"Rex?" She persists.
"I'll talk to her," I grit out, breezing past her. She follows me in tow.
"Are you alright? What's wrong?"
"You're asking me that? Half of my kingdom is underwater, all of my farms destroyed, thousands of people have died this week across the earth, and I'm the man in charge of fixing it. Don't ask me what's wrong, because you know the answer."
"Bloody hell, Rexxan. I'm trying to help you here!"
"I don't need it!" I snap. I don't have space in my head for her. It’s been ten hours since I'd last spoken to Ocealia. It's getting unhealthy, but I go downstairs again. I pace in circles for ten minutes, waiting for her to arrive with my fingers drumming on my thigh. I can't fucking breathe. I'm just waiting for the moment she tells me that Siddie's body has washed up in her city, if it ever appears at all. Renna leans against the doorway, watching me intently.
"Ocealia?"
"Rexxan, I told you I'd call for you if I found out anything."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing. Siddie is not here or in Espan's capital city."
"He has to be somewhere."
"I'll tell you the very second I hear anything, I promise. I have someone out looking."
I hurl a glass at the wall. The fragments splinter and shatter on the stone floor, reflecting my mental state this week. I rake a hand through my hair. I can barely speak, my burns too bad now for me to even find words. Renna steps towards me and I shake my head. "Do not fucking touch me."
"Who is Siddie?"
I run my hands down my face. "Siddie is my son’s name," I whisper, at my wit’s end. He's my pride and joy.
Her face blanches. "What's happened to him?"
"He was crossing the Westerly Banks when the rivers burst. No one on the Westerly Banks survived," I say, my hands shaking slightly. She steps a little closer, her eyes full of tears. This is an issue that she cannot fix.
"Oh fuck, Rexxan. I'm so fucking sorry."
"He has to be alive. He's all I fucking have," I whisper, dangerously close to tears. I've not cried from sadness since I lost my family.
"Rex, you don't know yet. Believe it if you see it."
"If he is dead, we'll never get a body. I'll never fucking know." I brace a hand on the wall, my forehead against the stone. "I can't breathe," I whispered, trying to inhale.
"Panic attack?" She asks, her hands shaky too. I shake my head, unable to speak. I feel like I'm on fucking fire, my skin scorched beyond belief. I feel like my next breath will be my last, but it won’t, because the gods are toying with me. Laughing at me. Prolonging my life when I begged for so long for them to end it.
"It's your burns?" She tries, and I manage a nod. She turns me round so my back is against the wall, tears spilling down her cheeks, tears that I know are forged of compassion rather than pity. I shut my eyes.
I'm on fire.
"I'm going to help you, Rex," she mumbles, crying silently. "I can't even imagine how bad it hurts."
She hovers her fingers over my chest, drawing the heat from my scars over the course of twenty minutes until they'd reduced from unmanageable to just excruciating. In the course of my life, I’ve known her no time at all, but now I don’t know how I’d live without her. I grab her face between my hands, kissing her against the wall. "You need sleep, Rennalya."
"We both do," she whispers. Not happening. "Rexxan, you have to sleep and eat at some point. What's your plan here? To not sleep for the rest of the month? You're a better leader when you're rested."
"I'll question Lana and then I'll sleep."
Renna sighs but follows me through the labyrinth of underground tunnels to a dungeon where Lana is chained up to the wall.
"I see you've had your fun with her," I observe, looking at the wordbitchwritten across Lana's forehead.
