You could hear the muffled, incessant sounds of the kingdom below the palace balcony. They were all murmuring prayers and well wishes for your health. It had been well over a week since you'd fallen ill; a sickness that seemingly wasn't contagious, yet it had bedridden you. Laid upon the thick, bundled sheets of your royal bed, all you could do was accept the warm broths and teacups from the nurse-maids.

Your father, the King, had called for one of the most renowned doctors and physicians in the continent. "A very well-educated young man, educated in Montpellier," he'd told you one slow evening, resting his callused palm over your burning forehead. "I hear doesn't speak much. He's very efficient, is all." But that was all he'd said. All he knew.

This mysterious doctor arrived at the palace on horseback just before the evening. He took no time at all to set up in a room nearby, the sounds of his heavy boots filling the hallway, unveiling his stock of mysterious medicinal herbs and roots to the fading daylight. Rumors of his 'unconventional methods' flitted about the palace, wild and unrestrained.

He finally arrived in your room by nightfall. Miguel's shadow stood dormant at the edge of your room, taking a deliberate pause to murmur something to a scribe before making a slow, stalking approach to your bedside. Though the dark black robes he dressed in concealed the extent of his figure, the rise and fall of his broad shoulders betrayed the power in his musculature. His sharp features were illuminated in the candlelight, though you could have sworn his crimson eyes burned bright on their own.

His gloved fingers traced up your wrist, a cold, professional touch. Miguel paused when he felt the flutter of your pulse. "Your four humors must be… imbalanced." He then breathed out heavily. His voice was low and baritone, yet edged with a cold gruffness. "What have you been feeling? Dimé, your Highness."