Episode 134 I Had a Feeling
I Had a Feeling
“Home? You sent Cerian home? To Darlei? Elowyn Westaria! Why would you even entertain the notion of sending Cerian into danger like that? With Arisanna, I presume?”
“I had a feeling, Grandmera,” Elowyn says.
“A feeling. Whistling wind, you sound like your grandfather. I do not appreciate being lied to.”
“I didn’t—”
But Grandmera gazes at her with an expression so fierce, Elowyn bites her tongue.
“We will leave as soon as arrangements can be made, and you two will just have to manage.”
“They took Nebula,” Elowyn mumbles, not meeting Grandmera’s eyes.
The room grows quiet, and Elowyn eventually looks up again.
“If the situation weren’t so urgent, you and I would be having a very, very long and serious talk that you would not soon forget, young one.”
Elowyn opens her mouth but thinks better of responding.
Then Grandmera turns to Rominy. Before she can speak, he holds up his hands in surrender. “I humbly beg you for mercy and ask you not to murder me.”
For a moment, Grandmera stares at him.
Then she laughs. Whistling wind.
“I will grant you mercy this time, Rominy Montarac. I expect you to make better choices in the future. Now, I cannot leave you here with the danger at present, and I will not abandon Cerian to whatever dangers lurk in the Wildthorne Woods. Either take your binding partner and return to Levina tonight, or find a way to get her home to Darlei with only two small mares to carry you. I leave the situation in your capable hands.”
Grandmera sweeps out of the room, and they stare at the closed door for a few moments after she’s gone.
Then Rominy turns to Elowyn. “Your grandmother is terrifying.”
“She is. In the best fashion.”
“Right.” He draws out the word.
“I don’t wish to go to Levina.”
“I’m pretty sure I already knew that.”
“Tie me to Starlight. I’ll survive.”
“Yeah...that’s not happening.”
“Rominy, I—”
“Just rest and drink your coffee. Everyone keeps telling me I’m more capable than I realize. I guess we’ll see.”
He strides toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she calls after him.
“To arrange for a horse that can carry us both. I need to speak to Jonas.”
He disappears through the door as well, and Elowyn lifts her coffee to her lips.
It seems they’re about to have an adventure.
It would be more satisfying if she could walk. And if the circumstances were different.
Hopefully, sending Cerian into the woods wasn’t a mistake. It still feels right.
But she’ll never forgive herself if anything happens to him.
Everything hurts. Why does everything hurt? And why is it so cold? Something warm lies against Tharios, and he gravitates to the heat, but even that small movement leaves him moaning in discomfort.
“Tharios?”
Viala. The warmth at his side is Viala.
His eyes flutter open to her looking at him over her shoulder, and he blinks a few times to focus. “I hurt everywhere.” His voice comes out far weaker than it should.
“Serves you right.” She turns her face away from him, and he grasps for memories of what happened to leave him in this state with her clearly mad at him. Everything is a jumbled mess in his head, though.
“You’re angry,” he whispers, and she huffs.
“I am furious, elf prince.”
“Setting that aside for a moment, what happened? I don’t remember what led to me feeling like death while you glower at me.”
Before she can respond, a warm hand touches his forehead. “Welcome back, my little love.”
“Mother?”
“I’m here. As is your father. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m lucky to be alive.”
“He doesn’t remember,” Viala says. “Which is annoying because I can’t rail at him properly over his idiocy if he doesn’t recall what he did.”
“The memories should return. Then you may express your displeasure with him fully.”
“Something to look forward to,” he mutters. “I assume I spent my life magic? That telltale nausea assails me to go with the pain.”
“Indeed,” Mother says. “I would help you, but your father has prohibited me from using my own life magic unnecessarily.”
“And you listened?”
“In this case, yes.”
He studies her gazing down at him. “You’re mad at me, too.”
“I feel a great many emotions regarding you, my elfling. Anger is among them. I will wait until you’re recovered to berate you fully, though.”
He closes his eyes and sighs. “Something else to look forward to.”
“Tharios?” Father’s voice comes from nearby, and Tharios pushes his eyes to focus on their surroundings.
The woods. Why are they in the woods?
“He just awakened,” Mother says as she brushes his hair from his forehead. “His memories are patchy.”
