Amneris went in and out of sleep that night, which is to say, she had a good night. The one thing that kept her from sleeping too deeply was the fact that she was quite bothered by Radames' behavior. She kept seeing him laying there, his jaw tightly set, eyes open and staring. It bothered her because she couldn't decide whether he'd watched her or not. When she'd first spotted him, her robe had been wide open and her body exposed.

One half of her said he'd looked. He was a man after all and her husband. Why shouldn't he be allowed to see her naked? Not a year before, she would have invited it. But now...

Then there was her other side. The side that kept reminding her that he was only her husband because it had kept him alive. He didn't love her. He was going to spend the rest of his life in love with a dead woman. Why would he waste his time to see his own wife's body?

But then again...he was a man.

Over and over it went in her mind, in between short naps, until the morning finally came. She would have remained in that bed all day had there not been a knock upon the door. Radames seemed in no way near to answering, so Amneris hoisted herself from the bed, returned the robe to her body and opened the door.

Noribnin looked down with smiling eyes when he saw her.

"Greetings," he said kindly, bowing his head.

"Good morning," she replied.

"I've come to tell you, Your Highness, that the High Prince requests your company today."

"Oh?" she said coyly.

"Yes," Noribnin kept a solid gaze on her. It made her so happy to see someone of a lower rank actually look at her. Most spoke quickly and refused to meet her eye.

"Tell him, I'd be happy to join him," she told Noribnin.

"Of course. Will you and your husband be coming down for morning meal or should I send something up?"

Amneris glanced back to the bed. Radames hadn't moved. She turned back to the large man before her, "I'll be coming down for meal. Send a bite up for my husband. He should be awake soon."

"Very good, madam."

With that, Noribnin turned and made his way back to the kitchen. Amneris looked at Radames as she prepared herself to go downstairs. He was sleeping, but he was far from peaceful. She was used finding him in a deep sleep, but there was something unsettling about how he slept this particular morning. After some careful consideration on the subject of waking him, she got just close enough to check that was still breathing and then headed downstairs to find her escort for the day.

Amneris and Kadoteas spent their day riding along the river. He showed her native animals, hills, picturesque views and a world like she'd never seen. Nubia was the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. Never had anyone given her the chance to roam about on a horse and see whatever she wished.

As previous nights, Kadoteas walked her to her floor where he asked for her company the following morning.

She smiled and answered, "I can't think of anything else I'd rather do."

Amneris watched him go and the moment he was out of sight, leaned against the wall and shut her eyes. The emotions were a roving swirl in her head, her heart, and her stomach and she didn't know which to go with first.

The first one was guilt, which in itself was a mixture of many things. She rode freely along the countryside while her husband sat daily in misery. Not only that, but she spent her days with a handsome young man and no chaperone. Hardly the behavior of a married woman. Not that she had done anything, or even tried, and he'd been nothing but a gentleman...but something was underneath it all. She felt it and was certain that Kadoteas did as well.

Even the thought of it filled her heart with lightness. The guilt faded as her thoughts turned to Kadoteas. He made everything in her body stand up on end. She breathed a bit easier in his presence and allowed herself to stop a bit of the show she gave to everyone else. He didn't pressure her to be a queen and never reminded her of the position she was in. He spoke little of his sister and when he would, Amneris knew that it was not to hurt her.

Her only concern in his presence was that time was moving far too quickly. As she watched him walk away each night, she was reminded that her spell there was brief. Once Radames and Amonasro came to an agreement, she would be going home. Home to a lonely life in a palace that now seemed far too big for her. Back to being the wife of a distant man who had once been her life.

She opened the door quietly. If Radames was already asleep, she didn't want to wake him. To her disappointment, he was awaiting her arrival at the foot of their bed.

"How did today go?" she asked filling the uncomfortable silence. He didn't even raise his sunken face to hers. His eyes wistfully watched the floor where her feet stepped and he asked her quietly, "What are you doing here, Amneris?"

She stopped and watched him, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. He must know where she spent her days. Awaiting a torrent of accusations, she said, "What do you mean?"

His eyes went to meet her own, "Why did you come here?"

Amneris took the shawl from her head and stepped toward the bed.

"I'm the reason you're here. I couldn't ask you to come alone."

