Chapter Twenty
Tor
The few minutes following the shields falling were chaos, as Var soothed Fernila and Cala, and Tor wound up on his knees next to Ada. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to find Stronex across from him as they carefully turned her over.
Tor pressed trembling fingers to her carotid and then nearly fell over as relief swamped him at the thrumming movement.
“She’s still alive,” he gasped.
Stronex let out a ragged breath, his expression almost too raw for Tor to bear.
Pel appeared at his side with a glass of water, and Tor listed sideways slightly. (Even with Mantling, he’d hit that wall hard.) Pel knelt down beside him. There was some blood smeared on him, but when Tor raised alarmed eyes to his, Pel assured him, “It’s not mine. We’re doing clean up.”
A glance at the rest of the room showed that everyone who wasn’t busy having a desperate family reunion was indeed setting the rooms to right.
Even now, bodies were being dragged in from the hallway, and a guard appeared with a door. Tor wondered briefly where it had come from but then decided it honestly didn’t matter. As Tor watched, Beluna, Cavun, and two of Stronex’s guards stepped out of the room and closed the new door behind them.
At a glance, the room would probably look much as it always did, and now they’d have warning if more trouble was coming their way.
Tor was very glad he had smart people with him.
He still felt a little bit as though his mind was mired a few minutes in the past, not quite able to catch up to what was happening now.
The tears from Fernila and Cala seemed finally to be tapering off. Ada was a still form between him and Stronex.
“Do you think it’s magical exhaustion?” he asked.
It hadn’t occurred to him that they might need a healer, which was incredibly short-sighted of him. Would Tama have come if he’d asked?
Only then Stronex was nodding at one of the guards who’d remained in the room, a tall woman with pale skin and black hair who looked to be about Tor’s age.
“Tekilona is a healer. Please come see what you can do.”
Stronex thought of everything. Tor never wanted to wind up in a situation like this ever again, but if he did, he definitely wanted Stronex by his side.
Maybe he at least offered advice?
Tekilona knelt down above Ada’s head, reaching out to lay her hands on either side of Ada’s face. Her eyes fluttered closed, and a look of intense concentration appeared. She grimaced, but when she opened her eyes again and removed her hands, she looked more serene.
“Her magic was badly unbalanced. I have given her a boost of my own magic, which should help.”
They all looked down again as Ada stirred a little. Tor’s breath caught as her eyes flickered open. Her brow furrowed, and then tears welled up.
“Am I dead?” she whispered.
“No, Ada,” Tor said, swallowing thickly. “Rumors of my demise were just a bit exaggerated. Hey, there, little sis.”
She reached for him with arms that didn’t seem to work quite right, and he pulled her into a hug. He cradled her to his chest, rocking her back and forth, patting her back and assuring her that everything was going to be all right.
“I’m fine and you’re fine and Var’s fine and Cala’s fine and Fernila’s fine. Everyone is fine. It’s going to be totally fine.”
She pulled out of his embrace enough to see Var, Cala, and Fernila for herself.
Tears were still leaking down her cheeks.
And then she caught sight of Stronex. Her face twisted, and she burst into tears, huge, wrenching sobs that were so much worse than the more regular crying that she’d been doing a moment ago.
Tor was at a loss, and in his moment of hesitation, Stronex opened his arms. Ada cast herself into them, clutching at him tightly. Stronex’s arms came around her, and he rocked her back and forth and murmured softly to her.
Slowly, the noise level in the room diminished, and Tor became aware that Ada was muttering, “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead,” over and over again into Stronex’s chest.
Stronex’s eyes closed for a moment, and then they opened again. “You survived the bond snapping. It’s going to hurt, but you’ll get through this, I promise.”
But Ada was shaking her head, and Tor’s breath caught. Pel rubbed his back soothingly. What further torture could be waiting for them? If they all made it through this only to have Ada killed because of Thurnil, Tor wouldn’t be responsible for his actions.
(He should feel worse about his brother-in-law’s death, probably. Maybe one day he would.)
“It was awful having the magic ripped out.” Ada sniffled, and she was silent for so long that Tor thought maybe that was it.
Stronex was gently stroking her hair, careful of the tangles. Gently, he said, “A breaking bond is incredibly painful. But it gets better with time.”
Only Ada was shaking her head. “You don’t understand.” Another sniff. “It doesn’t hurt at all anymore. I forgot what it felt like to not be in pain.”
