Chapter 54: The Trouble with Being Concerned

Getting Lioren to shut his mouth once his panic valves had been thoroughly ruptured was roughly equivalent to stopping a spring thaw with a polite request.

He had bounded up off the floor with the manic energy of a cornered badger, his hands waving wildly over the carpeted wreckage of fifty-two job applications as he launched into an immediate, breathless defense of his own terror.

"I was sitting right there! One moment, we were discussing the candidates like two perfectly normal people, and the next, he was on the floor clutching his eye! Evelia, he was in PAIN! Actual, visible, can’t-even-sit-upright pain! And what does he do afterward? Picks up the bloody papers and acts like nothing happened! As if collapsing in the middle of a conversation is just some perfectly acceptable interruption that everyone is supposed to ignore!"

Evelia, who had calmly closed the study door behind her and stepped over a stray recommendation letter with the bored precision of a seasoned lady stepping over a sleeping hound, simply blinked.

"Lioren," she said. "Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. You are speaking so fast you’re beginning to sound like an auctioneer hocking stale turnips. What actually happened? Start from the top, and preferably omit the dramatic arm-flailing."

Lioren opened his mouth to deliver another furious wave of justification, but choked on his own words, his chest heaving as he stared at his sister as though she had asked him to explain calculus in ancient High Elven.

From down among the sea of scattered parchment, Xavion let out a quiet, gravelly sigh. He slowly pushed himself up onto one knee, carefully gathering a handful of loose papers before looking up at Evelia with a steady gaze.

"Your brother is prone to exaggeration when startled, Lady Evelia," Xavion said. "I experienced a brief, localized recurrence of an old nerve flare behind my eye, which momentarily compromised my balance. That is all."

Evelia’s eyes narrowed. She looked from Xavion’s calm face over to Lioren, who was still standing there vibrating with restless anxiety.

"Huh," Evelia murmured softly. "Again?"

Lioren’s head snapped sideways so fast his green hair whipped across his forehead.

"Again?"

He stared at his sister, then whipped his gaze back down to Xavion.

"What do you mean, again?" Lioren demanded. "What do you mean by again, Evelia? Has this happened before? When? How many times? Why am I standing here picking papers off the floor like a frantic lunatic while everyone else apparently knows something I don’t?!"

Evelia crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze drifting slightly toward the window as if trying to recall where she’d left her embroidery scissors.

"Well... last night," she admitted. "I was helping him with all your gifts. He had a sudden spell of it."

Lioren stared at her. His brain seemed to undergo a brief, catastrophic system failure.

"Last night?" Lioren repeated. "And you didn’t think to mention it?!" Lioren shouted, throwing his arms toward the ceiling in utter disbelief. "You had twenty-four full hours! You had breakfast with me this morning! You could have sent a messenger, you could have slipped a note into my teacup, you could have screamed it across the courtyard! But no, you chose to go galavanting off to visit your friend!"

"Galavanting?!" she hissed, taking two aggressive steps forward until she was standing toe-to-toe with her brother. "I didn’t go ’galavanting,’ you absolute buffoon! I went to visit a dear childhood friend!"

"Visiting a childhood friend does not excuse you from withholding vital vital information regarding my fiancé’s health!" Lioren fired back instantly, refusing to yield an inch of ground.

"I am human, Lioren! People forget things!"

"This is precisely why you should carry a notepad everywhere you go!" Lioren yelled, jabbing his finger in the air.

Evelia stared at him, her mouth opening slightly as a wave of pure, unfiltered sarcasm washed over her features. She looked him up and down.

"And when, exactly, did you become the grand patron saint of remembering things?" she asked sweetly. "Because you once forgot to tell me you’d broken your arm, and I only found out when I saw you struggling to hold a spoon."

Lioren blinked twice, cleared his throat, and looked down at the floor. After a moment, he glanced at Xavion, who remained seated on the floor, quietly catching his breath while the siblings carried on their argument right beside him.

"Oh... give those here," Lioren muttered.

He dropped to his knees beside Xavion, snatching the papers out of the Prince’s hands and tossing them onto the table as though they were suddenly the most utterly worthless, garbage-tier documents ever manufactured in the realm.

Lioren’s passion for bickering with his sister, a rare and precious occurrence that Evelia usually enjoyed taking full advantage of, had completely vanished. He turned back toward Xavion instead, his attention immediately returning to the prince and the leather eyepatch covering his eye.

