Page 54 of Ties of Starlight

Unfortunately, it meant Nyrunn couldn’t look away when they grabbed the shaft and forced it through. Idonea’s eyes opened as she screamed again, tears flooding down her cheeks. The white-hot feeling of the sharp arrow ripping through her muscles ricocheted through the bond, and Nyrunn tried to take it but his frazzled grip was failing and some of it slipped away from him.

Idonea shuddered as the healers began weaving their starlight once more into the wound, trying to repair the damaged muscles inside. Nyrunn shifted his hand from gripping the back of her head to cradling it, gently stroking her hair as a few pained whimpers left her mouth.

The pain began to shift from an inferno to a duller roar.

The healers wrapped another bandage around her shoulder and shifted her arm into a sling. Idonea stilled, her breathing evened out.

“Your Majesty, do you have any injuries?”

“No.” He didn’t dare shake his head for fear of dislodging his wife. “As long as Idonea is healed, you can go. I’m sure there are plenty of others who need you right now.”

“We’ll be back soon to check on her. Until then, lay her on her back, don’t let her roll to either side.”

Nyrunn gave an assenting hum as they left the tent. Like he was letting her out of his arms anytime soon. His only movement was to shift so he was behind her and her back lay against his chest. He lay back, keeping one arm around her waist and using the other to pull the thin blanket of the cot up to her neck.

Nyrunn continued to take on as much of the ache in her wounds as he could, but its pervasiveness continued tooutpace him. So, he instead focused on surrounding Idonea with the feeling of his love for her. She was alive.

She was still with him.

He didn’t even have any words left he could say even if she were awake to hear them.

Better to try and show her instead.

Chapter 20

Idonea didn’t want to wake up. The aching pain pervading through her side and shoulder combined with the warmth surrounding her made her want to just stay under the blankets until the pain went away. She started to roll onto her side to burrow deeper into the bed, but the arm around her waist tightened and stopped her.

Idonea’s eyes flew open as it all came rushing back to her. Nyrunn discovering her journal. The Moon Elves’ attack. The dagger in her ribs.

She jerked, but the arm around her kept her where she was even as her breathing turned shallow and frantic.

“You’re alright. Everything is alright.”

Nyrunn’s voice murmured in her ear, and that was when she realized she wasn’t lying on the bed, but onhim. It was his arm around her waist pinning her down.

“Nyrunn?” Idonea turned her head to see him opening his eyes as he pulled his other arm out from under his head.

He had a lazy smile on his lips. “If you’re not careful, I’ll get used to hearing you actually use my name.”

The last thing she remembered was being in Nyrunn’sarms as they rode away from the fight. Her mind was slow and sluggish. She’d said something to him, certain she was dying. Had he said something afterwards?

“How do you feel?” Nyrunn ran a hand over her uninjured arm.

“Sore.” Idonea tried shifting again, but one of her arms was in a sling, so she didn’t get far. “Thirsty.”

Alive.

She was alive.

That was… good. It meant she could still complete the ritual.

It also meant she wasn’t getting her next chance to fix her mistakes and achieve her perfect ending anytime soon.

Nyrunn helped her sit up, pulling his arm from her waist as he climbed out from under her. As the blankets shifted, he quickly adjusted them so they stayed with her before he laid her back down. He brushed his palm over her forehead, shifting her loose hair out of her face. “I’ll go get you something to drink. The healers said you need to lie on your back, so no rolling over to your side while I’m gone and can’t stop you.”

That’s what he’d been doing?

He was gone without a chance for her to say anything more. Her mouth was too dry to anyway and her head still sluggish as she sank back into the cot. She used her good hand to pull at the blanket, and when it fell, she discovered the bandages around her shoulder and her ribs were the only things covering her torso. She spotted the scraps of the blouse they must have cut off her thrown aside to the ground.

---