The royal halls blur into a mess of clean, white stone. My boots thunder up and down staircases, past bored guards, and through long, empty hallways that seem to never end. I follow Lyndel's running figure in front of me, clearing the way for anyone that dares fill the halls. Kitchen servants on their way to serve dinner, pushing carts of bowls and plates, shove against the wall, gasping and muttering to themselves as we run through.

I ignore their apprehensive glances. The blurred muttering of them wondering what could possiblybe going on. The worry on my face should be enough. This isn't the first occurrence I've wondered what I'll stumble into; if there will be anything left to save of the prince that doesn't wish to take any more lives. He has done his time, followed his mother's orders and now wants a life of freedom and ease.

No royal receives those luxuries.

Cloak Terravale hides his fright as well as a thief conceals himself during a robbery. No one on the outside can break through the walls he builds higher and higher with each day of crippling anxiety or regret. Normally, the nights are the easiest. He sleeps to forget, but if what he has done finds its way into sleep, too, Cloak cannot reach for a volatile escape. His fingers will slip through every time.

The first time this occurred, I didn't have a plan. Seemingly out of nowhere, Cloak couldn't control himself anymore and his mind spiraled. I worked through a simple solution rather than forcing him to speak. Be a presence. Be someone he trusts. Let him know I'm there.

After what feels like ages, my breathing ragged and my legs aching from trying to carry my many layers of clothes through a full sprint, we finally reach Cloak's chambers. The door is propped open like someone left in a hurry at what they saw—likely Lyndel—and he doesn't bother with a knock before shoving his hand onto the painted wood to open it. The hinges creak, screaming a warning, but I was never prepared for what might be on the other side.

I scan the room quickly. The duvet on his bed is pulled back and nearly ripped off the side. He likely tripped on it trying to get out of bed while breath eluded him. Not a sign of a bottle, a common sight when I first arrived at the palace to heal the prince. As if such a thing is possible. Everything is neat and tidy, except for...

Huddled in the corner, his head in his hands, Cloak Terravale rocks himself back and forth. He's a large feliram built on training and killing and hunting. To see him like this goes against the rough exterior, the taut muscle and hard lines of his face. The endless scars and soulless eyes that brighten only when someone he cares about walks in the room.

His hands bury into his short, dark hairline, fingers curling to grab the monsters and rip them out of his brain. They scream like wraiths, flying wildly and diving low, attacking with phantom swipes.

Cloak's curled horns cast a shadow on the wall behind him, illuminated by the crackling fire started by the servant that did not understand what she would walk into this evening. I rush to him, dropping to my knees between his legs. I must try my best to remain calm by ignoring the pounding heart in my chest, threatening to break my ribs. My stomach seizes with fear at the crumbled sight of him, the lack of recognition he has for me in this lost state.

When no one is here to help Cloak breathe, he can't handle these moments. A helping hand, a guiding force—he can't find them when lost in this state of mind. Though this has only happened one time before, when his mother threatened to send him into the Void Territory in search of more young Luminaries to take the lives of, the prince couldn't handle himself then, either. I hadn't known what to do other than control my own fear so he didn't see it.

"Cloak, look at me," I whisper.

He continues to rock. The stale aroma of sweat and fear mingles together as one, gathering in this quiet corner. I reach forward, wrapping my hands around the back of Cloak's to pry them away from the sides of his head and he suddenly comes to life, yanking his shaking fingers away and snapping his teeth, baring sharp fangs.

On instinct, I lean back, taking my hands with me. "I demand not to be touched," he growls in a voice that is not his own.

He doesn't recognize me. The further I sit here and wait, the more he curls into himself, muttering something I can't make out. I glance over my shoulder at Lyndel's figure standing in the middle of the room, watching carefully. Same as me, he worries for his prince. As someone that has remained by his doors for years now, has watched Cloak go through unimaginable struggles, he doesn't know how to handle this situation. All he knows is that the prince responds to one person. Trusts only one. That is me.

I take a deep breath and scoot myself forward, easing myself farther between his wide-spread legs. Bent at the knee and shoved so close to his chest that I wonder if his position is the reason for a sickening inability to breathe correctly. I place my hand on his knee, farther away from his face and not nearly as bold as attempting to break him from his only source of comfort.

Cloak clenches against the touch, but his muttering lessens for a moment. He continues to stroke at his scalp with the barest tip of his fingers. Tracing circles around his knee, I watch him closely—the sharp hitch of his chest, his entire body writhing, sweat beading along his brow. I wish to reach forward and place my hand against him, to search for those inner demons, but he doesn't want contact. Slow steps.

One hand falls from the side of his head, curled around his horn, and clutches onto his chest. The fabric of his shirt scrunches into his fist, twisting and tearing. "I can't breathe," Cloak wheezes.

