Chapter 34 A Dance of Axes and Arrows #3
They made a stop in a hidden part of a nearby forest to tend to his injuries while Olga stood guard.
When Alissa lay him down on the ground, her heart broke.
He was a shadow of the strong man he used to be; his bones were prominent, and his muscles were almost all gone as a result of the malnutrition.
One of his arms was severed, and after a month in chains, the skin of his wrist and ankles had been worn away, leaving the injury raw and exposed, with only flesh remaining.
Eldric’s hair was longer and greasy, and so was the beard that had grown too long.
His green eyes were swollen. He seemed to have aged ten years in a month.
She never thought it would hurt this much seeing his joy and youth being subdued by trauma.
Eldric grunted in pain as he tried stretching his hand to hold her, but his limbs appeared to be made of lead.
He craved to feel her under the touch of his fingers, only to prove this wasn’t another hallucination of his.
He scanned every inch of her with his intense gaze, concerned for her well-being, knowing he would kill anyone who had laid a finger on her in his absence.
Even in his state, she was the only focus of his concern. Losing her again was his greatest fear.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” His voice was raspy.
“Shh.” Alissa sealed his lips with the brush of her finger on them. “Don’t speak just yet. Let me heal you first.”
Eldric furrowed his brow; he didn’t know she had the power to mend all of his injuries—the physical ones, at least. Without another word, Alissa summoned her power for the second time that night.
After all the energy spent on the battlefield, her power took longer to manifest this time.
When it finally appeared, the tingles became specks of light healing each and every part of him that was broken.
She didn’t really need to touch him to heal him, but she did it anyway as an excuse to feel the warmth of his presence again.
Alissa slowly slid her finger over his wrist and ankles, where they had been hurt. She caressed his back, where the scarring from the whips had made layers of dead skin, so many times had he been tortured. She touched his face, all covered in bruises, and kissed his tear-dampened cheek.
She left his missing arm for last, growing the bone, flesh, and skin back as if it had never been cut off in the first place.
She focused on his muscles then, building them back to the same strength he had before he was captured.
When Alissa was done, her power had made him a new man, free of any physical suffering, free of the new scars that had been a map of his trauma.
Eldric watched her, his lips agape. He was mesmerized by both seeing her use magic for the first time and by how it felt to be whole again. All he had felt for the past four weeks was excruciating pain. Now that he was healed, he wondered if this was his reality or a mere illusion.
“You really are a Zeity.” He cleared his throat, adjusting his vocal cords to the tone of speaking. They had only been used for howls of pain lately.
“Yes,” she spoke shyly.
“You have what it takes to save your daughter,” Eldric said, bringing back the memory of what Mrs. Ilden had explained would be necessary to break the curse.
“I do.” They surveyed each other in silence.
His gaze drifted back to the arm that hadn’t been there before, turning it up and down, flexing his fingers, and testing his movements. “You are amazing,” he breathed. His voice filled with reverence and awe.
She blushed, and her lips turned up in a sad smile.
“I thought you would be on your way to Bryniard by now.”
“I stayed for you.” Her fingertips gently slid through his hair, then his jaw and cheeks.
“You should have left, Alissa.”
Eldric wasn’t a man faithful to any religion, but every day in incarceration, he had prayed.
He recited the Lizien and Rugresh prayers any time his body was brought back to consciousness in hopes that those powers would keep her alive and bless her way back into saving her child.
But there she was, tending to him, wasting precious time.
“I would never abandon you here to die.”
Tears filled their eyes both at the relief of finally being reunited and at all the pain inflicted since that fateful day when Freyah died, and he was taken.
“Freyah. She is dead, Eldric.” Alissa allowed herself to feel it all, feel the hollowness that had been in her chest for the past month. She wailed her grief as he wrapped his arms around her.
Eldric had been through hell in the endless days of abuse, but hearing Alissa’s sobs of desperation provoked in him a different kind of pain. “I know,” his voice quivered. He had promised to protect them, and because he failed, Freyah was gone, and Alissa was broken.
“It’s all my fault. I should have trusted you when you said inviting Desi was a bad idea,” Alissa spoke between sobs.
“That was not your fault, darling.” He stroked her hair gently as she rested her cheek on his chest.
She had missed the way he called her darling; she had missed the way his arms felt around her.
“I had a lot of time to think about how everything went down, and I believe Ronin’s death might not have been of natural causes either.” Eldric’s tone was somber.
“Do you think she killed him?”
“I saw her give him a potion the night before his death. I didn’t think this could have been the cause back then, but now, when I think back, the way she reacted when she saw me standing right there was too suspicious.”
It did make sense. The signs had been there all along; they were just too naive to see them. She shook her head, wondering how many more people had been deceived by that white smile and soothing voice.
“I’m so glad you’re alive. I don’t know what I would do if I had lost you.” He held the back of her neck in his palm fiercely, forcing her to look into his eyes.
“Me too,” she breathed, bringing their foreheads together. “I’m sorry for what they did to you.”
“It’s okay. You made me whole again.” Eldric wasn’t referring only to his arm.
She bit her lower lip, trying to hide the wobbling.
“Thank you for saving me.” His whisper caressed her ear, carrying so much truth and passion it killed her.
Here they were, two broken people whose healing journey was yet so far from over. Alissa still had her daughter to save and an ultimate sacrifice to make, but perhaps part of that healing started in being reunited with Eldric and knowing they could rely on each other through it all.
Olga stepped closer, her arms crossed. Her long violet braid hung over her right shoulder as she rolled her eyes at them. Her patience for wallowing was especially short.
Eldric’s gaze flew in her direction. The way she stood there, so bossy and demanding, made him wonder if she was waiting for an apology.
He promptly rose to his feet, his head bowed as he prepared to express the guilt that had weighed on him since that day.
But before he could utter a word, she raised her hand, silencing him with a gesture.
“Please, spare me any more of your sentimental bullshit. I can’t take it,” she said, her tone sharp and unwavering.
Alissa’s laughter echoed through the place, a sound so warm it seemed to bring his body back to life. Eldric realized then that Alissa understood Olga’s unspoken demand. She stood up, extending her hand to him.
With a smile on her lips, she asked, “Are you feeling well enough to ride with me?”
“Yes. Are we going back to Bryniard?”
“Not yet. We need to make a stop first.”
Alissa and Olga mounted Zig and Zag. From up on the horse, Olga looked down on him standing there with his hand on his waist.
“Come, my friend. Justice awaits,” Olga bellowed.
His eyes darkened the minute he understood the hidden truth in her words.
Desi had no idea what was coming for her.