21. Hard to Grasp – Elias #2
I joked, trying to lighten the mood, but her words affected me more than I wanted to let on.
She had revealed more than the fact that she'd been worried about me.
She had just admitted that she cared about me.
That was something that I needed, but at the same time, I had feared receiving.
Would I be able to see this through, knowing that her heart was in this far deeper than it should be?
That had been the plan. But now, the thought tasted bitter on my tongue, like copper and regret. My heart pounded with indecision, each beat echoing a different answer while my stomach twisted, sour and unsettled.
Rosemary laughed, the sound like gold in the heavy air between us. "Maybe I just want to stab you a little less now."
I placed my hand against my chest. "Oh, be still my heart," I teased. "Careful, princess. I might miss your constant threats."
She shook her head, rolled her eyes dramatically, and marched ahead. “You’d miss me threatening to stab you.”
“That I would princess, because it tur—”
“Yes, yes. You already said it. No reason to repeat it,” she muttered, but I didn’t miss the flush that spread across her face.
We ventured deeper into the enchanted woods, my body aching with each movement while the magic within me worked to heal my injuries. Yet, my side continued to burn.
Leaves rustled underfoot, and the gurgling of a nearby stream beckoned us. My spine straightened as Rosemary's steps quickened, both of us eager for fresh water. The trees parted, revealing a meadow where wildflowers thickened along the trails, and a wide stream cut through the clearing.
Without a word, Rosemary pushed toward that stream, her pack dropping along the bank.
I knelt next to her, dipping my fingers into the cool water, admiring the glittering rays of the sun as it danced across the rippling surface.
I drank my fill, relishing the feel of its cold kiss as it coated my parched throat.
I eagerly freed my feet from my boots and stepped into the stream, moaning as the icy water soothed my aching muscles. I waded to the center, where only my head remained above the surface. The cold gripped my side wound, making me wince, but the pain soon ebbed a fraction, and I sighed in relief.
Rosemary tossed her boots next to her pack, lifted the heavy traveling dress from her shoulders until she stood along the bank in only her undergarments.
Without hesitation, she splashed into the water, following me but remaining out of my reach as she let the water course over her body.
Her eyes studied me, grazing along the jagged scar along my neck to my jaw.
Her head tilted as she asked, "What do the tattoos along your face and neck mean? The runes?"
I raised my brows in surprise. It hadn't been the ugly scar she'd been staring at after all, but the runed tattoos painted along the right side of my face and neck. The ancient fae symbols only known to the royal families, passed down over the generations for tradition and survival.
Yet, my seelie companion, a royal herself, didn't recognize these symbols for what they were. I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling the damp strands from my brow. "You don’t know ancient fae?"
Her hands roved over her skin as she watched me. She let the water clear away the sweat and grime of our days of travel as she shook her head.
"It is a story of creation. A prophecy of hope and heartbreak," I explained, my fingers gliding over the moist skin of my arm as I traced the symbol there.
Her eyes followed my movements, taking in the intricate details of each rune.
"I wasn't able to learn much," she confessed as she approached me.
Her fingers lifted from beneath the water until she brought them to the second symbol along my skin, her touch a breath away. "But doesn't this one mean heart?"
I stilled as her finger hovered just above the skin of my arm. An electric jolt traveled within my blood, begging for her touch as she indicated the ancient fae symbol that told a story of a male who had lost his mate, his heart. I didn't trust my voice to be able to speak so I simply nodded.
"What does this line mean?" she asked, her fingertip colliding with the next rune. Her lips parted as she sucked in a sharp breath. Could she feel the same charge beneath her skin that raced within mine?
"It is a tale of loss and heartbreak." My words came out hushed, barely audible over the gurgling water that flowed around us.
Her gaze remained locked onto the rune before her attention lifted to the scar that wrapped around the right of my neck. Her fingertips were a dusted touch over the jagged wound. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
She couldn't know about this scar, not really.
