Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 79

A loud snoring sound came from outside the cozy sleeping quarters. It was likely that small donkey.

Although it had been a while since he lay down, Prince Declan could not fall asleep. Lately, he was like this every night. It was not that he couldn’t sleep because of anxiety as before. Nor did he spend the night sobbing silently until falling asleep, terrified of the seizures that might strike at any moment. These days, he had discovered a hobby of lying alone and enjoying the silence after everyone had fallen asleep.

It was nothing much. If he lay still with his eyes closed and waited in the silence, soon sounds he usually couldn’t hear would dig into his ears. The pitter-patter of his beating heart. The sound of his jaw joint engaging and disengaging every time he swallowed.

And the breathing sounds coming from the sleeping things nearby.

Prince Declan opened his eyes. Maeve, who had been turned away until just a moment ago, was staring straight at him while lying down.

Prince Declan closed his eyes again without realizing it. Then he carefully tried opening them once more.

Maeve was already raising her body. She rummaged through the small leather bag placed at her bedside. Prince Declan knew what was in there. It was the medicine she had made for him to help with a deep sleep.

Maeve wordlessly took out a bottle and handed it to him.

“I can make more, so you don’t have to drink it sparingly.”

Maeve spoke in a voice more raspy than usual. Prince Declan took the medicine bottle so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed.

“Did you wake up because of me?”

“No.”

“Can’t you sleep either?”

Instead of answering immediately, Maeve lay back down in her spot. Then she quietly looked at him.

“Something feels unpleasant here.”

“Is it perhaps because of earlier? Because I said I felt a gaze? Like you said, it was probably just a wild animal.”

“There’s that, too, but……”

Maeve pondered how she should explain the indefinable, uncomfortable feeling she was sensing. Just for a moment, she then thought, Why am I answering this man so readily?

Maeve stopped speaking and, while lying flat, only rolled her eyes to look at the Prince. The Prince was not drinking the potion and was leaving it at his bedside.

Maeve wordlessly asked with her eyes why he wasn’t drinking it.

“I just want to keep feeling this moment.”

“This moment?”

“I am surrendering my body quietly to the silence. When I do that, I can hear the sound of my heart. Not just my heart, but I can hear the sounds of various organs in my body.”

Maeve, who expected sentimental talk to flow out, raised her eyebrows as if it were quite unexpected.

“Are you meditating?”

“Meditation? I’m not exactly thinking about anything in particular.”

“That is meditation. Focusing on your surroundings without thinking about anything. You feel like your head is becoming clear.”

“Right. Do you do it often too?”

“I tried it once or twice and don’t do it anymore.”

Once, a certain nomad who took her in for about a month taught her how to meditate. He told her to take a comfortable posture, whether sitting or lying down, and listen quietly to the sounds around her.

Maeve looked at him with indifferent eyes and said:

“If you block both ears, you can hear the sounds inside your body better. Even the sound of your arm muscles moving.”

As Maeve said that, she personally blocked one of the Prince’s ears with her hand. It was a small hand, but it was enough to cover his ear.

The mana pooled at her fingertips flowed into Declan along the skin where they touched. Maeve felt the Prince’s scales devouring her mana even more actively than a few days ago, the last time they had touched.

The Prince, Declan, was still dull. Not knowing what Maeve was doing to him, he even let her touch him.

Come to think of it, when they hadn’t known each other long, didn’t that Prince tell her not to fall for him or something like that?

“It’s true.”

Declan, who had been focusing on the sound with his eyes closed, said as he opened them again. His eyes, blue like glass beads, held her entirely. Both pupils reflected her in miniature. She could see the silhouette of her own long, frizzy curly hair scattered about.

At that moment, a breeze lowered its body like a snake and crawled into the tent. As if it had been waiting, the candlelight at the bedside went out with a whoosh.

It became dark in an instant, but their vision, already somewhat accustomed to the darkness, helped them discern at least each other’s outlines. As their vision darkened, their other senses became keen.

Beyond her palm, Maeve felt the Prince’s ear and his thick jawline, which rested precariously against her wrist below it. The jaw touching the inside of her wrist moved once. It was because he opened his mouth to speak, just as before.

“I can feel the warmth of your hand well, too.”

Now her eyes became even more accustomed to the darkness without the faint light of the candle. She could see the figure of the Prince lying on his side looking at her quite clearly.

Maeve did not answer and focused on slowly pouring mana into the Prince. Without her having to exert much effort, his body sucked in her mana greedily.

For some time now, it has been difficult to concentrate. If one were to ask what kind of concentration was needed for merely touching skin, contrary to Declan, it was an effort to summon distracting thoughts.

Maeve did not want to put any meaning into this simple act, and she simply did not want to feel anything. She did not want to take note of how comfortable his body was becoming due to her efforts, either.

However, the distracting thoughts she had managed to gather scattered flimsily like smoke before they could even coalesce. Maeve eventually looked at the Prince in resignation. She heard him talking to her in a gentle voice that was pleasant to hear. She heard exactly what he was saying.

“Your hand is truly warm, Maeve.”