With that small trace over his knee, the prince is easing himself back into reality. "You need to focus on your breathing," I say. Reaching forward once more and risking my hand, I grab onto the one clutched tightly against his chest and pull it towards me, gripping his fingers tight in both holds. Not only for his stability but mine. "Will you look at me?"

His chin rises in the slightest. The flickering fire casts light onto his pale face, his wide and fearful eyes. A pang rattles my chest at the sight. Normally so composed and easy-going, Cloak's inner battle finally fought to the outside. Visibly, he lost. I swallow the drying lump in my throat, failing miserably to convey a false sense of confidence. Cloak doesn't notice.

"We'll try breathing slowly." I squeeze his hand for reassurance. To remind him I'm here. "Watch my movements and take a deep breath."

In through the nose and out through the mouth, I take a breath that raises my shoulders, straightens my spine, and clears the darkened fog in my head. Something so simple is not as it seems. A bind constricts Cloak's body from cooperating, like a beast fighting off iron chains wrapping around its arms and legs.

Shakily, he attempts to copy my movements, all the while staring at the raven pendant against my chest. What should be a full breath, hitches, crackling out from his lips as an uneven and weak wheeze. He whimpers, near ready to throw his head in his lap if it isn't for me saying, "It's all right. Improvements can be slow."

Cloak tips his head back against the wall, hard enough to jar his senses. A trance blinks away, vision clearing, but he's still seeing double. I continue to force those deep breaths that make my head spin, keeping one hand wrapped around his knee as a stable presence of the warmth he wishes to experience without having someone else to provide it. Underneath my gripped fingers, his body quivers and shakes. In the middle of winter, anyone looking on would consider that normal. The corner of his chambers isn't the warmest spot for him to have a breakdown, but that shivering results from something other than the snowflakes sticking to the window.

The more I breathe; the more Cloak comes around. His breathing steadies, all the while searching from the pendant to my face to the rise of my shoulders to remind himself that I'm breathing, so he can too. An incomplete breath through his nose finishes deep from his puckered lips, and the next eases his body.

I hadn't noticed the panicked rage in his eyes, clouding the calm I'm so used to. Overcome with exhaustion, Cloak rests his head back and closes his eyes. The lump in his throat rises and falls, part of the reason he couldn't breathe. A dry clog that choked off what should've been a normal bodily function for an immortal feliram—a prince that had no desire to be one.

"What do you need?" I ask quietly. I squeeze my hand shut, resisting the urge to brush my fingers along his jaw to remove a fraction of pain.

Cloak's brows furrow together. "Nothing."

We've known each other long enough that the simple word 'nothing' means more than Cloak leads on. Showing his weakness to anyone, even the likes of me, dampens the reputation he spent years constructing. Before he was the prince, he was his father's son—fighting in the pits to afford a decent living. He wanted to give his father everything, so he sacrificed his body, his future, a normal life. If only they realized that those days would translate into something much bigger than they could've anticipated.

Cloak never would've left his father if the queen's spy didn't discover his abilities to fend off opponents of all shapes and sizes. The man that gave him life was enough family for the prince, he wanted nothing other than that—maybe even a woman to grow old with, but along with the last family tie Cloak had, the queen took away his mortal life. She granted him something more, something that the poor kill to have, but never receive. If they're lucky, they're born with it. Cloak wasn't.

Being an immortal comes with advantages. Many have learned to see past those, for long years looking over your shoulder wears on the soul. Watching leaders fall, facing new that rise. Especially for the poor, those years drag into nothing, taking comfort and safety with them. Any elf heritage comes with a heavy chain of immortality. My mother, a full elf, granted Castiel and I a long life the moment she conceived.

I stand from between Cloak's legs. Blood rushes back into my toes, tingling, but I don't stand for long. Using his shoulder as a grip to guide myself down, I ease myself against the wall he rests against, pressing myself in against his side and far enough away from the close bookshelf that we hardly have room to breathe. The cold wood presses into my back. Cloak doesn't move other than to place his hand where mine vacated on his knee, soaking up those last few seconds of warmth before seeping into his clothes.

Past the scars and uneven skin, I reach around to the back of his sweat-stricken neck and massage the sore muscles keeping him from holding his head up. His face tightens, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Soon enough, Cloak's head falls limp and where my fingers press, his head moves with that steady contact.

Lyndel is not standing where he was the last time I saw him. The doors are shut, leaving Cloak and I to finish what his nightmares started, but the shadow of the guard's pace underneath the door tells me he's more than ready to burst back in to demand whether Cloak will be all right. He does everything for the prince. I hate to think of the day he'll risk everything to save the life of someone he was sworn to protect from the moment he stepped foot in the palace and swore loyalty to Millicent Terravale. She didn't much care for him or any other guard that came through, willing to risk themselves.

