Page 83 of Drown Me Gently

“Where are your tonics?” Auren asked, already opening cabinets.

“Green bottle,” Ulric rasped. “Middle shelf. Smells like mint.”

Auren found it, uncorked it, and held the vial to Ulric’s lips. He drank with effort, grimacing at the taste, but some color returned to his face shortly after. His breathing evened. The tremble in his hands stopped. Not gone entirely—but enough.

“Better?” Auren asked, crouching before him.

Ulric nodded, running a hand down Auren’s cheek. “You’re wasted on me.”

“Don’t you dare,” Auren snapped. “You don’t get to say dramatic things while looking like death warmed over.”

Ulric chuckled hoarsely. “You’re not as soft as you look.”

“And you’re not as strong as you pretend.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. No more jokes. Just breath and bone and truth in the space between them. Finally, Auren spoke the words eating away at him from the first moment he saw Ulric’s strength falter.

“Ulric… please. You can’t keep going like this. Let’s return to Atlantis. Get your strength back. Get your magic back. We —I can talk to my mother. I can talk to the courts; they’ll listen… about us.” He placed a begging hand on Ulric’s knee. “I don’t want to go. You know I don’t. But I can’t stand by and watch you make yourself sick over this.”

When Ulric didn’t respond, Auren’s confidence grew; maybe he was getting through to him.

“The courts will see that, we—that this won’t affect our duties. You’re still Court Sorcerer, and I am still the prince. Our responsibilities won’t change. We can help each other.” Auren added hopefully, but Ulric still wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “Then, when things settle, we can come back here. We can make trips to the surface whenever we want. You can teach me more about this world and…” Auren gulped. “We can be together.”

Ulric’s large hand clasped over his, squeezing it. When he looked up, there was something unreadable in his eyes.

“Let me rest awhile. Then I would like to walk with you along the sand. Would you grant me that request, my prince?”

“Of course. Anything.” Auren said right away, not liking how Ulric’s voice had changed. There was sadness, and Auren was desperately looking for its source so he could banish it from this world.

They settled into the bed together, curtains drawn to block the sun, and held one another. Ulric fell into a fitful sleep right away, but Auren couldn’t do it. Instead, he lay there, stroking lazy circles through the hair along Ulric’s chest, worry knotting his insides.

The sand was cool beneath their feet. Ulric had slept most of the day, and even still, he looked exhausted. The tide receded, leaving behind glistening ribbons of seaweed. They walked slowly, side by side. Auren kept glancing sideways at Ulric.

“You alright?” Auren asked.

Ulric nodded. “I am fine, spriteling.” He tried for a teasing tone, but it fell flat.

Auren rounded on him, planting his feet in the sand with a determined glare.

“Enough, Ulric. You have to tell me what’s going on. Is it the drain on your magic? Is that what’s happening? Then why am I not sick? What in Poseidon’s sea is going on?”

He didn’t mean for his voice to rise, but it had.

“I can’t… keep watching you do this to yourself… for me.”

Ulric let out an exhausted sigh.

“Holding this shape is… difficult for me right now.” He admitted.

“And me?”

“I’ve been… helping you in that regard as well.”

Auren’s stomach sank. He knew it. So Ulric was using his precious strength to hold them both in this form.

“And you refuse to return to Atlantis because of what my mother would say? C’mon, Ulric, you can’t expect me to believe that. I know you. You might be her Sorcerer, but you’ve always swum by your own currents. What’s really going on?”

Even as he asked it, he didn’t know if he was ready to hear the answer. Ready to pop this utopic bubble they’d lived in these past few weeks.