DAY 46-1: TORTURE

On the last floor of the palace, past the cellars and a large steel door, there are attendants and doctors running frantically.

Syringes, bandages, and medicines of all kind adorn the cupboards. Wrinkled documents and medical research papers are strewn across the ground. Water splashes as scurrying nurses douse cloths and wring them. They frenziedly bark orders to others who race to finish their obligations.

Ro is silent as he leads Leda through this hectic room. Few doctors can’t afford to meet his eye as they rush by, but most do stop to perform polite bows or curtseys.

He stops when they reach the last door in their path, one made of gorgeous marble wood. His fingers wrap around the door handle then hesitate. He shuts his eyes, inhaling a deep breath. It’s as if it’s a ritual he engages in every time he comes down here—all to compose himself.

“Ro,” Leda says.

“There is no point in talking,” he replies. As he flutters open his eyelids, he twists the knob. “I am merely introducing you to the royal family as you’ve requested.”

He strides through once the doors are open, but the knot that has formed in Leda’s belly causes her own sense of reluctance. She swallows it down as quickly as she can then pursues him inside.

What’s waiting to greet her reels her heart to an abrupt halt.

The room has as much personality as the one outside. The floor is slate grey and the walls, white. Four large king-sized beds take up majority of the space, nurses stumbling and tending to each one. They’re just as—or more so—a mess than those outside. Mainly because, in each mattress lies a member of the royal family.

They each have a ventilator as well as technology resembling IV tubes tangled around their bodies. Jagged flesh. Oozing blood. Bulged bones. That’s all that remains, protruding where their skin used to be.

The shouts from the nurses have dimmed in Leda’s ears, even as Ro calmly approaches the biggest mattress where the king rests. The skin from his face is just about gone, his dull hair barely clinging to his gashed scalp.

“Pathetic, isn’t it?” Ro murmurs, lips pinched in sorrow. “I was convinced there was nothing that could ever defeat my father. Even during war, he was the proudest warrior—one who’s been to the darkest parts of Annadia and back with a smile on his face. He is the kindest, most chivalrous and honourable man to have ever walked Edaps. And yet even he couldn’t stand a chance against illness.”

Ro’s fingers curl into fists tight enough for his nails to puncture his palms and draw blood. But Leda knows with every fibre of her being that he isn’t wrong to feel the way he does. If she herself were to try convincing anyone that this frail man in front of her is a king, much less of the renowned warrior kingdom Edaps, she’ll be instantly ridiculed. They’ll laugh right in her face.

“Prince Ronan III.”

Ro wipes away all emotion and faces the nurse who’s called him.

She gestures to the furthest bed on the opposite side of the room, head cast low. “The Queen... has awoken.”

Shock etches its way onto his features, giving Leda the notice that it must be a rare occurrence. Not that it’s already a given when he shoves past Leda and the nurse, barrelling to his mother’s side in a heartbeat.

The Queen of Spades breathes faintly when Ro arrives. Her scrawny but bloody hands tremble as she reaches to take his. And in her countenance, amidst the nightmarish pain, is a tiny flicker of relief.

“Thank goodness... you’re... still okay, Ronan III.” Her voice is ghost-quiet. “We’ve left you... fending for yourself. With so much burden. I... am sorry. That we’ve become baggage... That we are causing you so much pain. I’m so sorry, dear...”

“There should never be a need for you to apologize, Mother!” Ro, for the first time ever, draws a ragged breath. His countenance falls to one of unbearable agony. “I am merely fulfilling my responsibilities as the prince of Edaps. You and Father... Elder Ronan and Ronan II... and my equally suffering brethren in and outside of Depree—you are all my drive. Not a burden. Not baggage. So please do not apologize, Mother.”

The gentleness of her smile is a mirror of the queen she was and still is. Her shaking, though wretched arms, are ashen. And where the lights above catch them, they’re subdued and grey. She struggles to lift them from his hold but it only ends up collapsing onto his lap. Ro’s eyebrows dart upwards as she produces a weak laugh.

“So formal,” she teases, a sole tear running down her cheek. “When did... you grow to become so much like your father?”

Right as the words leave her mouth, she grimaces, withholding a gasp of pain. Ro tenses, his surprise shifting to immediate panic. But the fever comes fast, robbing the Queen of her strength. From a once renowned ruler to a sickly lady, curled up like a newborn infant—the transformation can’t have been any more cruel.

Leda steals a glance at Ro’s brothers and at the king. There isn’t a single sign of this sickness turning into a milder form. Their tattered skin is unbelievably grotesque and bloody, as if they’re living by sheer luck and nothing more. The chills and jerks of their limbs, the moaning and groaning—it’s intensifying, even as the numerous medical staff dash to and fro, tending to them with their useless remedies and even more ineffective painkillers.

It hits her again; how hopeless and vulnerable this situation is; how deathly of a toll all these people have taken. She can somewhat emphasize with why Ro’s decided to lie to his citizens, even going as to treat them the way that he has.

If the people are to find out about how even the royal family has crumbled to such a state... they’ll truly lose all hope to stay alive.