"Right. That settles it," Lioren declared. "This won’t do. It has happened twice in last twenty-four hours, Prince Xavion. Twice! And so far you’ve brushed it off like it’s nothing and tried to wave it away as a gentle summer breeze. How on earth am I supposed to believe your assurances when you nearly face-planted into a table in front of me?"

Xavion let out a low, weary exhale, his eye shifting toward the ceiling before returning to the Grand Duke. "Your Grace, I told you..."

"I know what you told me," Lioren interrupted. "You told me you’re a tough general who has walked through fire and lived to tell the tale. I respect that. I truly do But you are here now. Under my roof. And I am not going to sit around waiting for a third, worse spell to hit you while you’re standing on a balcony or riding a restless horse."

When straightforward, honest concern failed to crack Xavion’s stubborn wall of pride, Lioren’s hyperactive brain immediately began scouring the tactical shelf for a different angle. He knew he couldn’t bully the man. He couldn’t issue an imperial decree demanding a man’s nervous system behave itself, and he certainly didn’t want to treat Xavion like a prisoner locked in a medical tower.

There has to be another way, Lioren thought rapidly, his gears spinning. Something practical. Something logical.

Then, like a bolt of lightning striking a weathervane, inspiration hit him.

Lioren’s expression instantly collapsed into a mask of deep, profound, theatrical tragedy. His shoulders drooped, his lips turned down at the corners, and he let out a long, heavy sigh, looking every bit like a man burdened by a tragedy too terrible to speak of.

"Though, I suppose..." Lioren began slowly, his voice dropping into a somber murmur, "...beyond your own health, which apparently doesn’t merit a moment of your own concern, there are other, rather inconvenient consequences to consider."

"Consequences?"

"Well, think about it, Your Highness," Lioren said, shaking his head with a sorrowful expression as he leaned in closer. "Word travels fast. Between the housemaids, the estate guards, and my sister’s miraculous inability to keep a secret, people will eventually talk about these little episodes."

He held up a finger, ticking off the points with grave seriousness.

"If your condition worsens while you’re here, or if some nosy court minister discovers that you’ve been experiencing recurring, debilitating pain behind your eye and House Roscaire didn’t immediately summon the finest physicians in the realm... what do you think the gossips are going to say?"

Xavion remained silent.

"They’ll have a field day," Lioren continued. "They’ll blame me. They’ll say the Grand Duke of Roscaire is a negligent, heartless brute who brought a wounded foreign prince up to the frozen north only to neglect his medical needs. They’ll claim House Roscaire abused its guest, that we’re keeping you isolated and broken, or, worst of all, that you’re being actively mistreated under our roof!"

Lioren watched Xavion’s expression like a hawk, trying to calculate whether the political angle was sinking in. He threw in a suitably troubled, careworn frown, dropping his gaze to the carpet for dramatic effect. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Lioren sneaked a quick, highly professional peek to check the emotional impact.

The instant Xavion looked at him, Lioren lowered his gaze and summoned the most tragic expression in his entire repertoire. If anyone had walked in at that moment, they might have assumed he’d just received news that the kingdom had fallen, his fortune had vanished, and someone had eaten the last pastry.

He darted a quick glance at Evelia, who watched the whole performance with the expression of someone forced to sit through a play rehearsal and had already decided the lead actor needed more practice.

Lioren ignored her entirely, keeping his wide, pleading eyes fixed firmly on his fiancé.

Xavion remained still for several seconds, leaving Lioren to sweat under his steady gaze.

"I... acknowledge that the possibility exists," Xavion admitted slowly. "And I would never, under any circumstances, wish to place you or House Roscaire in a compromised position because of my physical shortcomings."

Lioren’s heart did a small, triumphant backflip in his chest. He slowly leaned forward, his face softening from theatrical tragedy into genuine, aching eagerness. He gave Xavion two quick, encouraging blinks, silently urging him to cooperate with the performance. Surely, after all that effort, Xavion could at least play along.

"So..." Lioren whispered softly, pitching his voice like a man offering a treaty to a skittish mountain stag. "Would you agree to get examined? Just once, for everyone’s peace of mind. No fuss, no unnecessary trouble. Just a small, perfectly reasonable request from your very concerned fiancé."

Now all he could do was wait, wearing his most earnest expression and silently praying that his fiancé would agree to get examined after all the effort he’d put into convincing him.