38. Gemira
Gemira
Marel tightens the wrap at my ribs with hands I remember from childhood. The same hands that braided my hair, wiped my tears, and snuck me honey cakes when my mother wasn’t looking.
The land took me and somehow brought me back here. To Northpine, to my village, next door to the cabin where I spent my childhood.
Marel and Olin care for me now the way they always did. Like no time has passed at all. Like I’m still the girl who lived next door, not a woman with a fake name and too many secrets.
I don’t believe in fate. But this doesn’t feel like chance.
I let her finish wrapping the bandage before I speak.
“He has to have her.” The words come out tight. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I keep asking myself why. Why her. Why would the King take Mom?”
Marel’s hands go still against my side.
“I don’t know, honey. Your mother was always guarded about her past. As close as we were, I always knew she had things she wasn’t sharing, long before the lie you had to start living. But she always had a way of taking care of herself.”
I want to believe her because the alternative isn’t something I can hold and still function.
“Does he know about your mom or the rest of it?” Marel asks, nodding toward the window. I follow her gaze. Outside, Ryewood, Grier, and Olin are chopping wood in the snow, the crack of the ax carrying in through the glass.
“No,” I answer, and every part of me wishes it was different.
“Good.” Marel exhales softly through her nose. “Then you still have room to breathe.”
It should reassure me, but my chest pulls tight anyway.
“How does it feel,” she asks, “carrying it all?”
The question lands harder than anything else she could have said.
“I don’t know how to put it down,” I admit. “Not without risking everything.”
Marel nods, like that makes sense.
“You’ve always been like that, taking the weight first and deciding later if you can survive it.”
I huff a weak laugh. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It’s not meant to be,” she says gently. “But it’s not an accusation either.”
She rests her hand against my face, reminding me that I’m loved.
“Olin sent word to Finn this morning,” she says. “Letting him know that you’re here and safe.”
She cups my face with both hands the way she did when I was small.
My voice drops. “He’s entering the trials this year.” Marel’s typical composure cracks. “I keep telling myself he’ll survive. He’s strong, careful, and smarter than most. But even the ones who do survive come back different from the trials. I don’t know who he’ll be when he comes back.”
She pulls me in, and I let myself be held for a moment.
“Love doesn’t vanish so easily, honey.”
I nod, though the fear doesn’t loosen.
Marel’s gaze flicks toward the door as it opens. She smiles, faint and knowing.
“He made it longer than I thought before checking on you.”
I follow her gaze. Ryewood stands just inside the threshold, snow clinging to his boots with his breath fogging the air.
Marel rises, smoothing her apron. “I’ll give you two some space.”
She leans in and presses a soft kiss to the top of my head.
“I’ll be in the washroom grinding herbs if you need me,” she says, already moving. The door closes gently behind her, the steady rhythm of the mortar and pestle resuming a moment later.
I turn back to Ryewood. His eyes haven’t left me. I feel him taking me in. I’m sitting upright without help now. My breath doesn’t hitch when I move. The color has crept back into my cheeks. The bowl beside me is empty, with no spoon left abandoned halfway through.
His gaze drops to it and lingers. His expression shifts, weighted with what we both already know. We’ve been here nearly a week. Long enough for my body to knit itself back together. Long enough that going back isn’t a question of if anymore, just when.
He sits, facing me with his knees settling to the outside of mine, and wraps both hands around mine. His thumb traces slow circles across my knuckles, like he’s memorizing the motion.
“You know,” I say lightly, “you look like you belong here.”
He hums, noncommittal.
“Chopping wood with snow on your boots. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d always been a commoner.”
One corner of his mouth lifts, just barely. “And if I said I liked it?”
I shrug. “I’d say it suits you.”
The smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Gemma.” Something in his voice makes me go still.
“Let’s stay, Gemma.” He brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “Let’s disappear. Build something here with Grier and Finn. Please.”
The words crack something open in my chest.
For a moment, one desperate, aching moment, I let myself imagine it. A cabin in the snow with his arms around me every night. A life with no secrets, no lies, no castle full of people who would kill us if they knew the truth. Being Ella again, not Gemma. Being real and whole.
My eyes are burning. When did I start crying?
“Ryewood…” His name comes out broken. “There are things you don’t know about me.”
“Then tell me.”
“It’s not that simple.” Her face flashes through my mind.
“It is.” He cups my face, and his thumbs brush away my tears. “Whatever it is, whatever you’re hiding, it doesn’t matter. Nothing you could tell me would make me stop loving you.”
I close my eyes and let his words wash over me. He means it; I can hear it in his voice.
“There are things I need to do back in Terrath.” My voice is shaking. “People who need me. I can’t just leave.”
“Gemma—”
“Please, Ryewood.” I’m breaking. I can feel it—the cracks spreading through me. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll say yes. Because if you ask me again, I’ll stay. And I’ll have everything I’ve ever wanted—and it will destroy me. Because staying wouldn’t make me happy. It would turn everything I love into something I’m ashamed of.”
And for the first time, I see it clearly. He wouldn’t be ruined by loving me. He would survive it by reshaping his life around my guilt until there was no room left for himself.
I finally look at him. His face is blurred through my tears, but I can still see the devastation. The raw, open wound of him. He’s wrecked, completely wrecked.
I feel a chasm splitting open in my chest. A sob tears from my throat, and my ribs scream in protest. The pain lances through me, sharp and sudden, and I gasp, curling in on myself.
“Gemma—”
“I love you, Ryewood.” Every sob pulls at my stitches, causing fire to lance through my ribs with every breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Because choosing him means losing her.
“Shh, shh, shh.” His hands cradle my face, and his touch is so tender it cracks me open even further. “Gemma, sweetheart, look at me. Look at me.”
I try, but everything is blurred.
“We’ll go back.” His voice cracks, but he pushes through. “We’ll go back, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I asked. We’ll go back.”
“Ryewood—”
“I didn’t mean to—I shouldn’t have—” He presses his forehead to mine. “Breathe, little fox, please. You’re hurting yourself.”
“I want to stay.” I can barely get the words out through the sobbing. “I want to. I want you—”
“I know.” He folds me into him, mindful of my ribs but holding me like I’m the only thing keeping him upright too. “I know, sweetheart.”
I press my face into his neck and let myself break against him. He holds me through it, one hand in my hair, the other wrapped tight around me.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
When the sobs slow and I can breathe again, he slides one arm beneath my knees and lifts me.
I curl into him and press my face into his neck, letting the cedar and moss wash over me.
He carries me to the bed and lays me down with a tenderness that makes my chest ache all over again.
Then he climbs in behind me, curls his body around mine, and lets his arm settle around my waist. His lips brush my hair.
“I love you.” I feel the fight leave his body—the surrender and the quiet decision to love me without conditions. “Whatever you need. Wherever you need to go, I’m yours.”