Chapter 951: Taking Care Of Rowena (2)
The next couple of days pa.s.sed by with Rowena stuck in the state of waking up, crying all day, and also refusing to eat.
Raphael never left her side at this point and tried his best to get her to eat even when she refused to do so.
He was afraid of how Rowena was letting herself go.
"I know you are hurting, but please don"t let yourself rot away like this," Raphael said as he held up a spoon filled with porridge. "Your friend, Julian—"
Rowena started crying again and covered her face. Even the mere mention of Julian rendered Rowena into a sobbing mess. She cried so hard that there weren"t even any tears at this point as she hiccuped and wept.
Raphael looked at her in frustration. Her cheeks had become gaunt and thin, alongside her body. Her health was also failing. Which made sense because Rowena spent a week in the Verona palace simply asleep when Julian didn"t wake up.
It was actually amazing that Rowena managed to achieve what she did in Verona because by sheer virtue of being also human, she should have been weak and unable to defend herself.
Perhaps it was Rowena"s elven heritage that helped her obtain her goals and also made it possible for nearly two weeks to go by her without any food.
However, even that had its limits. Raphael noticed Rowena"s body suddenly swaying and she fell over—and he caught her. The moment that Raphael"s hands caught her shoulder to prevent a nasty fall, a burning sensation welcomed him.
"Rowena, you"re burning up." Raphael"s eyes widened and yet Rowena still refused to speak with him.
The Seventh Prince brought the food away and then made her go back to bed. He touched her forehead and knew that she had a burning fever.
"I"m—" Raphael placed some blankets over towards her and said. "I"ll be right back."
He approached the closest window and then let out a small whistle. Within the forest, an owl started hooting and flew towards him.
"Please find and deliver a message to your G.o.d—I need the G.o.ddess of Apothecary to prepare me a potion for sickness. Bring me a panacea."
While the Merfolk realm considered the potion a priceless item, Rapahel could easily request something like this from the high G.o.ddess. A lot of the G.o.ds who went on adventures preferred to bring them around.
Once the owl was gone, Raphael rubbed his forehead and looked up at the night sky.
"I... something like healing magic would be incredibly useful to learn, wouldn"t it?" Raphael said to himself.
As the Seventh Prince of Cretea, his magic did not belong to any one realm but he could study whatever he liked. Similar to his brothers who enjoyed visiting various realms, use
ful magic like flight, invisibility and other useful magic was something that he had studied.
His personal favorite had been ice magic which allowed him to be dubbed as the Ice Prince. However, Raphael didn"t think about healing magic because G.o.ds were nigh invulnerable the most—but as he witnessed Rowena being sick, that changed his mind.
"When I return to Cretea after this... I"ll have to speak with the G.o.d of Healing and ask to be put under his tutelage," Raphael said.
***
When a person was in an immense state of grief, there were instances where the mind itself chose to shut itself down and repress certain events out of one"s memory.
Which was why... after what seemed to be a long time, Rowena"s eyes opened painfully as a throbbing headache afflicted her.
The past few days were a blur and her memory was already shaky, but then all she could remember was the aching in her chest and indescribable pain.
She was sick before and yet she could taste the flavor of chocolate on her lips—a potion bottle left near the bedside. However what stunned her the most was the figure asleep by the beside—it was no other than Raphael.
"You..." Rowena blinked and clamped her lips shut. The memories started to return and she realized that in her state of grieving—Raphael was the one who spent those days completely at her side and refusing to leave her.
All of this happened because her dearest friend in the world was gone. Rowena"s eyes glittered with tears again, but she only let out a soft cry and wiped them away immediately.
There was still an empty and hollow sensation in her chest, but since she was here in their old home... Rowena carefully clambered down her bed and then made her way outside of the hut.
"I didn"t know that G.o.ds still need sleep," Rowena muttered quietly underneath her breath until she realized what had happened.
Rowena had arrived at broken fences, vegetable patches raided, and even left unattended but now everything was restored to what it was when she and Julian first lived here.
Her heart pounded uncertainly, but she knew that it was not Julian who repaired these.
She took a deep breath and then went over to the other side of their makes.h.i.+ft flower garden and couldn"t help but smile.
"The valley already has flowers, so many dotted over the valley, and yet he insisted that we should have still made our own flower garden instead of wild ones."
Memories of Julian hurt, but it also allowed her to remember him and that was what she wanted.
Rowena wiped at her tears and smiled sadly. "There is grief and being stuck in misery... but Julian wouldn"t have wished that for
me. He would have told me to smile and it"s better to remember better days."
She glanced around the valley and then plopped down on the flower garden.
"Cris..." Rowena eyed the small lilac flowers that Julian planted for them and admired the tiny but strong flowers. "Almere and Cris flowers—my first taste of freedom wouldn"t have been possible without you, Julian."
She held back her sobbing. "The reason why I"m here today is because of you... and so I have to honor your memory, not by sobbing and grieving but by remembering. I wish... I wish I could have done so much for you, but my attempts haven"t helped at all."
"Rowena?"