Cloak's body reaches enough of a relaxed state that I pull my hand away and reach around to feel for his pulse. Pressing my fingers to the inside of his wrist, his strong heartbeat softens by the second. As I know that he no longer fears what he can't control, my muscles uncoil from where they wrapped so tight around my nerves that I could feel myself suffocating.

He shifts himself just enough to rest his head on my shoulder, sliding the back of it along the wall before his cheek finds its final resting place. Those long, annoying horns that he despises scrape along the stone. Out in the courtyard, riding on a tree-flanked trail, training with his siblings—those horns impede on the simplest tasks. They grip onto branches and yank his head back, scrape against pine needles when he runs through the woods. Aela uses them as leverage in hand-to-hand combat by wrapping her fists around them and swiveling around, using all her weight, and Cloak's horns, to bring him down.

They're no better than handles and hooks, he claims.

The remnants of his shivers come every few seconds, and time themselves with his intake of breath. I press my cheek to the top of his head, turning his hand around to trace a familiar, repetitive circle across his palm. Something he can focus on. "What was the dream about?" I question softly.

He hesitates a moment, a relapse in what he wishes to reveal. "The children," he says hoarsely. Each word strains from dry lips. "The Luminary children. I had...I killed them individually while they were still awake to know what was taking place. I woke and panicked."

"What was the trigger?" There's always a trigger.

"I got through all the children and they turned into ash, disappearing before my eyes. My mother was there, and she pointed to another. I hadn't realized someone else was meant to die, but it was you. And you were waiting for your turn—willingly."

A cold sweat coats my hands. Cloak does not know my true identity; he doesn't realize the healing abilities I was granted the night of the Void Queen's raid extend much farther than what I have revealed. I have lived at the palace without divulging the truth to anyone other than Gustus and Theo, but those are two members of royalty I can trust. They share no association with the Panjandrum Corps, and one is a Luminary himself.

Swallowing down my fear, I whisper, "I'm not a Luminary, Cloak." Lies come easy when my life is on the line. "It wasn't real."

His body shudders. "I know. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. Lyndel heard my struggles and knew immediately that he had to find you."

"You needn't worry about the past. A happy life hinges on your ability to focus on the present and the future." I trace the rough scars of his palm, the raised ridges and deep grooves of blisters and calluses.

He tips his head low, staring down my body to watch that familiar motion. "Their faces were so real. Your face...I couldn't believe it when I woke up." Across the room, a log crumbles in the fire, causing embers and ash to spit out from the hearth. "Those dreams are out of my control when I'm sleeping. They attack when I least expect it."

Our deepest demons never warn us of their plans. Cloak is no exception. This dream, the first of many, will be another trial he must face if he wishes to find that happy life. Many claim there is no such thing when one wears the royal seal, but giving up hope that easily only furthers their point. Maybe, if they restored their faith, demons of the dark would attack less.

We sit in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from the flames that appear more alive than the prince. "What do you need?" I ask once more. "I'll get you anything."

"I would greatly appreciate a heal for this headache."

Without hesitation, I reach around and press two fingers to his forehead. That familiar light blossoms around my skin like a shield, mimicking a spring sky. It crackles and bends, shifting to reach for Cloak's skin and pulling itself outward instead of around me. Streams of ocean blue soak into the prince and I trace his hairline, circle his brows, and draw a straight line down the bridge of his nose. I take one final swipe of his jaw for extra effort and a deep, relieved rumble vibrates from Cloak's chest.

From that quick heal, I gain a sense of what the prince is feeling. A pinch of pain from the headache, mixed with a large portion of exhaustion. "Come," I tell him, gathering his arm in my grasp. "Let's get you back to bed."

To my surprise, he doesn't contest. Instead of saying he wishes to train or go bug his mother for another assignment so he can take his mind off of the inevitable, Cloak allows me to help him back to a standing position. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut, and attempts to rub the brutal memory from his brow.

Like a child that remained awake through all hours of the night without a mother's blessing, Cloak climbs into his bed and I pull the duvet over his large body. To protect his inner pride, he turns away from me and tucks his arms tight against his chest. I continue as I was, stroking the sore muscles in the back of his neck. I trace the white strip of hair down the middle of his scalp, bridging from the base of his hairline and all the way back, cresting to a point.

Cloak's breathing steadies to a low, calm rhythm. He's asleep. My exhaustion carries me to the door and beyond, but not far. I press my shoulder to the wall outside his chambers and slink down to the floor, trying to calm the final nerves attempting to burst through my fingers.