The stench of vomit had long since become a permanent resident in Faine's room. As had the crumpled sheets, the squished pillows, clothes strewn on the floor, and the warm bath that did nothing to soothe her. It was that time again, an occurrence that only took place three times out of the year—once every four months. Even that seemed like too often for the pain that accompanied it.

Dressed in a pair of cinch-waist pants and a sleeveless top that would keep the sweat away, Faine braced her hands on the side of the bed and twisted her fingers within the sheets. The back of her neck was dotted with sweat, precisely why she pulled back her hair for some bit of relief. The smallest bit, considering nothing was helping. Nothing ever did.

Kaspar wasn't there to rub her back or lay with her, he wasn't there to reassure her that the next few hours would go by smoothly if she breathed and relaxed. She never responded kindly and hated when he tried to soothe her in these times, but not having him there was a completely different loneliness Faine hadn't wanted to face.

She moaned through her teeth as another cramp twisted her gut, traveled along her lower back and down her thighs, weakening her knees to the point of collapse. But she remained standing, squeezed her eyes shut, and got through it. They lasted no longer than a minute, but there were few that stretched beyond that. Each cramp felt like hours and the ache that came along with each one, the numbness in Faine's arms and the tightness in her chest—it wasn't worth it.

Sleeping wouldn't help, she'd already tried it. Eating was worse, she vomited up everything into the toilet. Her body was hot, then covered in chills, then scalding again. The breath coming out of her nose steamed against her upper lip and bit at her chin. She wanted it to be over with, but her cycles had only begun.

They lasted for a few days. The first few hours made them such a dreadful appearance. For the rest, the cramps were mild, and the pain subsided for the most part. Faine was going through the toughest portion alone and all she wished was to have Tyvni appear to take her back to Rising Eternity, but she hadn't figured out a way to get back there. Having her dragon show up was a simple and effective mode of transportation. If she didn't fall off the saddle from the pain.

Faine took a deep breath out through her mouth as her stomach twisted itself into a knot again. Vomit rose into her cheeks but she swallowed it back down in fear of tasting all the acid left in her stomach. All the food was gone, as was any water she managed to suck down before these dreadful cramps began. Vomiting was another way for her body to scream at her in pain, to make her wish she never had cycles, to begin with.

There was only one thing she could attempt. Again.

Sleep.

Her hands shook when she pulled back the sheets to her bed, careful not to rip them from her immortal strength faulting her at the moment, and attempted to swing her leg over the side. Too painful—her lower body was completely numb.

Just when she didn't think things could get worse, a knock reverberated through the room. But it didn't come from the hallway. It was muffled, hardly audible, and hidden behind the clothes hanging in her armoire. Faine furrowed her brows and winced when that simple action made her head ache.

"Ilian?" she asked.

"Can I come in?" His voice came through as a muffled rumble, but clear enough.

Faine bit back tears from the tightening in her back. "Come in." Her voice strained, but Ilian didn't notice as he opened the door, pushed the clothes aside, and came out through her armoire. It was definitely a strange sight to see him enter that way as that entrance was inactive from the day she arrived. "Why didn't you use the hallway?"

"It's quicker this way. You took out the wedges last week, anyway. There's no sense in me not using it," Ilian mocked. He shoved his hands in his pockets and plopped down onto her chaise. What the hell did he want?

Ignoring the inability to keep anything private, especially what Faine did to secure herself in the room, she chose to focus on the present instead. "What are you doing here? What do you need?"

She fisted her hands into the sheets again and her toes curled under. The vomit rose again, filling her chest with a curdling disgust, and she demanded of herself to keep it down. Don't vomit all over the room, she warned her insides.

"I'm heading to Olhathas tomorrow to speak with a blacksmith and I want you to come. Well, I need your hidden blades to come for I wish to have a set of my own. Yet I know you won't part with them for longer than a few minutes. You were practically twitching when I didn't give you the bracer back right away."

His laugh wasn't welcomed. The vomit prohibited her from speaking and she pointed over to the bucket in the corner of the room. "Bring that to me. Quickly." Too hot; her body was too hot.

At least Ilian didn't ask questions. He stood from the chaise and brought over the bucket, albeit slowly. She ripped it from his hands just as the vomit started to suffocate her throat. It burned coming out, Faine's body shook in pain, and to make matters worse, another cramp presented itself. Her lip was still dripping with saliva when she had to brace herself against the hot slap to the stomach from her insides.

