Episode 67
Stay with Me, My Love
Rominy reminds himself to breathe as he passes into Elowyn’s hotel room. She looks peaceful lying beneath a light sheet on the bed. She’s still pale and sunken, but her color is better. Isn’t it? Perhaps that’s wishful thinking on his part.
“Go ahead and talk to her,” Tharios says quietly as he leans against the wall with Viala at his side, gently running her hands along his forearm. He looks weak. “I need to rest, but Mother will be here to watch over you both.”
Rominy nods his thanks as he lowers himself to the edge of Elowyn’s bed. All he wants to do is draw her to his chest and never let go, but he doesn’t touch her.
They said to talk to her, but everything seems so awkward on his tongue.
With a sigh, he starts anyway. “Hey, love. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m good at rambling, and you’re a captive audience, so I guess you’ll have to put up with me.
“I met Grandmera tonight. I think she already knows me better than I know myself, though I can’t fathom how that’s possible.
And Arisanna wants us to visit Windhaven as soon as you feel up to traveling.
I was thinking maybe instead of the chalet, we could honeymoon in Lostariel.
I want to see your world. All your favorite haunts.
The tree-grown construction I’ve only read about.
“And I’ve been told I have to meet Cook. Maybe she’ll make an exception and prepare her flaming sweet bread for us just because.”
He bites his cheek to hold back the emotion hovering near the surface before continuing. “I need you to hold on, love. Because Lostariel is waiting for us.” Taking a deep breath, he whispers, “I love you,” in Elvish, though he probably mangled it.
She doesn’t stir, but her heart thrums its steady rhythm, and he holds on to that.
When he turns, Elowyn’s parents are both there, clearly trying to give him privacy while still hearing every word.
“Did I say it right?” he asks quietly.
“You did,” King Lorial says. “Everything was said perfectly, my youngling.”
“Are you ready?” Queen Nestraya asks, and Rominy nods.
After removing his boots, he lies down beside Elowyn, being careful not to touch her. Her mother presses a hand to his shoulder, and the most relaxing sensation spreads from his arm through his chest, all the way to his toes.
“Sleep well, my youngling,” Queen Nestraya says, and everything goes dark once more.
Elowyn wakes with a gasp, bolting up on the deck of their sailboat. It’s twilight still, and she searches for Rominy, crawling toward him as she gets tangled in her skirt. She yanks it away as she hurries to his side.
The time for modesty between them is long gone after their twilight swim.
“Elowyn.” Rominy sounds half-panicked as he sits up and searches for her. The relief that sweeps over him when he sees her is impossible to miss, and he reaches for her as she launches herself at his solid chest and curls into his lap.
For a full minute, they cling to each other until she pulls away to press her forehead to his, brushing his golden-brown hair away from his face.
“You came back to me,” she whispers. Then she wraps her arms around him again and gives in to the emotion coursing through her.
And Rominy holds her. Whispers words to her in Elvish, mangling half of them, but it doesn’t matter. Her heart feels the love he’s trying to convey. The comfort.
Eventually, she looks into his eyes again. Tears. He’s crying, too.
With a gentle touch, she kisses each tear from his cheeks before finding his lips, but he pulls away after a brief kiss.
“Tharios sent me, El. I’m...I’m supposed to tell you to keep fighting.”
“Tharios? He’s here? I mean, there?”
Rominy nods. “He saved your life. But...” Rominy blinks, his eyes darting away from hers, and she frames his face with her hands again.
“Stay with me, my love.”
Exhaling a shaky breath, he nods. “You’re not out of the woods yet.”
“The woods? I thought we went to Feressa. Are we in Lostariel?”
Rominy’s brow creases, and then he smiles briefly. “It’s a human expression. It means you still have a lot of healing to do. I...I don’t fully understand what happened, but Tharios said your fire magic caused your body to overreact to the stitches? Or something like that?”
“Oh. He...he warned me to watch out for my fire magic during times of illness. I...seem not to have listened.”
Rominy stares at her. “Let’s listen to Tharios from now on. That seems wise.”
“I agree. Did he come alone?”
“Your whole family is there. I even met Grandmera. She—”
“Knows you better than you know yourself,” Elowyn breathes. “Did you tell me that already? I have the vaguest wisp of a memory of you talking to me.”
