"Your Majesty? Are you alright?" Afton's voice was calm and measured, but it pierced through the fog in Heinz's mind like a thread pulling him back to the present.
But Heinz didn't answer. He simply stared at the ceiling.
'Why does everything feel so heavy now…?'
Now that he was back in his own body, it was like the weight of everything he had just seen had finally settled on him. His limbs felt too grounded to move, his breath too slow, too deliberate.
He could hear voices, feel the presence of several people around him, but he didn't dare react yet—not until he could trust himself to say the right thing.
"Were you able to speak with his highness?" Afton asked, still composed despite Heinz's silence.
"Why isn't he moving?" Lucius muttered from nearby, concern laced beneath a layer of wariness.
"He's adjusting," Afton replied simply.
And he was.
But not to the spell, not to disorientation from a magical procedure.
No—he was adjusting to Florian.