"Are you ill?" Ilian asked, taking one step away to avoid what she might carry inside her. He'd forgotten that immortals weren't plagued by petty illnesses.

Faine shook her head. "You can go, Ilian. I'm fine." No, she wasn't fine. If anything, she was seeing stars, and no longer was bracing against the bed helping with anything. She couldn't tell if her body was swaying or if that was her head making the room spin.

"No, tell me what's wrong. I might be able to help."

She was shocked when a bitter laugh left her burning throat. "No man will ever understand this level of pain."

Instead of pointing out the obvious fact that a kick between the legs hurt like hell, and probably blinded him as much as the cramps would, Ilian said very quietly, "Is it your cycles?" There was no one else in the room or in the hall, so it confused her why he kept the question so hushed. No one was around, yet the secret was theirs and theirs alone.

Faine raised her head long enough to look at him. He stood off to the side, one hand braced against the bedpost and the other hanging in the air as if ready to reach out. That contact...she didn't want it. Well, she did. But not from the mortal man standing before her. She wanted Kaspar; she wanted anyone other than who Ilian was supposed to be, and who she was to him. The shadow. Nothing went beyond partaking in missions together, but this was a level they couldn't come back from.

"You can go back to your room," Faine managed to say, though the words slushed on her tongue. "I can do this myself."

Another cramp built in her core, then wrapped around her back like a vice and suffocated her thighs. Her arms tingled and if it hadn't been for Ilian watching her every move, she might've collapsed to the floor from the feebleness in her knees. She bit down on her jaw to avoid crying out but squeezed her eyes shut.

"You know, Ginevra goes through this, too," Ilian ventured. "I'm the one that helps her."

That didn't surprise Faine. "There's not much help you can provide for this. The most you can do is leave me be so I can get through these next few hours."

"How about a back massage?"

"A what?"

"A back massage; usually that helps with the cramps." Ilian stepped forward but Faine held out a hand to stop him.

"You're not touching me," she warned. "I do not wish for a back massage or anything else that you might do to help. I wish to get through this alone and without assistance from you or anyone else."

Ilian stepped back and rested his shoulder against the bedpost. "Fine." But he wasn't leaving. Instead, he watched her sway at the side of the bed, watched her grip the sheets and nearly rip them, watched her squeeze her eyes shut from the ache in her head. Faine stared down at the golden ring on her hand and wished to chuck it across the room—or at him for not leaving. Silver Willow wasn't her home, Rising Eternity was. She needed to be home with Tyvni and Kaspar.

Having Ilian watch her was as nerve racking as going through an exam and wondering if she was failing. Every move she made, he keyed into and he certainly wasn't looking anywhere else or considering leaving. Faine hoped that the small distraction would lessen her cramps in the slightest, but luck didn't stretch very far at this time of the year.

Each wave of pain hit her as strong as it would if she was alone and fighting this battle by herself. Though she tried to keep from wincing and groaning for as long as she could, Faine's strength ran out too soon for her to believe. Some cycles were worse than others, but these, accompanied by the stress of becoming a member of Silver Willow, were outrageous.

She hated the fact she was considering using Ilian's help. To have his hands on her when she wanted to be touched the least...that was something she'd have to overcome. And he clearly wasn't leaving anytime soon. The beginning of another cramp was crawling up through Faine's core and she raised her head long enough to look at him. "Just do what you have to do," she grumbled.

"I knew you'd come around, eventually."

She wanted so desperately to slap that smirk off his face, but he came around to her back—a direction Faine couldn't turn to—and put his hands on her skin. She wasn't used to Ilian in this regard, but he held nothing back as his warmth seeped into her body and he pressed gentle pressure to the column of her spine.

"That's not helping," she spit out as the pain hit her.

Ilian shushed her. "You're not giving it enough time. Let me get started and you might feel better."

Fingers splaying on her lower back, Ilian massaged the sore muscles, all the while keeping a steady pressure on her spine. Faine felt every muscle tightening in her body as it responded to the contracting in her abdomen, but something was working. Maybe it was the sense that she was carefully monitoring every move he made so he didn't do anything stupid. Or...Ilian knew what he was doing.

If he'd helped Ginevra with this before, on multiple occasions, there was a chance he was a professional. No man under the sun went so far as to do this for her, not even Kaspar or Carlton. They stayed away as much as they could; they didn't understand the hidden faults to the way Faine's—and many other women's—bodies worked. Ilian standing at her back, pressing his thumbs against her hips, was strange. But she ignored that rising panic.

