Page 78 of Ties of Starlight

“My most recent life is not separate from yours. Not truly. Your uncle. Your father...” Her hand fell. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I am aware that it was my uncle’s hand that killed you in your last life. As I said before, my relationship with my father was complex, but rest assured I have no affection for my father that you telling the truth could damage. My uncle... he was not any better, not really.”

Idonea reached up and touched her birthmark, fingers lingering on the discolored skin. “This isn't a birthmark. Not a normal one, anyway. I call them deathmarks. They're from my last death.” Her fingers traced the outline. “This one being from where your uncle stabbed me. Like a scar.”

He nodded. “I briefly saw your journal where you wrote your memory of the event, which isn't the same as what my uncle recorded.”

She nodded. “Yes, I don't really understand why he did it in the first place, so I understand why he didn't record it. Everything after he stabbed me, I mean. I understand why he stabbed me, obviously. I’d killed two people and who knows what else I would have done in that state? It was everything else that makes no sense really, why he held me and said all those things.”

Her first life could wait. This was just as, if not more, important.

“Start from the beginning, as much as you remember, anyway.”

Idonea nodded, keeping her gaze lowered to her lap and her fingers playing with the edge of her layered Venefician skirt.

“I didn't work in the library last life, but I did work in the castle. I always do; some things are pretty consistent life-to-life. Like, I lose my parents early. I was a maid, and I usually cleaned the royal wing or important courtiers’ rooms. It wasn't long before I started running into your uncle. Usually, he'd be coming back as I was finishing up his room, and he always had something to say. I never dusted quite right, and how could I when I was half the height an elf should be? Or there was a spot on the floor I'd missed, thanks to my inferior human blood marring my eyesight, and he'd insist I re-scrub the whole floor again before I could go, and he'd be watching to make sure I didn't slack off. Or if there was even the slightest thing wrong with my clothes, he'd say it was because of my savage, uncivilized human nature.”

Nyrunn's stomach started turning.

He knew where this story was going. It had been Idonea. Of course it had been her. How had he not put it together?

No wonder she’d hated Nyrunn from the moment she’d laid eyes on him.

But he didn’t dare interrupt her. She continued, “He never let an opportunity go by without making it clear how much I disgusted him with my very existence. He would tell me I was beautiful with a sneer on his face, mocking me. He called me a mongrel when my ears would show, just to make his friends laugh. Another time, he came crashing into his room while I was cleaning up and I dropped a vase of Star Lilies and it made such a mess, I had to spend another half hour of my shift cleaning it up while he just satthere and watched. After that he would call me ‘lily,’ to remind me of it.”

Nyrunn bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. He was going to be sick.

“I think the only reason he tolerated me even touching his room despite my inferiority was so he could torment me and remind me of my place. He got some twisted satisfaction out of it. He hated me.”

Wait… Did Idonea not know? He only caught a glimpse of her memory of her death, but what he saw, if it was accurate, how could she not know how wrong she was?

Idonea pulled her knees up to her chin, her voice heavy. “And it got worse when I was selected to be part of the Cometa Couple. He was even crueler. More demanding. I had blisters that wouldn't go away from how he made me redo tasks again and again. It got a little better eventually. One night, he kept me there, scrubbing his floor until dawn. Since I'd been there all night, there wererumors, which were ridiculous, but that things were of an inappropriate nature. That I was… faithless to Olaug, Olvir in that lifetime. King Hrorr apparently chewed Bror out about it, not for my sake, but because any royal deigning to lower themselves even to a dalliance with a half-elf was abhorrent, not to mention how it could compromise the Cometa Couple which they both needed to go right if they wanted to go avenge their parents by attacking the Moon Elves. Thankfully the rumors went away and Olvir believed me when I told him the truth that nothing untoward had happened. It helped that everyone in the castle knew how much Bror was repulsed by my human blood that the idea was quickly laughed away and my reputation was saved and I was able to continue as Gytha's chosen.”

Nyrunn pushed down the storm that was starting to rise in him. This part he had not known. That his unclehad… The turmoil from Idonea’s side of the bond just recounting the story was already devastating. If he let his emotions run away with him, it would only put her in a worse state and do them no good when the object of his fury was dead.

Idonea rested her chin on her knees as she wrapped her arms around her legs. “He left me alone for the most part after that, with a few snide insults or ridiculous demands here or there, but he mostly just restrained himself to glaring at me. Then I married Olvir and he was on the journey. I think he was mostly furious about the fact my status was being elevated and he wouldn't be able to torment me as a maid any longer after this. He didn't say a word to me until that night of the Heava Dance. And well, you know what happened next. I don't remember it fully, but I do remember Bror finding me, and then he said all those things… I mean, maybe he didn't. Maybe I lost my mind and imagined it because it doesn't make any sense.”

It did make sense, a twisted and horrific type of sense.

She was still in denial? Was that how she was protecting herself?

Did he let her stay that way?

Nyrunn took a deep breath. “No, I don't believe you imagined it. My uncle, before he died, he told me a story… about a maid. He didn't get into the details. He didn’t tell me about how he tried to ruin your reputation to stop you from marrying someone else… but it was you. He... He wasn't a good man.”

Nyrunn really didn't want to say any more than that. He had to, he knew that, but how could he get the words out?

Everything made so much more sense now, but he wished it didn’t. He’d rather it all be a mystery than for the answers to be this.

“I don’t understand.”

“Idonea… I… I think you do.” At her blank stare, he was forced to continue, “He didn’t want you to be part of the Cometa Couple because hewantedyou.”

The words were ash on his tongue. He didn’t dare call it love. What Idonea had described was nothing of the sort, at least nothing deserving of that title. He had to fight the urge to throw up at the painful, striking similarities that Idonea didn’t even know.

Idonea's eyes widened. “But... he hated me.”

“Probably because of how little that mattered.”

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