Garden Of Poison-Chapter 207: One sick, Two in the bed

When Emily woke up from her sleep, her head felt heavy, and her body was overcome with exhaustion. As her eyes fell on Raylen, her eyebrows furrowed, and she asked in a feeble voice,

"What happened to you?" She noticed he looked drenched, his shirt clinging to his body.

"You happened." Raylen smiled, though the warmth didn’t reach his eyes, and he fixed a slightly narrowed gaze on her. "Do you know what you did, Princess?" The internal irritation over what she had done hadn’t subsided. It had taken years of patience and effort to complete the barrier, and now it was broken.

Emily’s mind felt sluggish, and she struggled to string together her memories to remember what she might have done. She shook her head as the archdemon assisted her in sitting up on the bed.

"Do you recall speaking with anyone from Hell through the communication portal?" Raylen asked her, and Emily froze, recalling his earlier warning. "You opened the portal, which allowed lowly demons to infiltrate the Storm Kingdom. The lowly demons not only kill earthlings but also attempt to possess their bodies or simply feed on them. How do you intend to take responsibility for that?"

Emily nervously bit her bottom lip as guilt overtook her, but that was precisely what Raylen was aiming for. She whispered in her small voice,

"It is your fault. Had you not drunk from my wrist, my blood would not have mixed in the vessel."

Raylen’s blue eyes narrowed further, and he wore an eerie smile as he asked, "Are you saying you had no part in opening it?"

"Both our fault...then?" Emily asked in doubt, her heart burdened by his words. As she shivered, she drew the blanket closer and inquired, "Did people... truly lose their lives?"

"Yes. Who knows whose father or brother he was; the poor man’s throat was slit when I found him," Raylen stated in a sombre tone. He clicked his tongue ruefully, adding, "He must have wondered why he was meeting such a painful end."

Emily lowered her gaze as if overcome by sadness and whispered, "I am sorry..." She never intended to cause trouble or harm anyone. With her mind and body weakened, she whispered in devastation, "Forgive me. I—I didn’t mean to bring death upon anyone. It was by mi—mistake." A sob escaped from her lips, betraying the weight of her guilt and sorrow.

Raylen hadn’t meant to make her cry, and he sighed when tears spilt from her eyes, streaming down her pale cheeks. He tried to console her, saying,

"Don’t cry, Princess. I am certain that a few casualties won’t matter that much. People die all the time."

Emily’s tears continued to flow. "But that man’s fami—ly, who will provide them with food?" Another sob escaped her lips. "They will die from starvation because of me."

"People do die from starvation, Princess. It is how—"

"The people of your kingdom are going to suffer because of me," Emily cried, and he offered her a handkerchief he found in the room.

Raylen realised the princess’s mental state was similar to her intoxicated state from the previous night, with her mind and inhibitions weakened. He knew that her crying would only worsen her fever, so he tried to comfort her. "Why don’t you use this one to wipe your eyes and nose?" he offered, handing her the handkerchief. When he noticed her becoming concerned about her appearance, he added, "Don’t worry, you still look very princess-sy." Then he continued, "As for the man and his family, rest assured, no one will ever know that he died. I found someone who is going to use the dead man’s body as a suit to maintain balance. His family will be provided for."

Emily turned to look at him, her lower face hidden behind the handkerchief, and asked softly, "His family won’t starve?"

"No," Raylen replied, and she nodded in acknowledgment.

When Lauren entered the room with a trolley laden with food, she found Emily in the midst of blowing her nose into a handkerchief, and her eyes immediately landed on her master with a look of disappointment. The poor child was sick, and yet he was reprimanding her, she thought to herself.

"I didn’t scold her," Raylen clarified to Lauren upon reading the expression on her face. However, the woman didn’t say anything in response, as she was a lower demon working for her master, and she proceeded to push the trolley towards the bedside.

