Chapter 12 #3
I rushed to get the story out, how I’d seen him in the palace, and how the physician had visited me once Nicosia left with his armies. How he’d shared his knowledge, and his part in the breaking, with me in exchange for forgiveness. Forgiveness I hadn’t given him.
Renn went very still. “That . . .”
“Is a lot to take in,” I finished for him.
We sat with it for several long minutes, emotions flowing between us like waves on sand.
“He thinks only Nicosia can kill you. A scripture in Prophecies about blood killing blood.”
Half a chuckle died on his tongue. “I know the passage, but I highly doubt that.” His hand absently went to his side, where the spear wound was. Still, his brow crinkled with depth of thought. I let him mull it over. A minute passed before he shook his head, dismissing the notion for now.
“How did you escape?” he whispered, breaking the heaviness.
I swallowed against my thickening throat. “It was . . . something like what I did to heal you. He grew frustrated. Took me to the dungeons. I made my lumis look like his . . . so Ursa could pass between us.”
He sat up. “Wait. Ursa? Your sister?”
I tried to hold them back, but tears pooled anyway. “It was the only way to get Eden and me out. Ursa hurt him, and I ran.”
“Oh, Nym.” He bent forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Nym, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I wiped my sleeve across my eyes. “Gods know I am so tired of crying.”
“The more you fight it, the more you will.”
I nodded, the wisdom sound. I rattled off the rest of it, how Eden and I had jumped—he winced, I thought, at the memory of experiencing that painful moment himself—how we’d picked our way across Sesta.
I thought Eden might have told him the story already, but he said, “She hasn’t spoken much, since she got back.
Only enough to tell us she was unharmed, and that you would come through Catalaine. ”
I wilted. “Renn . . . Eden is not unharmed.”
He stiffened, perhaps ready to receive bad news, perhaps in response to my own rising feelings, the thread of anger knitting them together.
“She may be well physically. I tried my best with that,” I continued. “But she has been abused. Even I don’t know the half of it, but she has been beaten, and she has been raped. Repeatedly, I’m sure. Nicosia held a parody of a wedding for them. Made her play her role.”
Renn paled to nail-tip white.
I clasped his hand, hard. “Do not tell her I told you this, but you need to know. She is hurting, and she will hurt for years to come. Do not leave her alone with men, even those you trust, because she will not trust them. She will sit in her fear, brew in it, and not tell a soul for the sake of her dignity. But fear is the antithesis of what she needs.”
His gaze broke from me, landing on the brazier for a tense minute. “I will make sure she has an attendant at all times. I will send her away from this.”
“Don’t send her away,” I countered. “Give her something to do. Something important. It’s the best way for us to heal.”
An ember of rage pulsed between our heart-lines. “Nym . . . I know you were . . . hurt, too. I felt it. But I . . .” His free hand made a tight fist around the blanket beneath us. “Did he . . . did anyone . . . ?”
“No,” I finished for him, and the ember snuffed into smoke. “No, he didn’t.”
Renn turned away then and coughed, harder than he had before. I gripped his shoulder, ready to hand him a corner of the blanket if he didn’t have a handkerchief, but the cough didn’t produce any blood. None I could see. And again, I couldn’t feel his sickness through our bond.
Touching the side of his neck, I slipped into his lumis, floored once more by the breadth of it, the beauty. I found myself gawking for a long moment before searching the network of spheres, trying to peer beyond the scars. I found nothing to heal.
Still, as the colors and the light swept from my vision, I touched the side of his face, the beginnings of blond scruff rough against my palm. “It’s you, Renn,” I whispered. “Gods-touched. It’s you.”
Grasping that hand, he kissed my first knuckle as coolness spiraled through our connection. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Do you disagree?”
He shook his head. “No, only . . . hoped. One of my brother’s contacts came forward about two months ago. About my mother. Sesta. She . . . knew, I guess.” He wiped his palm down his face.
“Renn.” I moved atop his lap so I could look him in the face. The bond aside, Renn did not wear his mask, and he started at my forwardness. I took his face in my hands. “Renn, this is a good thing. A hard thing, yes, but a good thing.”
He softened. “I know.”
“But,” I offered for him. He need not explain. But it would be hard. But he’d been flung into a position of leadership, a position of power, whereas a year ago he’d been bedridden. But people would die, following him. But he didn’t know how he would do what scripture claimed he could.