Ilian's hands slid around her front and the warmth of his chest pressed against her back. Faine stilled, considering stabbing him, but remembered she asked for this. The sharp point of his chin rested on her shoulder and his middle finger ever so delicately pressed below her navel. It wasn't a heavy pressure, but started out light and deepened the further he kept it there.

"How's that?" he asked, his voice low and cautious next to her ear, as if he, too, might consider whether Faine was willing to stab him.

Faine nodded. "Better." She wasn't lying, either. The next wave of pain was much less severe, so much that she wondered if he had magic within his fingers that absorbed the pain. "How do you know how to do that?"

"Ginevra taught me." He released the pressure and moved his hand lower, dangerously low, but simply pressed his finger again to alleviate more pain. "She has terrible cycles, like you, apparently." His breathy laugh tickled the stray hairs against her neck. "Since she wishes to have company while she's in pain, I figured I might as well help her."

Faine didn't want to admit how kind that was. "You two seem to care about each other," she said. Before she spoke, she hadn't realized her body was swaying, and, in turn, his was, too.

A strange dance, considering his front pressed against her back and she was sweating through her clothes. Mortals didn't have a heightened sense of smell, but no one could avoid the stench radiating from her like smoke.

"We're there for each other, that's all that matters," Ilian informed casually. "We have no romantic involvement and we protect each other like siblings." He massaged her lower abdomen with the tips of his fingers, swooping left and right with steady pressure above the band of her pants. Low enough for Faine's comfort, but not enough to stall the pain.

"You seem to avoid the subject of being anything more than friends."

Ilian shrugged against her. "That's because we've talked about it before. There are feelings there—for both of us—but she wishes to be with someone that will stand the test of time. Not a mortal that will wither away and grow old in the next five years. Ginevra wants a lasting relationship and I cannot blame her for that."

That reminded her of Carlton, how she believed their relationship would last years and years beyond mortal lifespans. No correlation, but Faine dreamed of the idea of loving someone as long as others lived. Carlton was supposed to be her end, he needed to be the one standing at her back and massaging her pain away, not a random mortal that didn't understand the concept of personal space.

The world was unfair, and what happened to him couldn't be reversed. It was fate, as Zebulon put it, for him to die that day at the hands of a nameless lackey appointed the task. She understood completely where Ginevra was coming from. If she allowed herself to fall in love with Ilian, even a little, it'd hurt for the rest of her life.

Immortals lived for hundreds—sometimes thousands—of years. If a mortal touched them in any way, it haunted them until the end of their days. Too long. Ilian and Ginevra fell into the same boat when it came to such a situation. To avoid the pain of losing him, Ginevra wished to never face the joy of being together.

Once her abdomen adapted to the warmth from his hands, he returned to her back but remained pressed against her. Faine's eyes became heavy-lidded with newfound exhaustion and she hated the way she longed to press into him, to push the back of her head against his chest. Everything about him was tempting; often she forgot he was a mortal.

He massaged up and down her spine, fingers grazing over her hips, then her waist, then her ribs. Those simple movements shoved away the pain in her lower abdomen and settled her thoughts into contentment.

"I'll go with you to Olhathas," she breathed. It was all she could think to give him in repayment for what he was doing. Night had fallen, the rest of the base was sleeping, but Ilian was awake and tending to her.

Ilian breathed warm air against her neck. "Good. Someday, I won't look like a fool when I train with you."

Her abdomen tightened when she laughed but Ilian's hands were there to put pressure below her navel. The pain subsided into a dull ache and she finally allowed herself to tip her head back against his chest, closing her eyes. After living for over one hundred years, these were about to be the easiest cycles she'd ever faced in her entire life.

The minutes turned to hours and standing turned to resting. Massages remained, as did Ilian applying pressure to different parts of her body to relieve any discomfort. As Faine drifted off to sleep during a time she was normally awake, she wondered if being in Silver Willow was such a bad thing. Ilian was there.

Faine's eyes opened from her half-sleep as he again ran his hand over her stomach. Yes, Ilian was there, but as she looked up into his face, she couldn't place why that mattered to her. The mortal was lying on his side, his eyes closed and his hand slowing its movement. As she was, he was falling asleep.

Looking at him in such a way left her with questions. But with everything else, those would have to wait until the next day when she was fully prepared to face the world.