Tor stared at his sister with utter horror and realized that everyone else was doing the same, gaping at her. Her face was buried in Stronex’s chest still, which was probably for the best.
It was Stronex who said, “It hurt when you were bonded?”
Ada sniffed again. She sounded exhausted. “Every moment of every day. Like there was something deep inside that I desperately needed to get away from. But couldn’t, because it was inside me.” She huffed a little laugh that didn’t sound very amused. “Thurnil said I was the worst kind of irritation.”
Stronex tightened his hold and kissed Ada on the top of the head. “He was a fool.”
She sniffed again, and her voice sounded as though it was filled with more tears. “He was your son.”
“He hurt you,” Stronex said, like that put him in a different category.
Tor had already respected Stronex, but now he was certain he genuinely liked the man.
Quietly, Ada said, “Not anymore.”
Tor grimaced, and Var winced visibly. Tor met his brother’s eyes and saw regret and guilt and pain in them. He didn’t want his brother to suffer, but he really hoped this taught him what Tor had been trying to say all along.
He’d been certain Terila wasn’t the right match for him. He’d been pretty sure that Ada and Thurnil’s match was terrible. But he hadn’t fully grasped what it would mean to have magic inside you day in and day out that you were repelled by.
It sounded like torture.
Speaking of Terila, Tor realized suddenly that Rin wasn’t in the room.
“Where’s Rin?”
Before he could get seriously alarmed, Pel laid a hand on his arm. “He and Nawila went to get Terila and Pamuna. We didn’t want them to go off and raise the alarm when we actually made it this far.”
Tor sagged in relief. He felt like a terrible friend for not noticing the man’s absence sooner, but there seemed to be so much going on that perhaps he could be excused for his lapse.
Var rose to his feet, helping Fernila to hers, and they came to sit closer to Ada, who honestly seemed to be the worst off at this point. Tor eyed Var suspiciously. How injured was he? He didn’t seem to have any physical ailments, but that was definitely not the only sort of injury possible.
Cala appeared to have dropped off to sleep in her mother’s arms, probably exhausted from what Tor had to assume was the most epic of crying fits.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Var asked Ada.
She raised her tear-stained face from Stronex’s chest. “You wanted the marriage. You said it was important to you and to the United Realms.”
Var’s face twisted. “I’m still your brother. You could have told me.”
Ada looked like she was going to start crying again, and Stronex looked like he was going to punch the High King in the face.
Tor leveled a stare at his brother and said, “Sometimes, you’re not very good at listening.”
For a moment, it looked like Var was going to lose his temper, but Fernila laid a hand on his arm, and he looked down at her, over at his sister—still leaning against Stronex as though she didn’t have enough strength to hold herself up—and then back to Tor.
“That’s true,” he admitted with what looked like difficulty.
“I’ve spent my whole reign trying to live up to our parents’ legacy.
The peace is important to me and the United Realms. What Fernila and I have is everything I’ve ever wanted.
” He cast her a fleeting fond smile that didn’t make Tor want to gag as much as it usually did.
Var turned to Ada. “I assumed it would be the same for you, which was foolish of me. Of course every relationship is different. I didn’t ask enough questions. I’m so sorry.”
Ada made a face. “I didn’t want you to know. There’s a reason I didn’t say anything. Thurnil and I didn’t realize until the bonding ceremony that we repelled one another. And by then, it was too late. It seemed better to try to bear it.”
Var’s expression was twisted into a strange combination of looking like he wanted to argue while blaming himself for everything.
Tor was reluctantly willing to concede it hadn’t all been Var’s fault, but it still send prickles of annoyance through him that his twin hadn’t noticed anything wrong in the four years of Ada’s marriage.
Tor had been sure something was off practically from the beginning…
but it was true that Ada had taken pains to hide it.
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” Var told her. “I should have followed up better, and I never should have left you unsure if you could talk to me. Even if we’d decided trying to break the bond was too much of a risk, you shouldn’t have suffered alone. That will be forever my fault.”
Ada sniffed, a few more tears trailing down her face, and then she reached for Var, and they hugged for a long time. (Tor couldn’t help but note that when they finished hugging, she nestled back in Stronex’s arms. Now was obviously not the time to ask any questions.)
Var looked over at Tor. “You were trying to tell me that you and Terila were incompatible, weren’t you?”