For the rest of the day, Amelia was on her own. Xikoth hadn’t come and even she needed privacy. Her handmaiden Zaila had come back with more food, which she devoured. Everything in the food-list was so delicious that Amelia couldn’t have enough of it. So basically she only ate and slept and then woke up to eat again.
Next day Xikoth had sent her a thick book on symbols with a note:[Read it and if you are not able to understand anything, Zaila will help you. And if even she can’t e
Amelia spotted a small door to the right of the room and walked to it. It was a bathroom, double the size of hers. She looked for towels. They were neatly stacked in a wooden shelf. She couldn’t make out much because of faint light, but she managed to soak it in warm water and fill a small bucket with warm water and bring it near his bed. Sitting near him on the bed, she cleaned his blood with the warm water very gently. Her heart pained seeing his deep wounds. She could almost see his flesh.
After sucking blood from Amelia, Xikoth had recovered within an hour. He couldn’t sleep that night as he continued to stare at her until the wee hours of the morning. She was so pale that he had covered her with a blanket and hugged her body in order to give her all the warmth she needed. Her face showed color in a few hours and relief flooded him. She was so beautiful that his breath hitched in his throat. When he had saved her from Vargauz, part of her hair had turned golden, but today almost half of her hair was golden. He lifted them in his hand and let the silky tresses fall
For one week, Amelia had been asking to see him, but he was refusing. She was beyond angry and at the end of it, she was more than determined that she wanted to go back to her world. She wanted to meet her father. This was not her place. He was least bothered and in her heart she came to understand how selfish he was. Now that his purpose was served, he no longer wanted to see her. After Zaila told her fifth time that he had denied her audience, she had stopped asking him. If he didn’t meet her, she would just write a note to him that was leaving. Her life had come to a standstil
Amelia stared at Xikoth with disbelieving eyes. “You are an immortal! How can you die?”“It’s complicated,” he said with a sigh. One way
Everyone at the table stared at Amelia. Xikoth’s fingers curled and his nails dug into his palms due to his inability to stand up and help her. He gave a side-glance to the servant who immediately filled her glass with water.
The guards opened the heady door for her. As Amelia walked inside, she gaped. The Queen’s chamber was beyond imagination. The walls were an ivory white with tints of blue sapphire sprinkled sparsely. The whole ambience was a mixture of blue and gold. She had only read about such rooms in her history books, but this—this was something that left her speechless. The wall-to-wall royal blue carpet had intricate patterns of two dark faes with swords standing against each other as though protecting as sentinels on the ground. In the center of the room hung a gauzy curtain through
Amelia looked at the queen first and bowed to her. Yesterday night’s events unfolded in front of her eyes and a blush came upon her cheeks. Her gaze turned towards Xikoth, whose yellow irises were shining brilliantly, almost to a golden yellow. And her blush became deeper. He was dressed in his royal clothes – a crème drape that was tied around his waist and the long train that hung from his shoulder, neatly pinned in pleats. He was looking way too attentive.