Chapter 19
Theron
Theron believed her. Goddesses forgive him, he’d seen her power for himself and understood what it meant.
He was awestruck, had never imagined wild magic could turn back time.
She must know that he knew it now. And yet the light had gone from her eyes.
He’d taken that from her. Left her a husk of herself—tired, resigned, bitter.
He’d taken Passion’s blessing and Aurora’s heart and spit on them, crushing them beneath his heel until all the blood had drained out.
At every turn, she’d battled against his arrogance, giving him chance after chance to re-earn her trust, to undo the damage, and every time he hurt her.
The full weight of his guilt hadn’t hit him.
Not yet. Theron had no doubt, if he lived long enough, what he’d done to Aurora would continue to torment him for decades to come.
Even now he wanted to scream. To prostrate himself at her feet.
To beg her to hurt him until her anger was sated.
He would happily cut himself into pieces and lay the bloody offerings before her on the slim chance she may one day deign to look at him with more than disgust for what he’d done.
And if she’d spoken true about her magic, then she’d spoken true about his fate.
His heart sank further. He would die during this cycle of chaos turned calamity unless she changed history.
All this time, Theron had been a good king, discarding his heart, acting as both politics and logic dictated, and in so doing he had become a monster—he had doomed himself and all of Trisia.
All because he had chosen not to be a good man first and a good king second.
His guards had hurried them out of the town market and into the safety of the lord’s manor.
They sat in the guest room across from one another.
Aurora huddled up and hugged her legs, her eyes averted from him.
Blood dripped from her nose and ears as she caught her breath.
He seated himself across from her with his head in his hands.
“Will you allow me to heal you?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“Alright,” she whispered.
He wrapped his magic around her. Another bloody nose, her hands cut, internal organs damaged, her muscles abused as if she’d exercised well past her breaking point. He should have agreed to teach her. He wouldn’t now be healing his battered wife if he’d been a better man—a better husband.
It struck him then that he’d never known her. Not really. He’d built up a picture of her in his mind and very rarely challenged those assumptions. She wasn’t from somewhere beyond the Between, but Trisian born—far, far in the future.
“Where in Trisia were you born?” he asked.
“After everything, that’s the first thing you want to know?” She picked at the fabric of her gown.
Shame scalded him. He knew so little about her, but he yearned to know her—all of her. Was it truly too little, too late, as she’d said several days past?
“I want to know everything. That…it seemed like a safe place to begin. You don’t have to answer me. I know I don’t…deserve anything more from you after all I’ve done.”
He was lucky she was a kinder soul than he.
What would he have done in her place? Sent to a time and place so far from his own with nothing but an artefact, a mission, and magic he couldn’t control?
Surrounded by rogues and villains, all looking for someone to use or abuse?
It was a miracle she’d survived. It was a wonder she’d spared his life after all he’d put her through.
She sighed. Not in aggravation, but defeat.
“Gilvus, originally. A little town on the shore of Lake Thumos.”
“And your family?”
“Cloth merchants. Silk, mostly.”
That surprised him. How did a merchant’s daughter become a princess’ attendant? The way her mind worked, he would have thought her a scribe or tutor of some sort, someone who would have cause to visit a palace.
“You were a merchant as well?”
“Does that displease you, to know your wife’s status is so far beneath your own?” she asked mockingly, still refusing to meet his gaze.
“No, it doesn’t. And you’re not beneath me. You never were.”
And yet he remembered how he’d treated her, how he’d thought of her as nothing more than a pretty distraction at first, and then a pretty tool when she’d displayed her knowledge.
“Liar.”
He chuckled.
“I’m an arrogant royal born and raised in a palace. You’re right. When we first met, I considered all of Trisia beneath me. But I was wrong then. As I have been wrong for some time about…so many things. I asked because you didn’t strike me as a merchant.”
The stiffness of her shoulders relaxed by small degrees. He dared to hope.
“I…didn’t take up my family’s trade. When I heard the call of the wellspring, my family was overjoyed.
Wild magic is a ticket to an easy life in the palace.
No more hungry bellies, no more worries about bad years and good years.
But when my magic failed to manifest, I became a cleric of Knowledge.
