Chapter Twenty-Five #2
All four of them turned to see Marina standing there, waving both arms at him. She was screaming.
“Tay, you must come! Hurry!”
Tay bolted faster than he’d ever moved in his life.
*
She was fighting.
Athdara’s last memory was of a vicious fight, so as she began to regain consciousness, the memories of that battle were with her. She was still fighting for her life.
Therefore, she had no idea where she was when she opened her eyes and found herself staring at the ceiling of a chamber. She could hear the birds outside and the branches of a tree as a breeze caressed it, but her body was tensed, waiting to continue that fight.
Then she saw a face.
A face she didn’t recognize. An older man was peering at her, and she was back in that fight.
In a panic, she punched the man in the nose and tried to roll away from him, but she could hardly move her body.
Everything hurt, and she was as weak as a kitten.
She was in a bed she didn’t recognize and ended up throwing herself onto the floor.
As weak as she was, she was struggling to crawl away when someone called her name.
“Athdara!”
Breathing heavily with panic and exertion, Athdara turned to see Marina running toward her. Finally, a face she recognized.
“Marina,” she said weakly. “Where… where am I? Who was that man?”
Ming Tang was on Marina’s heels as she bent down to put her arms around Athdara, who needed someone to cling to. She was disoriented and frightened.
“You are safe,” Marina said steadily. “Let me help you back to bed.”
“But why am I in bed?”
“Because you were injured.”
Between Marina and Ming Tang, they managed to lift Athdara up and put her back in the bed. She lay back, her hand on the wound to her belly because it was paining her.
“The bounty hunter,” she said, grunting when Marina tugged on her leg to slide her down on the mattress. “He tried to kill me.”
“He tried, indeed,” Ming Tang said, leaning over her. “I have battled against his evil intentions for many days to heal you. I will not let him win, my lady, I promise.”
As Marina dashed out of the chamber, Athdara looked up at the man with the dark eyes and calm demeanor. “You have battled him?” she said, still slightly disoriented. “But I killed him. At least, I thought I killed him.”
Ming Tang nodded as he pulled the bottom of her tunic up to get to the wound in her belly. To preserve her modesty even though she was wearing linen breeches that Marina had put on her, he pulled up the coverlet and covered everything but the left side of her torso.
“He is long dead,” he said. “But his shadow lingers. It has lingered over you for days, whilst this wound he gave you tries to kill you. How do you feel?”
Athdara wasn’t exactly sure. “I don’t know,” she said as she looked around the room. “Where am I?”
“Tay’s chamber.”
Once he said that, her surroundings began to become familiar to her. “Where is he?”
“Marina has gone to fetch him, I am sure,” Ming Tang said, peering at the wound. “You did not tear your stitches. In fact, your wound looks better than it has in many days.”
Athdara sighed, feeling him poke at her wound site. “I do not remember anything,” she said. “You say I have been here for several days?”
“Twelve days, my lady.”
“I have been sick for twelve days?”
Ming Tang nodded. “You have had a fever for many days,” he said. “This morning, you even had a fit because of it, but when I touch your flesh now, it feels as if the fever has broken. Mayhap this morning was the very last of it.”
Athdara put her hand to her own forehead to try to feel for this fever he said had broken. “I am not warm.”
“Then you must feel better.”
She thought on that. “I think so,” she said. “But I feel… sore. Everything seems to be sore. But I think I am thirsty. May I have something to drink?”
Ming Tang smiled and covered her incision site back up with the coverlet. “Of course,” he said. “That is a very good sign. I will tell the man whose nose you struck. He will be glad to hear it.”
“Who was that?”
“A physic from Exebridge.”
Athdara tried not to feel sheepish. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not recognize him. I thought… I last remember fighting someone, and…”
She couldn’t quite finish, and Ming Tang patted her arm. “I know,” he said. “So does he. I am sure that he is only sorry he got so close to you.”
Because he was chuckling, Athdara smiled timidly.
But she was prevented from replying because it seemed as if someone opened the gate and all of the bulls in western England had come rushing into the cottage.
She could hear the door downstairs flying back and then thundering footsteps coming up the stairs.
By the time she looked at the door, Tay was standing there, a look of panic on his face.
“What happened?” he said, nearly staggering into the chamber. “Is she worse?”
Ming Tang went to him. “Nay, my friend,” he said, pulling Tay over to the bed. “She is much better. Ask her yourself.”