She sat beside him and he turned to face her.

"You are." he said, "You're the reason I'm here, the reason I'm alive. Why did you do it? You saw what I'd done, how I'd hurt you. Why did you save me?"

Amneris looked off for a moment. Her eyes set themselves upon the corner of a stool that sat nearby, while her mind raced through a number of memories, not only of that night, but of their past. Days they'd spent together as children, conversations that went into the night, races around the courtyards of the palace. Why would he ask such a thing?

"I suppose I didn't have anywhere else to go," she replied, "what would I have done without you?"

"And now? Do you have somewhere now?"

She wrapped her hair into a knot on the back of her head replying, "I often wonder what would have happened if you'd been successful. If you'd run off with her, or even died with her. I was thinking about that. I was thinking that you would have left, given the chance, you'd give your life," she shook her head as the memories of that night came into focus, "It wasn't right. Neither of you should have had to do that. It's an awful thing to happen, Radames, but I don't regret it. There are bigger things going on here. You're about to stop a war, end years of fighting and save hundreds of lives. You couldn't do that if you weren't here."

He shook his head, "I'm not doing it now."

Amneris frowned. In all her years with him, she'd always counted Radames as a person full of confidence. He was a winner and carried himself as one. She didn't think she'd ever truly seen him in despair. Now it was all she could see. His eyes held a sort of pain deeper than she could fathom. She put her hands to his face, "You can win this. If you don't he could kill you and he doesn't have to lay a hand on you to do it."

He closed his eyes and kissed the inside of her palm, "What are you doing here?" he asked her again.

She shook her head, and took her hands away, "I'm not here." The guilt came back. How could she happily live out comfortable days while her husband suffered at the words of someone who months ago was his enemy? And he suffered so.

"Do you know where I've been?" she asked.

He nodded slowly, "With Kadoteas. You're happiest here when you're with him."

"Nothing's happening," she assured him.

He shrugged, "What could I do if there were?"

Amneris leaned in and replied lightly, "I am your wife, remember?"

"You are," he conceded more seriously, "but not by your own choice."

"Radames-"

He took her hands in his, "I wish I could make you happy, Amneris. I can't."

She closed her eyes and nodded, "Let's just go to sleep."

He smiled a very difficult smile and agreed, "Another long day tomorrow."

"Radames, I mean it. He can't beat you. You have the power here, don't forget that."

He lay back on the pillow without reply. A few minutes later, she crawled in beside him and held onto his thin, shivering body.

Close to morning, Amneris dropped off. She awoke a couple of hours later when Radames was getting up. She decided to keep her eyes closed. He was concerned about her sleeping and she didn't want to make him worry. She lay comfortably, feeling him move on the bed beside her. A moment later, the movement stopped and was followed by an immediate thud!

Amneris' eyes shot open. Radames was not in the bed, nor was he anywhere to be seen. She gripped the opposite end of the mattress and pulled herself to the edge. Radames lay on the floor, wrapped about the waist in a sheet that had come down with him when he fell. He was dripping in sweat and mumbling in a sick delirium.

Amneris leaped from the bed and ran for help.

She stayed by his side for most of the day, visited only by Noribnin who brought her food and gave her some company. He was the only spark of reassurance she would get that day.

Radames drifted in and out of consciousness. His words were, for the most part, an unstructured ramble. She caught the words "sire" "Aida" "tree" "foot" "wine." (Oh...she wished Noribnin had brought some wine with dinner.)

For one shining moment, he looked straight at her and said, "Amneris, I'm sorry." Words that had been leftover from the previous night's conversation. She had gripped his hand and smiled the best she could at him. He returned the smile, than looked past her for a moment.

"I see you," he said.

He passed out again and this time Amneris left him to his delusions. She went looking for Amonasro. She had little resistance getting entrance into his chamber. Such little, in fact that she believed he was expecting her.

To her surprise, Kadoteas sat in a chair near a desk in his father's chamber. His feet were up on the surface of the desk and he leaned back comfortably. When he saw her, his feet hit the floor and he stood as courteously as he could. Amneris looked at him only long enough to acknowledge his presence, then went for her target. Amonasro stood near his empty fireplace.

"What are you doing to him?" she demanded.