A strangled laugh rises from his throat. “I did. I spoke to you, but I didn’t think you could hear me.”
“You wish to honeymoon in Lostariel. I need to hold on because Lostariel is waiting.” She gazes deep into his caramel eyes. “You wish to visit Lostariel?”
“I do. I want to enter your world, El. Learn everything about you. Love the things you love and experience Lostariel through your eyes and not just the few books I’ve read. But you have to be strong and fight to get better. You can’t give up.”
“Rominy, I—”
“I mean it, Elowyn.”
“I’ll never stop fighting, my love. Never.” She twirls a lock of his hair as her lips quirk into a half-smile. “There’s a human prince depending on me not to die.”
Then she kisses him again. Hungrily. Thoughts of their last moments together fill her head and bring her heat to the surface. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her. She longs to finish this dance of theirs that keeps getting interrupted—to experience everything with him.
She slides her hands beneath his shirt, but he reaches for them instead as he pulls away from her kiss.
“Elowyn, I don’t think...” He emits one of those endearing awkward laughs of his as he glances away. “Maybe...let’s wait, all right?”
So many thoughts rush through her head at his reaction to her touch, all of them confused.
He seemed to feel everything she was feeling when they were together before.
Did something change? Mere moments have passed for her, but he’s had more time to reflect.
Does he regret their swim? And everything that happened in the pool by their waterfall?
“Do you wish to pretend nothing occurred between us the last time you came to me?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light.
His eyes snap toward hers, and something akin to horror fills his face. “Stars above, El. Not at all. But...”
“But?”
“I’m under strict orders from Tharios not to...not to set you on fire until you’re fully recovered.”
Images of Rominy talking to Tharios about that warm her cheeks. “Even here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask him, which I’m regretting quite a bit at the moment.”
She bites her lip, trying not to laugh. No wonder he keeps pulling away from her kisses. “So you don’t regret—”
“Are you kidding? I regret nothing except that doctor waking me when he did.”
She does laugh at that. And then she turns on his lap to face the horizon as she leans back against his chest and sighs. “I suppose we should listen to Tharios. For now.”
“Yes. We established that listening to Tharios is a good idea.”
“What shall we do instead?”
“Can we just sit and exist for a while? Talk?”
She doesn’t answer at first, and he laughs. “You’re already bored, aren’t you?”
A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “I would never admit to such a thing.”
When he pokes her, she squirms away.
“I knew you were ticklish!” he laughs.
“I will never admit to that, either.”
“I think you will.”
Before she can react, he’s finding all her most ticklish spots as she squirms under his wandering hands and tries not to reveal to him exactly how ticklish she really is.
It’s a lost cause, though. He’s clearly winning this battle. Especially when he pins her to the deck and holds her there while he tickles her.
“You win,” she squeals as she arches her back to escape his hand. She could overpower him if she wanted to. She is an elf, after all.
But she doesn’t want to. Not when he’s looking at her like that.
She gazes up at him where he hovers over her, pinning her hands to the deck above her head. His eyes are full of heat the same way they were during their swim. His gaze travels over her, and it’s suddenly hard to breathe. He leans near her ear, his breath teasing her sensitive skin as she whimpers.
Without warning, he lets go and pulls away, not looking at her as he breathes out through pursed lips. “Sorry. I got carried away.”
“I didn’t mind,” she offers, and he laughs.
“We’re supposed to be listening to Tharios.”
“We seem to struggle with that.”
An amused grin sneaks onto Rominy’s face as he looks out over the horizon. Then he gasps.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Look.”
She follows his gaze to the light dancing where the sky meets the water in the distance.
“A sunrise,” she breathes.
Dangling his feet into the water, he pulls her to his side, and she leans her head against his shoulder.
Neither of them speaks of the sunrise—of what it means—as if they’re afraid to hope.
“Will you sing for me?” she whispers.
“Sing for you?”
She nods as she rests against him.
“I suppose I could do that.”
“And if you wake without me, will you sing for me there, too?” She speaks so quietly that the soft breeze almost swallows her words.
With a kiss to her temple, he tightens his arm around her. “I can definitely do that.”