How could she understand the weight of this particular wound?
A memory I would live with until my dying breath.
A wound I had taken that had about ended my life, that had left me half-dead on a battlefield all those years ago while her world burned around her.
"How did you get this?" she whispered, her fingertips tracing the raised line of scar tissue that curved around my throat like a macabre necklace. Even beneath the tunic, I could feel the familiar ridge of damaged skin that disappeared around my back, a reminder of how close death had come.
I went still beneath her touch, my breathing shallow as her fingers continued their exploration.
For a moment, I considered deflecting with a joke or changing the subject entirely.
But the gentleness in her touch, the genuine concern in her eyes, broke down the walls I'd built around this particular pain.
"A yeti," I said simply, though those two words could never encompass the horror of what had happened.
"In the northern territories, during the Blackwater Uprising.
I was sent north three days before to quell the rebellion, my…
commanding officer said it would only take a fortnight.
" My laugh was as bitter as a winter’s wind.
"I should have refused. Should have told her that her wars could wait.
That protecting—" I paused, realizing I’d almost said protecting you.
"Protecting my family was more important than some distant political maneuvering. "
I felt the familiar tingle of her magic stirring under her fingertips, responding to my pain and her desperate wish to heal me. But this scar was a century old, the wound long since closed and hardened into permanent remembrance.
"The creature caught me off guard," I continued, my voice growing distant as I lost myself in the memory.
"Ice yetis are faster than they look, and this one was ancient, cunning.
Its claws were like frozen daggers, sharp enough to cut through steel.
When it swiped at me, I thought I was dead.
Felt the cold burn as it opened my throat, felt my blood turn to ice crystals before it even hit the snow. "
She pressed her palms against the scar, and I could feel her magic trying to flow, to somehow undo decades of pain and regret.
But her power felt sluggish against the old wound, reluctant to work against something so set in stone.
I watched frustration flicker across her features as her magic offered only the faintest warmth.
"How did you survive?" she asked, though I could see she dreaded the answer.
"Barely," I admitted, my hand covering hers where it rested against my throat.
"The cold actually saved me, froze the blood before I could bleed out entirely.
My men found me three days later, more dead than alive.
It took weeks to heal, weeks of drifting in and out of consciousness while healers worked day and night to keep me breathing. "
I couldn’t tell her the rest. Not yet. How by the time that I was strong enough to travel, by the time that I could come for her, the seelie palace had been empty.
Not even the staff remained. The villagers said the entire royal family had been killed, and that anyone close to the palace at the time had also perished, killed when the unseelie queen’s curse backfired.
The rest of the seelie, cursed just like her sister. Frozen in time. Waiting.
"I'm sorry," she breathed, and I suspected it wasn't just for the failed healing but for something deeper she couldn't yet name.
There was a weight in her voice, a grief that seemed too large for our brief acquaintance, as if some part of her soul recognized what her mind had forgotten, the years of separation, the pain we'd both carried, the choices that had kept us apart when we should have been together.
"Don't be," I said softly, catching her hands and bringing them to my lips despite the water surrounding us. "The scar reminds me never to put duty over those I love again. To never let politics and obligation come first." I pressed a gentle kiss to her palm.
Her magic flickered once more against the old scar before giving up entirely. Some marks, I realized as I watched the acceptance cross her features, were too deep and too meaningful to erase. This scar would remain, a permanent reminder of the cost of blind obedience.
I swallowed back that history and shrugged. The movement stretched the wound along my ribs, and I winced. "It is a dead language anyway," I replied, trying to hide away my discomfort.
Still, her features flashed with concern, her brows drawing together as she searched my face. "Are you okay?" Her gaze dropped to the water, to where my wound lay. "You're hurt!"
"I’m fine," I replied, taking a step back from her even if it pained me to put distance between us. "I’m just a bit sore from the fight. I just need time to heal. I’ll be fine soon."
She stared at me, unconvinced, but let it go. "How far are we from our destination?"