else, so it was doubly important.
He managed to sleep a little, drifting off to frightening dreams of grasping fingers and flickering flames.
He jolted awake, shivering.
He hadn’t suffered a nightmare since the death of his father, but he supposed it really shouldn’t come as a surprise. This had been a spectacularly awful few days.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there when Cormal brought him breakfast. From the look on his face, it was definitely not his idea, but perhaps he’d been instructed by the doctor to make sure that Perian had optimal health for this attempt.
Perian didn’t move when Cormal shoved the tray through the slot at the base of the bars. The man warned him not to, of course, like he still thought that if he wasn’t threatening, Perian might attack him. Perian didn’t have the energy to argue with the man.
Thankfully, after he delivered the food, he retreated. Perian retrieved his meal, mindful of the fact that he’d said he was going to do everything he could for Renny and Kee. He managed to choke down a little more of it.
If he concentrated on Renny and Kee, he just might be able to get through this. Because it felt like every memory he had of the castle was going to break under the onslaught of the truth about what he was.
Renny appeared to be the only person who just didn’t care. (And maybe the doctor, but he didn’t know her as well.) Was it because Renny was a child and he couldn’t harm her? Was the doctor really as calm as she appeared, or did she just take her duty seriously?
It seemed that she might have suspected for a while, so she’d had more time to think about it and accept it, maybe.
(Brannal had apparently known, and he’d seemed to be accepting given their interactions up to Perian’s kidnapping. But maybe that had only been when no one else knew. Perian didn’t know what to think. It was quite clear that he was facing Summus right now, and he wanted the chance to talk toBrannal.)
The doctor returned and treated him again, getting another tonic into him, smearing more salve, and applying more bandages. She admonished him to eat.
“I’m trying,” he told her quietly.
“It will be all right,” she told him, her hand resting in his hair for a moment, more like a friendly touch than a doctor’s impersonal ministrations.
Perian could feel tears prickling again. He didn’t believe her. But he appreciated her lie.
“Of course it will,” he agreed.
She was a better liar than he was.
And then it was just waiting, dozing, trying not to cry, tossing and turning, still trying not to cry, and definitely trying not to think about all the ways that he was an idiot, all the clues that had been there that he hadn’t seen, all the times he could have hurt people and he hadn’t even realized.
But he never had… not until he’d been trying to hurt someone, because they’d been trying to hurt him first.
He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone now, not even when they annoyed him so much he wanted to punch them in the face.
“Don’t try anything.”
Another meal. Perian tried not to roll his eyes. “What is it, exactly, that you imagine I would try?”
It had been a long day. He’d spoken to no one but the doctor. No one else had come to see him.
He told himself he wasn’t surprised.
(He was a bit surprised about Renny, actually, and then realized that she was no doubt under close watch thanks to her mother. The last thing the Queen would want would be for Renny to be close to Perian when she didn’t have to be. Everyone else… well, they’d made their feelings pretty clear.)
“Iknow you want to escape,” Cormal snapped.
“Does anyone actuallywantto be in prison?” Perian asked.
Cormal waved this aside. “You can’t fool me.”
“I’m not trying to fool you. I never have.”
He scoffed, green eyes flashing.