Amonasro smiled complacently at her and replied "Lovely to see you, Amneris. How are you enjoying your stay?"

She folded her arms and grimaced. How could he ignore an outburst like that!

"What are you doing?" she repeated herself, "He's dying, do you understand that?"

Amonasro took a seat and gestured for her to do the same. Amneris was riled up, though. She couldn't bring her self to get to the chair.

"I'm fully aware of the situation, my dear," he told her, leaning back into his comfortable-looking chair, "As I understand it, I see more of your husband that you do. I've watched his condition deteriorate by the day. Our doctors have seen him and have told him to rest and eat. If he is unwilling to do either, then there is little I can do."

"There is actually," she stepped forward and stood directly before him, watching the uneasy movements of Kadoteas from the corner of her eye, "The sooner these negotiations are finished, the sooner I can take him out of here. He wasn't like this until we came here. I know he's doing it to himself, but it can stop if we get home."

Amonasro folded his hands in front of him and looked at Amneris. She was a mess. Her clothes were wrinkled, her hair undone, her eyes heavy with a lack of sleep and she shook where she stood, either from cold, fear, anger, or perhaps she was catching her husband's fever. Judging from how she'd looked when she'd first arrived, he guessed that she hadn't allowed herself to look this distressed in some time.

"What about you, Amneris?" he asked, "Do you long to return to you life as the wife of an unfaithful man? Why have you done all this?"

She stared indignantly at him. So, he was putting such doubts into Radames' head. She glanced quickly to Kadoteas, who was watching attentively. Amonasro wanted him to hear this.

"I care about him," she told the king, "I may not love him as I once did, but I do still care for him and I will not watch him die like this."

"What do you propose I do?"

"Give him what he wants. End this."

"What he asks is impossible."

"Impossible!" she spat, "You're a king. You've asked us to give up the majority of our labor force. We'll spend years trying to rebuild our economy. What has he asked of you?"

Amonasro watched her reaction with indifference. The plight of her people was not his concern.

Kadoteas stepped in with her answer, "He's to relinquish command of his armies and it cannot be to me. My father is not ready to lay down his sword."

"I've led my people into battle for years as my father did and his before him. My son will fight next."

Amneris shook her head in disbelief, "You were captured and by many accounts, you shouldn't have gotten away. Don't you understand that? You're writing a treaty. It's no good if one of you is dead. If you fall and Kadoteas next, can you guarantee that your successor will uphold the negotiations being made now?"

"It does not matter-"

"It matters if Radames dies! I will take the throne and to produce an heir, I'll have to marry again. I don't know that whoever that will be will support such a treaty. Radames and I are not in the majority among those who matter in Egypt."

Amonasro continued his stare of indifference. Amneris shook even harder with rage. She looked to Kadoteas, "You're right, he is an unreasonable fool!"

Amneris spent the next two days in and out of the room. During that time, Radames began seeing things. Amneris would return from a walk and he would claim that Aida had come to him. It chilled her to the bone to hear such things. She feared spirits. Spirits bringing him closer to his end.

After two days, he made a dramatic improvement. The visions stopped and he was able to speak sensibly again. By the third day, he had found the strength to convene once more with Amonasro. He told himself this would be the last day.

He made his case once more: the return of eight of every ten of Amonasro's people and the cessation of the raids of Nubian villages, so long as he kept his own armies out of Egypt and gave up his leadership of them. It was not unreasonable.

"You cannot come into my country fresh from the ravishment and murder of my daughter and demand that I give up my power over my own armies. I will not have it!"

Radames looked up at the king with tired eyes and said flatly, "I don't care anymore. Say what you wish. Believe what you will of my intentions for your daughter. It really doesn't matter. You scorn me daily, invite me to your council of accusations and abuse my guilt, while your people laugh at my condition and your son looks covetously at my wife. It doesn't matter. I still have your people and a very large army and I retain the power to crush your country at my will. So we can continue to fight this stupid war to another pointless and bloody outcome and I can get revenge for the weeks that I have endured at your despicable tongue. Or we can both enjoy our reigns in leisure and watch our children grow up and give them something to rule when we pass. Consider it."

With that he stood on uneasy feet. He was nearly to the door when he collapsed.