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Khalid couldn’t move again. It had been a long time since he’d had a paralysis episode. He was frozen, his head turned to one side on the pillow as his body slept and he waited for it to wake up with him. When he was younger, he used to have nightmares about this. About being unable to move and someone lurking in the corner of his room with a knife…
It hadn’t always been a dream, the knife.
This time, he was just looking at his wife. Marianne was still asleep, her hair in a messy, loose plait that fell down her back. He remembered the first time he helped her braid it. Wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, kissing a trail up her spine as he got her ready for bed. It was too wild and messy to leave loose in bed, Marianne had told him. Khalid hadn’t believed her at first, but she proved it quite well.
Free from any braids or coils, Marianne’s hair was a thing of beauty and chaos. Full of tangles and small matted locks. He preferred to help her keep it smooth and soft, and he liked the ritual of help her to tame it.
Khalid wanted to reach out and touch her hair. Her cheek. He wanted to play with the delicate eyelet trim on her nightgown. He wanted to kiss her awake and watch the color rise in her cheeks as he pulled her underneath him and teasingly traced paisley designs on her thighs… But he couldn’t move.
Khalid tried to make his hand twitch. If he could just get one finger to move, the rest of him would start waking up. It felt like there was a wall between him and his own hand, something physical that kept him from doing anything, so he pushed. He pushed and shoved and struggled against the invisible wall, determined to reach out and just brush his hand against Marianne’s arm--
And then the shadowy figure came into view. Walking from around the foot of their bed and coming to a stop at Marianne’s side. Khalid stopped pushing. He froze, his eyes growing panicked as he watched the shadow loom over his wife. It didn’t look like a person he could recognize. Despite the morning sun streaming in through the windows, the figure’s face and shoulders were entirely obscured by shadows. Like they carried an extra shroud with them to always be just out of focus.
“Ngh--” Khalid tried to speak, but there was a wall there, too. One between him and his hand, one between him and his tongue. He could hardly even grunt, but he had to warn Marianne.
As his wife slept, her face peaceful and serene, the shadow above her pulled a knife from its grey, blurry robes, brandishing the blade high. Khalid pushed and fought with all his might against the walls, desperate to move.
“Mmh! Mm--” he kept trying to say her name. To make her wake up and see the danger. To throw himself at the would-be assassin and tear them apart for trying to destroy his happiness. But he couldn’t move. His index finger twitched, but nothing else came.
As the knife began to descend, Marianne’s eyes blinked open and quickly came into focus on him.
“Khalid?” she murmured, sitting up.
Khalid’s heart lurched as she moved into the knife, but… nothing happened. As quickly as the dagger came down, it dissipated into nothing. The shadowy figure was gone, dissolved into light. Marianne leaned over him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder and starting to rub soothing circles.
“You’re alright,” she whispered. “It’s ok… Your meditation breaths, remember?”
Khalid closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recent himself, even as the rush of adrenaline and terror still coursed through his veins. He took a breath in through his nose. Held it. Counted to ten. Then out through his lips. His jaw was clenched shut, but he could still exhale, sputtering through it sounded.
“Good… another,” Marianne whispered, her voice hovering over him like a soft curtain. “You’re almost out of it.”
He took another meditative breath. And another. And another. On his fifth, he felt his body begin to loosen. His hand twitched and then everything else came back too. In a rush, he could move again, and Khalid bolted upright in their bed, immediately grabbing Marianne and hauling her into his lap.
“Gods,” he muttered, his breath short as his whole body felt like it had been trying to sprint through water. “Marianne…”
“I’m here,” she assured him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as he clung to her. “Khalid… I’m fine… You’re trembling--”
“Bad dream,” he muttered against her hair.
“Oh,” she understood, he knew that she did. Marianne had talked to him about her own nightmares, back during the war. How she had been plagued by them since her childhood, and even after Maurice was killed, she still had some from time to time.
He’d told her about his sleep paralysis, too. Ever since an assassin snuck into his bedroom when he was only five years old and first tried to kill him. The palace guards had arrested the man, and Khalid had survived it in one piece, but ever since, there was that looming shadow with the knife. Haunting him.
“It’s been a long time since you had one of these,” Marianne murmured, her fingers carding into the hair at the back of his neck. She pulled back enough to look into his eyes, brown meeting green. “Are you alright?”
“I’m… fine,” he told her. “It… It was just a dream.”
“What was it?”
“Same one it always is,” he told her. “It was just… trying to kill you this time.”
“Oh.”
Marianne hesitated. “Is it… because of the coronation?”
Khalid winced as she mentioned it. His father had decided it was time to step down. He was a good king, but he wanted to retire, as he put it. Relax with Tiana, dote on any grandchildren Khalid might provide, and serve as an adviser to his son, nothing more. Khalid was happy for his father, that he had come to such peace for it, but he felt anxious at the idea of rising to the throne so young.
And even though he’d made so much progress in Almyra, even though people didn’t regard him as a ‘mutt’ or a ‘half-prince’ like they used to, a part of him would always fear the assassin’s knife.
He had so much more to worry about now.
“Maybe,” Khalid admitted with a sigh. “I’ll be alright, it's just.... Pre-coronation jitters, heh.”
Marianne kissed his forehead and he hugged her tighter against him. “I know,” she whispered. “It’s alright… I’m nervous too. I’m still not sure I’ll make a good queen, but I know that you… you are going to be an amazing king.”
“...You think so?”
“I do,” she assured him. “You’ve already done so many groundbreaking things with the senate and reforming the forums… I don’t think you could be a bad king even if you tried. You care too much about others.”
He smirked. “I want to believe you’re right.”
“I am,” she insisted softly. He liked that about his wife. She had grown into her confidence. Her quiet sureness. It brought his lips to hers, kissing her firmly and adoringly.
Khalid felt her smile against his lips.
“I love you,” he whispered over her skin. “My queen~”
“I love you too,” she giggled at his teasing. “My king--”