An initiate. Orithyia—my Orithyia, not the one in this time—she helped me see that…
I had potential, even if my magic failed me. ”
“And the fairy princess you served?”
She hugged her legs tighter.
“We awakened our magic at the same Viridian wellspring in a little port town on the Left Wing Peninsula. I hated her at first, and she me. I was jealous that she had everything. She envied me my supposed freedom. I threw the first punch. We fought. And then we became friends. She is…everything that is good and bright in the world. Was everything. She sacrificed her life to save mine. If I don’t kill Drakon in the here and now, he’ll become the beast that hunts me across lifetimes. He’ll kill Fae.” Her voice hitched.
And Theron had refused to kill the beast for fear it would make him appear weak.
Even after she’d come to him to explain, even after she’d put her hurt aside, she’d tried to convince him to do the right thing.
Faced with the bravery it had taken for her to be vulnerable, he’d called her mad.
He’d driven her into a corner and then chastised her for doing whatever it took to spare Trisia the calamity that had taken her cherished friend. How she must hate him.
“You must love her very much.”
“I would do anything to get her back,” she said, only then meeting his gaze, her peridot eyes glittering with determination.
Theron could only dream of being worthy of such love, of such unshakable devotion.
For the fairy princess Fae, his wife was willing to endure mutilation, monstrosities, humiliation, and bitter betrayal.
And he had not even been willing to risk appearing weak, no matter that she was his fated.
He did not deserve her. He was unworthy of the bond Fate and Passion had bestowed.
“You are…the strongest person I have ever known.”
She blinked in surprise, quickly shuttering her expression and looking away.
“Flattery won’t make me forgive you.”
“I didn’t think it would.”
A knock on the door interrupted them.
“Your Majesty, there’s a situation developing at the gates.”
Aurora tensed once more.
Damn them all.
“A moment,” Theron replied. “I won’t allow them to hurt you.”
Aurora didn’t reply, didn’t meet his eyes. He made his way to the doors and paused.
“It wasn’t flattery. You are stronger than I could ever be.
Braver. Kinder. You are all that is good and bright in this world.
I have been a villain, choking that light with my arrogance—and my cowardice.
I can’t change the past, but if you allow it, I will do whatever it takes to support you from this moment onwards. ”
He didn’t stay to hear any response she might have had. He wasn’t ready to hear what fate she might sentence him to. A fearful mob was preferable.
“What’s happening at the gates?” he asked the guard.
“The villagers and merchants are gathering at the gates and demanding Her Highness present herself.”
As if they had the right to after she’d saved them and their marketplace. He quickened his stride. They reached the gates in moments where it appeared the whole of the town was waiting. When he neared, the townspeople began shouting—cheering.
“Glory to the star of Aureum!”
“Triad bless the star of Aureum!”
“Your Highness! Please accept our gifts!”
“What is this? You implied they had come to commit violence,” Theron said, frowning at his guard.
The lord of the town, Kaenas, an elderly man hunched over his cane, wisps of white hair clinging to a head covered in liver spots, shuffled close to Theron.
“Your Majesty, the townspeople wish to apologise. Soon after the sun and star of Aureum left, their shock at what they had witnessed wore off. They wish to show their gratitude. Her Highness saved many lives and livelihoods today.”
Merchants and townsfolk crowded at the gates, holding up amphorae of food and wine, lacquered boxes, bolts of silk, necklaces, fresh flowers, incense, bottles of perfume, prime cuts of meat, and more.
When Aurora had first turned to face him, she’d been radiant with joy, no matter her physical state.
That joy had quickly turned to uncertainty and fear as silent shock had gripped the people of the town.
Even he had been awed and terrified. Never before had there been a wild magic of such awesome power.
That made it all the more important that she saw this. She deserved to be proud of the magic she’d thought a curse—the magic he’d chided her for using and refused to teach her how to control.
“I’ll return shortly,” he said, striding back into the manor. When he arrived in their room, she nearly jumped as he opened the doors. “You should come with me.”
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“The people of the town have come to thank you.”
She blinked in surprise.
“Truly?”
“Yes,” he chuckled, “and they’re about to knock down the gates trying to give you their thanks and a mountain of gifts.”
“Oh…” she breathed, quickly wiping errant tears away. “Al-alright…”