Around noon of that day, there was some movement in bed and Drayce realized Seren was finally stirring awake. He hurried towards the bed from the lounge chair he was sitting on the other side of the room.

“Seren—”

Drayce stopped when he realized his wife was not awake but was restless in her sleep. Her face held a painful expression while her body was covered in a cold sweat.

‘Nightmare!’ he concluded and sat at the edge of the bed. He reached out to hold her hand that was gripping the blanket covering her, only to get shocked as soon as their skins touched. Her hand was hot like she was running a high fever. Drayce immediately pulled the blanket away from her and touched her neck and forehead. Her entire body was burning with a high temperature which didn’t look normal at all.

Drayce tried to wake her up but she didn’t respond at all and continued to stir as if she was in pain, as if something or someone was hurting her badly.

“Is anyone there?” he called out to the servants waiting beyond the door.

The next moment, a female servant entered the chamber. “Yes, Your Majesty, you called?”

“Prepare the bathtub with cold water immediately,” he instructed.

The female servant rushed out and it didn’t take long for her to bring another servant with her. They hurried to the bath attached to the bedchamber and finished the task as fast as they could.

Just as they stepped out of the side chamber, Drayce carried Seren to the bath and put her in that tub of cold water. Even after letting her body rest in the cold water, he could still feel that high temperature of her body against his palms.

‘Why is she having such a high fever? Is it the side effect of her body suffering from the black magic?”

While he was busy thinking about the situation while looking at her restless sleeping face, he didn’t realize that the cold water in the bathtub had turned warm. In just a few moments, he found himself shocked when he noticed the now lukewarm water.

‘What is happening?’

“Servants!” he called—no, he roared, and one of the servants replied from outside of the side chamber.

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Bring more cold water and call for Lady Tyra!”

Drayce was suddenly anxious as he could not understand what was happening with his wife, and Lady Tyra was the only one who he could rely on for answers.

Soon, more servants came in, bringing with them buckets of cold water, adding them to the bathtub while scooping out the now hot water. But nothing was enough.

Several minutes later, Lady Tyra arrived along with his grandmother.

“Oh dear, what happened?”

“Your Majesty, what’s the matter?”

The anxiety in the voices of both Lady Tyra and Great Lady Theodora brought Drayce’s bloodshot gaze towards them. It was to be expected he had been silently suffering in helplessness, unable to figure out how to help his wife.

His grandmother walked towards the bathtub where Seren was lying in. Her wrinkled hand flinched the moment she touched Seren’s forehead. “This—how could this be?! At this rate, she’ll be convulsing if her fever doesn’t go down!”

“I don’t know what happened, Grandmother. Her temperature suddenly flared without warning and it’s not going down,” Drayce replied, his red eyes clouded with worry, as he continued to hold onto his wife’s hand. From the start, he never let go and monitored her vitals, yet her temperature refused to go down.

“She seems to be having a nightmare but she is still not waking out of it.”

He looked at his wife’s face which still had the same painful expression she had since earlier, and despite looking normal earlier, she now looked dehydrated. Her skin looked visibly pale—almost translucent white—and even her lips looked cracked and chapped.

“Is this the side effect of black magic?” he asked as he turned to the only person who could answer his question, Lady Tyra. The old woman shook her head.

“It can’t be, or else Aureus would suffer through the same or worse since he has divine energy, which meant his body was more sensitive to black magic. Moreover, I have never heard such side effects,” Lady Tyra said as she went closer towards the bathtub. “May I, Your Majesty?”

Drayce moved away and allowed Lady Tyra to touch the young woman. She checked on Seren and commented, “I am not sure what she is seeing in her dreams, but it is surely caused by the things she’s experiencing. The only way to break this strange fever is to wake her up and escape her nightmare.”

“No matter what I’ve tried, she’s not waking up, as if she couldn’t hear or feel me,” Drayce replied as he watched the unconscious woman sitting, her body half-submerged in the water inside the bathtub. “Since she won’t wake up by simply calling her…”

His red eyes looked determined to try what he had in mind. He leaned down towards the head of the bathtub while Lady Tyra stood up to make space for him.

“What do you plan to do Dray?” the worried Great Lady asked, seeing his serious and grim expression.

He didn’t answer his grandmother, and instead, he held Seren and made her lie in the bathtub from her sitting position. Her face slowly submerged in the water as he continued to push her down.

“Dray!” the old lady called out to him with anxiety, but she stopped herself when she saw Lady Tyra calmly watching the entire thing without a word, trusting the King’s actions.

Moments after her face went under the water, Seren started to show signs of suffocation, bubbles appearing on the surface of the water, yet she still didn’t wake up. Those inside the side chamber could see her struggling to come out of the water, but Drayce continued to push her underwater, his hand on her chest to not let her surface out of the water. Soon after her body started to move her hands and legs, she finally opened her eyes.

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