The head servant offered Emily a warm smile and said, "I asked the cook to prepare you some porridge and soup that will help you regain your strength and aid in your recovery, Princess Emily."

"Thank you..." Emily responded, her words barely above a whisper, as she was even more tired than when she had awakened.

A small table was placed on Emily’s lap, and on top of it, the dish of porridge was carefully set. When the princess picked up the spoon, her hand trembled as if she had no strength to hold it steady.

"Let me help you with that," Lauren offered, feeding Emily a spoonful before the princess turned away, saying,

"I think I am full. It was delicious. Thank you. I would like to sleep now."

The head servant turned to look at her master, who had his eyes fixed on the princess. Raylen smiled at Emily and said, "You are going to finish the entire bowl and then go back to sleep."

Emily had no appetite, and her head felt as if it might explode at any moment. She gazed back at Raylen, who continued to watch her closely.

"The princess must have lost her sense of taste due to being ill," Lauren whispered to her master.

Raylen picked the easiest way to get Emily to eat by saying, "If the princess doesn’t eat, the people won’t either. Do you want to starve them?" She had a compassionate nature and possessed too much empathy to refuse, and as he expected, she managed to finish half of the porridge.

Lauren departed from the room with the trolley, leaving Emily comfortably tucked back in bed beneath the blanket.

"Ah—CHOO!" Emily sneezed, and her eyes watered, making Raylen appear blurry as he stood beside her bed. She murmured, "You should go change and take a warm bath. I will be fine... Just leave the candles burning."

"You look far from fine," Raylen remarked before adding in a murmur, "I wonder if it has anything to do with the broken heart you are experiencing." As he spoke, his drenched self suddenly turned dry, with a sizzle of vapour escaping from his clothes.

"You have tricks..." Emily whispered, her eyes growing warm, and she felt her body temperature continue to rise.

"One of the pluses of being an archdemon," Raylen said, offering her a crooked smile.

"The cons?" she asked, her breath coming out laboured.

"Your life is sort of owned by the Devil, and you need to follow his whims," Raylen responded before making his way to the foot of the bed. He noticed a hint of loneliness in her eyes, and for a moment, he saw a reflection of himself in her before it vanished when she attempted to put on a brave face.

When thunder and lightning reverberated in the distance, it startled Emily, a reaction Raylen immediately picked up on. He placed his hands on the edge of the bed, allowing his body to lean forward, and he said,

"Perhaps I could stay for a while? It’s not like I have anything else to do."

"You don’t have to do that," Emily whispered. He tilted his head, staring at the young woman, who looked like a wounded animal. She liked to present herself as a lioness, but deep down, she was just a little cat yearning for care. She added, "You won’t be getting any more blood from me."

Raylen chuckled at her words. "I believe you owe me twice, Princess, for the trouble you caused this evening," he remarked with a hint of amusement.

Emily pulled the blanket over her face, signalling that she was asleep and didn’t require his company. However, she soon heard footsteps returning to her bedside, and she muttered,

"I thought we agreed it was both our faults."

"Tricky," Raylen hummed, then said, "Alright. To be fair, I will permit you to communicate with your family in my presence. However, you won’t be allowed to do it alone anymore. Consider it a form of supervision to ensure that the portal doesn’t open up to Hell again. I am sure you are a reasonable princess who understands why this is necessary."

Emily nodded her head beneath the blanket and, in a muffled voice, replied, "I understand." Of course, she wasn’t thrilled about the arrangement, but she accepted that it was her fault that it had to come to this.

"Great, now on my part, you won’t refuse to let me drink your blood the next two times I ask. Fair, isn’t it? We both gain something," Raylen proposed.

Emily pushed down the blanket and said, "It doesn’t sound fair. I am not going to fall for—What are you doing?" Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw him climbing onto the free side of the bed.

"As I am not in my own bed, I might as well get on this one. Surely, you don’t expect me to sit on the chair," Raylen replied while making himself comfortable.

