~Amias's Point Of View~
The healer's hands won't stop shaking. That's the first thing Amias notices. It is not the steady rise and fall of the bulb throwing orange light across the sickroom or Rayne standing stiffly near the window, fingers worrying her moonstone necklace, or the too-still form of his mother lying on the half-propped pillows, highlighting just how she's now a shrinking shadow of the woman who once could silence an entire ballroom with a single lift of her chin before the scandal ever happened.
It's the healer's hands. They tremble as he wipes sweat from his brow, as he clears his throat, as he forces himself to look Amias in the eye. And Amias feels his stomach drop, heavy and cold, sinking and sinking.
It's the kind of dread that tastes metallic like someone put blood in his mouth.