“Tell me what you can do,” I pressed. “Tell me exactly who you are.” Give me a truth to hold on to so I can stop falling.
The little quirk of his mouth felt like a prize. “Besides what you’ve seen? I’m . . . fast. Very fast. I’m . . . everything I could have been, multiplied. It’s hard to explain. I’ve only just gotten into the habit of not breaking drawers when I shut them.”
I twisted a lock of his hair around my finger, but internally, I fractured. “I don’t think you need me anymore, Your Majesty.”
Who was I, if not the prince’s—the king’s—healer? Without my sister, my family, my home?
He seized my waist. “I will always need you, Nym Tallowax.”
I felt the sincerity of the promise through our twined hearts, the warmth of it flooding my chest. But I felt something else, too, lurking beneath it. Desire, want. Physical need, though that had not been what he meant.
My pulse quickened. I had never been intimate with a man. Never willingly, at least. It was something I’d closed myself off to years ago. Yet that tendril of want sparked my own, along with a whisper of fear. A whisper of memory of the man who’d once hurt me so badly.
I remembered Renn would feel it, too. The thought of being so exposed to him, so laid bare, brought a flush to my cheeks.
His thumb caressed my hip. “Nym—”
The knock at the door came so suddenly I jumped and hit my head on the overhead locker.
I cursed. Renn winced.
“Sire?” a voice came through the door.
Renn’s hands lingered as I extricated myself from him. I started randomly thumbing through cabinets and drawers, trying to look occupied, as he said, “Enter.”
The man who came through the door had to duck to do it; he was large and muscled, deeply bronzed, perhaps in his mid-forties. Captain of the ship? Had we crossed the strait already?
Renn stood. “Nym, this is Commander Stonelay. He helped us with this excursion and has been pivotal in our retaliation against Sesta.” The large man tipped his head to me. “Commander, this is Nym Tallowax.”
He stepped forward and shook my hand, his swallowing mine.
His expression, though . . . it looked an odd mix of awe and hesitance.
It wasn’t until then that I realized how detrimental Nicosia’s beatings might have been to the war effort.
Surely Renn’s officers had witnessed his sudden influxes of pain.
Some might attribute it to his illness, but others might know better.
Renn would have had to explain to his most trusted some details of our connection.
He’d have had to—I was an unknown factor in everything, a vulnerability.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Miss Tallowax.
I would have advised against making the trip out here for only a single soul, but the healer of prophecy deserves the effort. ”
A shiver coursed down my spine. “There is no healer in any prophecy I’ve heard of, sir.”
He simply released my hand, neither agreeing nor refuting my claim. When he spoke again, he addressed Renn. “Your Majesty, the sooner, the better.”
Sooner for what?
I felt the apology through our bond before Renn offered it. “I’m sorry to ask you, Nym. I’m sure you’re exhausted. But anything you can tell us about Rodsfell, about what you saw or heard when you were with Nicosia, could be beneficial.”
I glanced between the two of them. “Anything?” I asked.
Like how if Adoel Nicosia was Renn’s father, that might make him ineligible for the Canseren crown?
Unless there was official paperwork from King Grejor.
He’d fully disguised and integrated Winvrin—Alarna—into his kingdom.
He must have done the same for Renn, not that it mattered now. Not with Rove sacked.
Then again, the ability to glow and fly and bring ancient prophecy to life likely surmounted the logistics of the thing.
Renn straightened. “Before I forget.” He reached behind him, to the back of his belt, and pulled out a small, unfamiliar leather sheath. Turned it over and handed it to me.
As my fingers brushed it, I noticed the citrine stone embedded in its handle.
My lips parted. “My mother’s knife.” I clasped it and pulled it free from its cover. The blade glimmered silver, sharp and polished. I’d dropped it in the snow when Nicosia captured me. Renn must have found it. Kept it, all this time.
Resheathing it, I pressed it to my heart, new moisture coming to my eyes. “Thank you for finding it. For taking care of it.”
A soft smile touched his lips. Warmth through the bond nearly overcame the lingering thorns there.
Gesturing to Commander Stonelay, Renn said, “I’ll come with you, if you wish,” and extended his hand.
I did. Weaving my fingers through his, I let him lead me from the cabin.