Emily was left speechless but too unwell to continue arguing with the archdemon. She let out a tired sigh and said, "You are wearing me down, Raylen."

"I am keeping a watch over you just in case you pass out and move to Heaven," Raylen chirped, allowing his back to rest against the pillow he just fluffed. Although he had eliminated all but one lowly demon, there was no certainty that they had not scattered away and might return to steal this particular body, especially given the state of her decaying soul.

"I don’t think I will," Emily whispered, and Raylen glanced at her as she lay there, staring at the ceiling with the blanket pulled up to her nose as if trying to shield herself from both the rumbling of the clouds and the demon sharing her bed.

"Why? Did you say no to someone?" Raylen’s lips curled into a smile. "I thought you said you were a daughter of Heaven. What a shame."

"That I am," Emily murmured, her gaze shifting towards his direction and meeting his blue eyes.

"You should close your eyes and get some proper rest if you want to recover," Raylen advised, crossing his legs as the smile on his face finally settled down.

Sharing a room with a man for the first time, Emily wondered whether she should be concerned. However, she quickly realised there was no one to see or gossip about it. Her fatigue didn’t allow her to ponder it for too long, and she closed her eyes for a few minutes. But when another thunderclap struck, it jolted her out of her sleep with a soft gasp.

Her eyes frantically scanned the room from where she lay, noticing that the candles wouldn’t last much longer as they gradually melted away. When she looked to her side, she observed that Raylen had closed his eyes, his back still resting against the headboard. He sat on one side of the bed, while she curled up on the edge of the other. Seeing him brought her a sense of relief. This night felt harsher than the last few nights, and each thunderclap evoked memories that seemed more vivid than those that came before.

When another boom of thunder struck, Emily inched closer to Raylen, one thunderclap at a time, until the gap between them had been reduced to a mere few inches. She pulled the blanket along with her and heard him remark,

"Planning to sleep on my lap?"

Emily froze, as she believed Raylen had fallen asleep. Before she could turn around and retreat to her previous spot, he reached for the blanket and spread it over his feet. He explained, "My feet were getting cold."

"Isn’t it uncomfortable to sleep like this?" Emily asked him, ready to suggest the couch. She saw Raylen nod in agreement.

"I guess you’re right. Thanks for your understanding," he said, then slid down and laid flat on the surface of the bed.

Emily turned to face the other side of the room, her eyes as wide as they could be. It felt as though her gender, royal status, and the fact that he was casually sharing a bed with her in the middle of the night made no difference to him, she thought to herself.

She was staring at the wall when Raylen asked, "What makes you uncomfortable about thunder?"

Emily could have closed her eyes and ignored his question, pretending to have fallen asleep. But then, at the same time, she wondered if he would leave if she did, leaving her to face the storm on her own, and given that she wasn’t feeling well, the prospect of facing it alone was something she didn’t feel up to.

"It stirs up memories I don’t like, reminding me of a time when I was young," Emily whispered, pulling her blanket up to her chin.

"And here I thought it was your first time experiencing thunder and lightning," Raylen remarked with a soft hum. He observed her breathing in and out, even though her back was turned to him.

"No," Emily replied, her gaze shifting to the nearest burning candle. "It wasn’t always like this."

"What changed?" Raylen inquired further.

With great difficulty, Emily finally turned her body, feeling the soreness in her muscles. She faced him, looking into his intelligent yet cunning blue eyes, and remarked, "You like to dissect people."

A subtle smile rose to his lips, and he didn’t deny it. "It is one of my favourite pastimes. After centuries of existence, you pick up one or two interesting hobbies," he admitted.

"They are intrusive," Emily said after taking a deep breath.

"Only with those I find appealing to dissect," Raylen replied, noticing the weariness in her eyes. When he placed his palm on her forehead, she shivered and complained,

"It is cold."

