Page 46 of Ties of Starlight

“This is my seventh life.”

His mouth fell open, but another voice interrupted instead.

“Your Majesty, if we're going to keep on schedule we must leave now!”

Frode.

Idonea wasn't sure if she should be grateful for the interruption or not.

Nyrunn snapped his mouth shut and looked her over, while she tried to make herself as small as possible and covered the deathmark. He just grabbed her bag and shoved everything inside it, saying, “Get dressed. We will discuss this insanity on the road.”

And then he was sweeping out of the tent.

Idonea brushed her fingers over her deathmark again. The scratches stung when she agitated them.

No one had ever discovered it before. No one had ever gotten close enough to her journal before.

Olaug had either remembered on his own or she’d hidden it from him.

Anyone would think she was insane.

If Nyrunn didn’t believe her…

What would he do with her?

Chapter 17

Idonea wasn't Idonea. Well, shewas, but she was also Inga, the murderess.

And the other past five girls who had been Gytha's chosen.

Nyrunn stood by his steed, waiting for Idonea—whoever that really was—to exit their tent. He held her bag tightly with one hand.

If…

Stars.

If this was true, the consequences were staggering.

It meant that Idonea hadkilledtwo people. She'd been killed. By hisuncle.

By alchemists.

By Moon Elves.

She'd been drowned, poisoned—Nyrunn pushed down the bile rising in his throat remembering what he’d learned the Moon Elves had done to Gytha's chosen when they'd kidnapped her hundreds of years before. Those despicable, unspeakable acts alldone to his wife.

His wife who had spent six previous lifetimes married to another man.

Then she came out of the tent. The other side of the bond sparked as he turned to face her. The haunted terror in her eyes was new for someone who had seen so much. And directed at him. Like out of all her lives and all the horrific things she had endured, he was somehow the thing that scared her the most.

The husband she wasn't supposed to be married to.

She hurried to mount her steed, glancing at him. He didn’t move to help her mount. The servant holding her reins gave her a boost. Once she was up, he gave her a nod and urged his horse on to their party, waiting for them. He could tell she was trying to keep anything from slipping through the bond, but without a wall, pieces were still slipping through. If her anxiety was choking him, he could only imagine what it was doing to her.

What was it the Constella had said about the bond? It wasn’t just an involuntary exchange.

He paused, focusing on the hum, staring down at the lines on his arm. Last night, when she was in his arms, the love he had for her swelled in his chest so much he ached trying to hold it back and failed. When he focused on that memory, the feeling returned and he pushed it into the bond.

---