Athdara smiled at Tay as he looked at her in disbelief. “I am better,” she said softly. “Ming Tang says that my fever is gone. I will heal.”
It was too much for Tay to take. He’d been convinced that Athdara had taken a turn for the worse when Marina summoned him, because he hadn’t even asked her why he was needed.
He’d just assumed it was for the worst, so to see Athdara smiling and speaking coherently unraveled him completely.
Going to her bedside, he collapsed to his knees, wrapping his arms around her and dropping his head on her chest.
He held her as tightly as he could.
“My God,” he breathed. “My God… is it true? Is it really true?”
Athdara shifted so she could put at least one arm around him. “It is,” she murmured into his dirty hair. “I will heal, I promise. I am sorry to have caused you so much worry.”
Tay laughed. At least, she thought he laughed, but when she continued to feel his body shake, she realized he was weeping. Her pleading expression sent Ming Tang, Marina, Fox, Aamir, and Payne out of the chamber.
When the door was shut quietly, she whispered against the top of Tay’s head, “They are gone. It is only us. Look at me, my darling. Let me see you.”
Tay lifted his head and sobbed. Fluid dripped from every orifice on his face as he struggled to get control of himself.
“I thought you were dead,” he said, cupping her head between his two enormous hands.
“I did not believe you would survive this, and I was contemplating how to go on without you. Athdara, I know men lose the women they love all the time. It is nothing new. But I could not lose you. It would tear a hole in me that would never be filled.”
Athdara shushed him, wiping at the tears on his face. “I’m not leaving you, I promise,” she said softly. “I will heal. I will heal, and I will continue to fight for my father’s legacy. No bounty hunter can change that.”
He kissed her, getting tears on her nose. “You will not leave me behind this time?”
She looked at him, puzzled. “When did I leave you behind?”
“When you were wounded,” he said. “The bounty hunter found you in the stable because you were leaving. You told me so.”
Athdara had to think on that. “I remember the fight,” she said. “I remember Lord Exmoor telling me about the Comte de Roubaix. But so much of my memory is muddled. Did I tell you I would leave you?”
Tay could see, in those few sentences, that she didn’t remember anything she’d told him about leaving him behind because she didn’t want him to resent her for taking him away from Blackchurch.
It had been disturbing for her, and for him, so perhaps the fever was God’s way of erasing something that didn’t really matter in the end.
She’d been through enough, and they would be together, forever, come what may.
When she returned to Toxandria, it would be with him by her side. There was no question.
“It does not matter,” he said after a moment, stroking her cheek with his thumbs. “You will be well again, and then we will speak on the Comte de Roubaix and the return to Breda Castle. There is time.”
“There is,” she said before removing his hand from her head and kissing it. “We have more time to spend together now, because I do not think I can travel anytime soon.”
He shook his head. “You cannot,” he said firmly. “If you try, I will sit on you.”
“That would not be wise,” she said. “I think I remember defeating a Leviathan once.”
He smiled, his tears gone, as he leaned forward to kiss her. “You did defeat him, body and soul,” he murmured, kissing her mouth, her cheek. “God has been good, my dearest love. He’s given you back to me.”
“I never left,” she said, smiling back at him. “I have been here the entire time. I would never leave you, Tay. Not ever.”
He kissed her again, feeling the first hope and relief he’d felt since the night she was injured. There was something so empowering about it. As he leaned over to kiss her neck, her tender shoulder, there was a knock at the door.
He lifted his head. “Come,” he said.
The door creaked open and Ming Tang stuck his head in. “You have visitors, Tay.”
Tay looked at him curiously but nodded, still kneeling over Athdara, still holding her hands. There was no possible way he was going to let her go, not even for visitors.
As Ming Tang stepped back, someone took his place. Tay found himself looking at Creston.
“Cres?” He quickly stood up. “You’re back so soon. I hope not—”
He stopped himself before he could go any further to suggest something had happened that would devastate Athdara.
Creston held up a hand. “Nay,” he said. “Nothing like that. In fact, we had the most amazing luck.”
Tay’s eyes widened. “You did?”
Creston smiled, nodding as he turned to the doorway behind him. Cruz was standing there, but next to him was a boy, about eight years of age. He was tall and slender, with a crown of shiny brown hair and big hazel eyes.
Athdara’s eyes.