"Because you are still burning," Raylen remarked, pulling his hand away as they lay facing each other. His gaze remained fixed on her face while she looked down at his shirt and the stains on it.

"We didn’t finish talking about thunderstorms."

Emily’s lips pursed before they parted to say, "When I was eight or ten years old, some of my family members went to visit the old palace—the one that is now abandoned." She paused, taking a deep breath, her face scrunching as if she could feel her body ache. "I made a few friends there who were my age, and one afternoon... another girl joined us. She was probably a year younger than me, but I distinctly remember her torn clothes."

She continued, "She seemed so sad, and we helped her, giving her clothes and food. She said her family was in need of food, so we went."

"But there was no family there," Raylen stated, causing Emily to raise her hazel brown eyes to meet his blue ones.

"No. There was no family of the girl there," Emily confirmed, while her voice started to grow distant. "It was a trap."

Emily and the other village children who had been with her had been drugged unconscious before they were abducted from Versailles to a place vastly different from the familiar home they knew. It was a wet, rainy place with ominous, growling clouds overhead.

On the other hand, Raylen observed Emily looking scared as she recalled something that had not yet found its way to her lips. She pulled the blanket closer to herself, inadvertently stealing some of its length from him. Her eyes started to change colour, partly due to the dimming candles and partly due to the darkness of the memories from those horrifying days.

"That girl worked for two men, men who tore open children’s chests without a second thought or mercy. The children screamed. We screamed for help, but there was no one to hear us above the sound of the endlessly pouring rain," Emily said, taking her time to speak as fatigue began to overtake her once more. "They were looking for something. And every time they cut open a child, they tossed the body to the ground like a crumpled piece of parchment..."

This was one of the reasons Emily never sought to learn the location of where the gore had taken place. While her father often seemed to forget about the trauma she had gone through, her oldest brother and mother had always shielded her from it so that she didn’t witness or remember those horrific scenes.

"You seem to have good luck on your side to have survived such a gruesome situation," Raylen remarked, but Emily shook her head.

"No." The whisper was so soft that if Raylen weren’t an archdemon, it would have gone unheard. "I did something terrible. Something I shouldn’t have done," she uttered, and her eyes began to tear up.

"We have all done our share of terrible things, Princess. If it will make you feel any less alone, you only need to take a peek in Hell," Raylen assured her.

’You’re such a good girl, aren’t you? So pretty that it makes me want to keep you rather than waste you. How about I spare you...’ the eerie voice echoed through the thunder. ’...and in return, you will assist me. We have many places to travel to, and you will like it. Just like your new friend here,’ he added, looking at the small girl who appeared to be Niyasa’s age.

Emily hadn’t been able to view her sister or any other girl of that age the same way from that day on, causing her to become distant from them. She whispered,

"The day before I was found and rescued, I killed a boy."

Her tears paused when Raylen’s fingertips touched her temple. He said, "You are going to inflame your fever at this rate."

"When I am sick, I become vulnerable," Emily confessed, and Raylen’s eyes subtly widened at her admission. "Please don’t tease me about it," she sighed.

Raylen smiled at her words and said, "We shall talk about that tomorrow. No need to discuss it now." He pushed himself to sit up and continued, "I believe that for the time being, we should focus on replenishing the lost fluids in your body."

Seeing Raylen get out of bed, Emily pushed herself up and watched him walk towards the table. She followed him, though at a slower pace, and arrived just as he finished pouring the water and turned to return to the bed.

Raylen offered her the glass, and as she drank half of it, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something particularly special about the princess that had led her abductor to keep her alive. Her blood did taste like cake, he thought to himself.

Emily finished the entire glass of water, taking her own sweet time, while Raylen lit a few more candles on her side of the bed. She then carefully climbed back under the warm blanket, settling in for the night.

"You should be able to sleep better now," Raylen stated as the storm clouds outside quietened to give her much-needed rest, allowing Emily to finally drift off to sleep with fewer worries on her mind.