"Honestly, Cherion, I'm beginning to lose track of which one of us is supposed to be the dying patient."
The voice was like grinding stones, cutting through the heavy silence in that library. Zarius slammed his own book shut and just sat there. The Duke was staring at him. It wasn't that predatory, wolf-like gaze he usually leveled at the world, it was something else. Something twisted with a grudging, grumpy sort of concern that he clearly didn't know how to wear properly.
Cherion blinked, his vision swimming for a second as he pulled his focus away from the book. "Huh?"
"You heard me," Zarius muttered, leaning back until his chair groaned in protest. He gestured vaguely toward Cherion's face with his hand. "You look like a walking corpse. I've seen men in the middle of a plague ward who had more color in their cheeks than you do right now. Do you even remember what sunlight looks like, or have you decided to become a library bat?"
