I lean against the counter and take slow, steady breaths. The jet chooses that moment to hit a patch of turbulence. I barely have time to turn my body to the toilet before I start to retch. Hot tears roll down my cheeks as my stomach tries to force its contents out of me.

I’m still bent over the toilet when the bathroom door bangs open, and the king strides in. He pulls back my hair while I dry heave, and once I’m done, he gathers me to him and strokes my face as I shake.

“How did you manage to hide this from everyone?” he asks, his voice soft.

I’m still too nauseous to answer. I curl up into him and bury my face in his shirt. “Don’t leave me,” I whisper. I don’t know why I say it; I don’t know why I’m giving or receiving compassion from this man. But I do know this: only compassion can redeem someone. Even the king. Even me.

The king carries me out of the bathroom and lays me out on one of the jet’s couches. I won’t let him go, and the feeling seems to be mutual by the way he cradles my torso in his arms.

He pulls one of his arms out from under me and brushes my hair away from my face. “You’re okay,” he whispers over and over again. His eyes look frightened, like I might die right here and now.

Gradually my stomach settles, and I feel a bit better. The king kisses the skin along my hairline, and I continue to cling to him. “I’m supposed to hate you,” I whisper.

He laughs humorlessly. “Are you finally admitting that you don’t?” he asks, his throat catching.

“Never,” I whisper.

“Liar.”

I curl up against him, forgetting for a while that he’s the culprit behind every bad memory I possess, and eventually I fall asleep in his arms.

Over the next two days, a biopsy is taken, and it’s confirmed that I have cancer. Then come the X-rays. By the end of my second day, I’m scheduled for surgery.

The hospital allows me to stay with the king for the evening. As soon as I see the fluffy bed in our room, I collapse onto it. The mattress dips as the king joins me.

We’re in yet another one of his estates. I’m no longer surprised at the excess of it all.

I feel Montes tug off one of my shoes, then the other. Next he rolls me over and begins removing my pants. I raise my eyebrows but say nothing; I’m not completely opposed to sex.

But the king doesn’t try to seduce me. Once I’m undressed, he strips down and joins me on the bed, gathering me to him. Our exposed skin presses together and it feels exquisite. Never in a million years did I think I’d enjoy casual intimacy with the king.

Since finding out that I have cancer, Montes has revealed this other side of him, one that’s inexplicably compassionate. It’s made me realize something else: the king is lonelier than even me, and he desperately doesn’t want to be.

“Don’t make me go in for surgery tomorrow,” I whisper. I’d kept quiet about the cancer because everything about illness frightens me. Declining health, doctors, medications, surgery.

The king doesn’t answer for a long time. So long, in fact, that I assume he won’t.

“My father killed himself,” the king finally says. “Died at the hand of his own gun. And like you, he was the last family I had.”

I stiffen in the king’s arms.

“Why are you telling me this?”

The king touches my temple. “You have that same look in your eyes he had. It’s been there from the first moment I saw you. And I fear both he and you know a secret I don’t.”

I watch the king for a long time, my throat working.

“We do.” Never had I imagined my life leading me here, to this moment. Yet now that I’m here, I wonder if there is a beautiful design to things.

“Then tell me what it is,” the king says. Those intense eyes are fully focused on me.

He doesn’t know; he really has no clue when it’s quite obvious. It’s the secret he continually hides from.

“Everything that lives must eventually die.”

The surgery happens the next day, and just like the last time I was in the presence of a doctor, soldiers have to hold me down while the doctor administers the sedative.

The ordeal is one that should be solely reserved for the worst inhabitants of hell.

“Why are you fighting this?” the king asks me as he holds down my shoulders.

It’s a good question, especially since I want the cancer out. “That needle better not come any closer to me,” I say. Like I wield any power in this situation.

“Serenity, you need to be put under. You know this,” the king replies.

“No—please, no.”

“Christ,” the king says looking away, “Stop begging. I can’t take it.”

“Montes, please.”

“I’ll have to leave if you don’t stop.”

I lock eyes with him. “Don’t leave.”

He nods and I hold still. I squeeze my eyes shut when I feel the needle enter my skin. The doctor kneeling next to me begins to talk. “I’m going to count back from one hundred. Follow along with me. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, …”

I repeat the numbers in my head, focusing on his voice until my eyes drop and my mind drifts off.

Chapter 20

Serenity

When I wake up, the king is at the side of my bed. He’s smiling and holding my hand. Almost reflexively I smile back at him. It’s strange to feel this way about anyone. The fact that the king is the one who’s opened my heart is just proof that fate is a cruel bitch.