Marriage

Azorius left his seat and walked up to the sack of gunpowder, his gaze closely examining it until he muttered, "Investigate this, Zand!" His tone growled while Noori stood confidently, her hands clasped in front of her body.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Zand replied, bowing his head. The servants picked up the sack of gunpowder and dragged it behind Zand as he left the room.

Once it was just Noori and Azorius in the room, Noori turned towards him and spoke, "Thank you, Your Majesty, for showing justice."

Azorius shook his head before saying, "It is all okay. You can rest assured, No one in this palace from now on will regard you as anything other than part of the royal family. And there is another thing I wish to discuss with you." His tone grew serious.

Noori glanced up at him and spoke, "Please, Your Majesty, speak away. I will do whatever I can to be of assistance."

Azorius wetted his throat before pointing at Dastan, who lay in the bed still and silent. "Thank you for saving him. I am glad that you didn't let hate take over you and let my son get hurt. The fact that not a single hair on his body has been harmed makes it evident that you clearly were not trying to harm him," he said, and Noori smiled.

"As I said, Your Majesty, husbands are regarded highly in Nuria, and as for me, his life is my life, and everything else is completely unrelated," she spoke those words with such fluency that some might be confused as to whether she was lying or telling the truth.

Azorius, though not fully convinced, had no other option, so he spoke. "If that is the case, then let me tell you one thing," he said. "There is a curse that has followed Dastan since birth, but now it has completely taken over him, sending him into an eternal sleep." Noori's face remained still.

"Is that true?" she asked.

"Yes, and the curse suggests that if he isn't awoken soon, his heart might continue to freeze until he dies," he ended. For a moment, Noori's eyes sparkled, but it was just a momentary thing.

"Die? Is there a cure?" she asked curiously.

"You!" he said instantly, making Noori's eyebrows lift as if asking, 'how me?'

"A bride form Nuria Kingdom can melt his heart, He will ive if you can manage to melt his heart." HE added. 

"How is that possible?" Noori shook her head, glancing at Dastan, who was paper-pale and nothing less than a dead body.

"We were unsure too, but today, after just one night beside you, he has drastically improved in his mental health. So I believe if you remain close to him, his curse might fade away completely," Azorius said.

Noori turned her head back to Azorius, her eyes slightly widened this time. "Completely?"

"Yes. So if you truly want us to believe that you are nothing but true to this country, you must prove it with your actions," Azorius hinted at her prior words as if using them against her before he turned around to leave the room.

The guards shut the doors, and Noori remained in her steps, watching the door.

"So that means—" she thought for a while before turning around. "I should heal you," she stated as she took a step closer to the bed, her gaze fixed on his serene face. Just as she reached the end of it, she paused, her lips curling up in a wry smile. "But never completely. So that they need me for as long as it suits me." A hint of animosity was hidden in her words almost like a villain. 

The maids knocked on the door, diverting Noori's attention towards them as they entered the room with clothes in hand.

"Your Highness, we have brought you something comfortable," they said, their heads bowed low in deference.

"Put it there and leave," Noori commanded, her tone firm yet devoid of malice. The maids, eager to comply, swiftly placed the clothes on the table before making their exit, shutting the doors tightly behind them.

Noori picked up the clothes and changed into them, the fabric feeling foreign against her skin compared to her usual attire. Once dressed, she sat on the other side of the bed and tentatively touched the mattress, finding it too soft for her liking, much like everything else in the palace. With a sigh, she climbed into the bed, her movements deliberate as she lazily opened her hair, letting it cascade down her back. Slowly, she removed her tiara, placing it gently on the bedside table, before laying beside Dastan and gazing at him intently.

"Married." With that word, she paused for a very long time, her thoughts swirling in a tempest of conflicting emotions. She didn't utter another word, her facial muscles contorting into a silent battle between a frown and a scowl. "To a man of Solyria," she finally spoke, her voice tinged with deep pain resonating from the depths of her chest. A pang shot through her, a visceral reminder of the weight of her circumstances. "What a twist of fate. God must be amused playing with me like this." She felt a churning in the pit of her stomach, an uncomfortable sensation accompanied by a bitter, vile taste rising in her throat.

Her hand slowly lifted, a delicate movement as it crept up to his neck, the barrier of her glove preventing their skins from touching directly. Her fingers brushed against his neck, applying gentle pressure, as if testing his response, but there was no reaction. A sense of dissatisfaction washed over her, a frustration at the lack of acknowledgment from the man lying before her.

(Chapter 1)

Her fingertips, encased in gloves, delicately hovered over the lifeless form beside her. She lay beside him, her fingers tracing through his icy skin, feeling the chill that seemed to freeze everything it touched. He lay there, as close to the threshold of death as one could possibly be.

"Curse to eternal sleep? Is that the truth?" Her voice, low and hoarse, barely rose above a whisper. Her blood-red irises fixated on his pallid skin with a peculiar fascination, framed by locks of hair cascading onto the pristine white sheets that cradled their intertwined figures. 

In contrast to his pale complexion and silvery blond hair, her own visage exuded warmth, complementing the fiery hues of her red hair and eyes. It was a stark reminder of their disparate origins, a subtle reflection of the vast chasm that separated their worlds.

"It must be true. Why else would the King of Solyria relinquish such precious ports to us? He must be the last of the bloodline, making the king worry about his lineage," she murmured to herself, her words a solitary soliloquy in the quiet chamber. She knew well enough that the man beside her heard nothing of her musings. Even if he did, he was as lifeless as a fish out of water; his awareness, if any, mattered not.