“I’m just grateful that you still walk among us, my elfling,” Father says.
At least someone is.
“I doubt I’ll be doing much walking soon.” His stomach threatens to revolt, and he grits his teeth to hold the sensation at bay.
Viala presses closer to him, and the touch of her flesh helps relieve the nausea.
“Thank you, my love,” he whispers against her hair.
“I still adore you, Tharios. But I have never been so terrified.”
He musters his strength to wrap his arm around her beneath the blanket that covers them both. She seems to be wearing his shirt. It’s hiked up in the back so her skin touches his, but his hand grazes it in the front.
Images of her shivering in the cold, wearing nothing but his shirt, fill him. Her standing beside Stardust. They brought Stardust on their excursion to the woods. He was going to romance Viala.
He did romance her.
And then...
It’s all a blank. Other than Viala shivering in his shirt. Beside Stardust. Her horn. It was red. Blood? But whose blood? Not Viala’s. And Stardust would never hurt him. The stars would fall from the sky first.
Whomever the blood belonged to is probably the one responsible for draining his life magic.
“Viala, I have the vaguest memories—like wisps of a dream I can’t quite grasp—of Stardust with blood on her horn.”
“Should I tell him?” Viala asks. She’s looking at Mother. “Or is it better for him to remember on his own?”
“It might help him remember. But Tharios, this may be difficult to hear.”
“I drained my life magic trying to heal someone, yet I see no one but you three here, all well, with no sign of injury. I assume I was unsuccessful in my efforts and whoever passed from the light was not someone we love.”
Viala takes a deep breath against his chest before speaking. “We were approached by high-born rebels. They fought back when you attempted to detain them, and Stardust intervened. You expended your life magic trying to save the injured elf. The other two fled.”
As she speaks, glimmers of the events she describes flash through his memory, and he pulls her closer.
“Does any of that sound familiar?” Mother asks, and Tharios nods.
“It’s still fuzzy in my mind, but I recall bits and pieces. I assume you’re both furious with me for not letting the injured elf go sooner?”
“I am furious with you for the terror you caused me by almost dying before my eyes,” Viala says.
“Viala saved your life,” Father tells him. “And if you had seen the state we found her in...”
Tharios slides his eyes shut as memories of what happened wash over him. No wonder she’s angry.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Your magic—”
“I don’t want to talk about my magic. I’m trying to forget.”
It must have been bad. The thought tears into him, and he buries his face in her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t do what you did, Tharios,” Mother says. “You know that. It’s the first rule you learn when you begin your healer training. Always hold something back. Always.”
“The way you do?” A slight smile latches on to his face, but even that hurts.
Father chuckles from nearby, but he quickly covers it with a cough when Mother glares at him.
Tharios looks at Father. “The information that elf could have shared was too important to Lostariel to lose if there was a chance I could save him.”
“No, Tharios,” Father says. “You are too important to Lostariel. And you are far more important to me than any intel Werithen could have given us.”
“You knew him?”
“Yes,” Mother says. “He was not the sort of elf I would ever desire any of my elflings to cross. Now, I want you to rest. Regain your strength. We’ll return to Darlei as soon as you can manage the journey.”
“What about Elowyn?”
“You worry about you. Your grandmother will see to Elowyn.”
“She’s much improved,” Father says. “Focus on your own recovery now, all right?”
With a sigh, Tharios nods, grimacing at the pain. It’s not as if he’d be much use to Elowyn right now, anyway.
Mother leans down to kiss his temple before rising to speak to Father in hushed tones, but Tharios tunes them out.
“Thank you,” he says softly to Viala. “In hindsight, I should have listened to you sooner than I did.”
“You didn’t listen to me at all, elf prince. Stardust pushed you over, and you passed out.”
That...sounds about right.
“How can I make it up to you, my love?”
“I don’t know.”
The cord between them feels almost nonexistent now. What terror he must have put her through.
“I love you,” he says. “Even when I delve into idiocy at times.”
She clings to his arm, and he holds her.
“I love you, too,” she eventually whispers. “Sleep, elf prince. I’ll watch over you while you slumber.”
And he stops fighting the exhaustion tugging at him and lets his eyes slide closed once more.