With deliberate movements, she slowly raised her body, propping herself up on one hand as she regarded him from a slightly elevated vantage point. "I should let him die!! I really wish to do that." She finally said with a little excitement in her voice. "I am going to do that anyway so why wait?" Her voice carried a tone of determination, a glint of resentment flickering briefly in her eyes before she dismissed it with a shake of her head. "Tsk, I can't do that. Not when I am married to him." Her lip quivered slightly at the corner, a dry laugh escaping her lips before she nonchalantly tossed herself to his side, claiming a portion of the blanket that enveloped Dastan. It was an act of indifference, as if she cared little for his condition.

And then, with a subtle shift, she reached for the gloves covering her hands, revealing a pair of calloused palms adorned with cuts and dryness. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the gloves onto the side table, the sound echoing softly in the dimly lit room. Hugging herself tightly, she felt the roughness of her own skin, a testament to the hardships she had endured.

Finally, she surrendered herself to the embrace of sleep, her breathing steady as she allowed the weight of her decisions and the heaviness of the moment to fade into the darkness.

The clicking of the cloak's fasteners grew increasingly insistent, each sound reverberating through the chamber with a persistence that grated on Noori's nerves. She shifted restlessly on the bed, the softness of the mattress failing to provide the comfort she sought. Tossing and turning, her brows furrowed in frustration as she struggled to find a position that offered respite.

In her agitation, she kicked off the stolen blanket that had once covered Dastan, the warmth of the room becoming stifling to her senses. As the fabric of her dress rode up her leg in protest, it revealed a canvas of scars etched onto her ivory skin, some deep, some shallow, each telling a story of battles fought and wounds endured. Her arms, like her sleeves, pulled up as she tossed her hand across Dastan's form, seeking the elusive perfect spot to rest.

Finally, as if by some small miracle, her forehead smoothed, the furrowed lines of frustration giving way to a serene calmness. A soft snore escaped her lips, a gentle melody that mingled with the quiet hum of the room, signalling her surrender to the embrace of sleep.

In the silent hum of her slumber, Noori remained oblivious to a significant development—the man she had unwittingly turned into her pillow showed signs of life, his eyebrows twitching uncomfortably, a subtle indication of consciousness. For those who had attended to Dastan during his four years of motionless existence, this would have been an extraordinary event, but Noori slept on, unaware of the miracle unfolding beneath her touch, a miracle she never wished to occur.

Suddenly, a groan escaped Dastan's lips, his plain forehead glistening with a sheen of sweat as his eyebrows continued their uneasy dance. The soreness in his back gnawed at him, a relentless reminder of his cursed existence. With a herculean effort, he attempted to shift his heavy body for the first time in four years, his breath laboured, his words trapped within as if too exhausted to be spoken.

"Why?" he gasped, the question hanging in the air, heavy with uncertainty and pain. Noori's previously smooth forehead furrowed once again as her ideal sleeping position was disrupted by the faint movements beneath her limbs. With a barely perceptible parting of her eyelids, she peered through the veil of sleep to investigate the disturbance.

Simultaneously, a pair of piercing blue eyes flickered open, their gaze drowsy yet alert. When those eyes met Noori's, there was a moment of profound stillness, as if time itself had paused.

"I thought you were dead!" Noori spoke in her dry hoarse voice but Then, with a jolt, it seemed as though Dastan realised he was not dreaming, and with startling speed, he rose from the bed, his movements infused with newfound vitality.

Seizing the decorative sword adorning the wall behind him in one swift motion, he held it at Noori's throat with a fierce determination. In a voice thick with demand, he demanded answers.

"Who are you?!" Dastan's voice reverberated through the room, sharp and demanding, the sword he held at Noori's throat a menacing presence.

But for Noori, this was nothing new. As a general in her nation's army, she had faced countless life-threatening situations, far more dire than her husband's confused outburst. "It is alright, I am your wife," she reassured him, her tone steady despite the tension in the air.

Dastan's eye twitched in response, his tongue heavy with confusion. The adrenaline rush that had propelled him out of bed began to fade, leaving his limbs feeling leaden and weak.

"You are going to fall, S-sit down," Noori urged, concern lacing her words. Before she could finish her sentence, Dastan's strength waned, his knees buckling beneath him, and the sword slipped from his grasp, clattering loudly to the ground.

With swift reflexes, Noori rose from the bed and caught Dastan before he could fall, supporting his weight as he teetered on the edge of consciousness. With a sigh, she settled him back onto the bed, tucking him in with a tenderness that belied her earlier frustration.

As she lay back down beside him, Noori spoke, her voice tinged with weariness. "I will introduce myself to you now, so that next time when you wake up, you don't hold a sword to my neck. I don't appreciate that. We in the Nuria Empire consider it very offensive. And the last time someone tried to do that i put an arrow through their head so beware." she said with a warning in her voice. 

Dastan's head turned slowly in her direction, his brow furrowed with the effort of understanding.as if wanting to fight back, Though he longed to speak, it was clear that he was unable to find the words.

"I am your bride. I married you, well they tricked me into doing that but it still counts, I take marriage seriously." She gave him a serious look, "so we have to stay together and not kill each other until we are useful to each other," Noori explained, her words carrying a weight of obligation and expectation.

"Do you understand?" she asked, her gaze fixed on his face, searching for any sign of comprehension amidst the haze of confusion.