Page 53 of Ties of Death

I hesitate. Does he even want me to? Even with our bond, I can’t read him. I don’t know what Daenn wants. Oh, I know what he wants as king, what he wants for his people’s sake. But what doeshe,as a man, want? He married me for them, but is it possible… do I dare hope he might want me to stay for himself?

I don’t hope for love. Thinking of Daenn still leaves my heart in tangles, each strand a thread from our history—the sweet momentsandthe painful ones.

But I don’t want to leave. I may have buried it when I was given to Tolomon, but I have cared about Daenn for years. And I have nowhere else to go besides my clan.

A marriage of companionship wouldn’t be so bad. He’s given no indication of interest in any other woman, and he does need a queen. I… I could fulfill the role, if he lets me. Maybe I’m not entirely defective and could bear him heirs given time, maybe with some assistance from the healers. Maybe here, without the crushing presence of a cruel husband, my body will work right. If he lets me stay. If he takes off the bracers.

I turn the idea over in my head one more time, and the more I consider it, the more I like it. Yes. I’ll present it to him. I can’t see any reason for him to dislike it.

Thus fortified, I push off the doorway and enter our quarters. They’re empty. I try to ignore the disappointment gaping in my chest at that. It doesn’t matter. What I want to discuss with him can wait until he returns. I leave the security of the wall and take slow, careful steps toward the bed. Sigrid willscold me endlessly if she returns with my supper and I’ve fallen.

I’m halfway there when I see him.

All that’s visible is a loose, limp hand stretched out from behind the bed. Horror rips into me, and I lurch toward him—and stumble and fall, because my body isn’t ready for this level of motion yet. But I push myself up and crawl the rest of the way. I need to reach him; I need to make sure he’s not—

I can’t even think it.

I close the last awful distance and hover a hand over his mouth, watching his chest with a clawing desperation.

A faint warmth washes over my palm as his chest dips, and I let out a shaky sob. He’s alive. He’s still alive.

I press a hand to his chest as I close my eyes and delve through my magic for our bond. I need to feel his every breath and heartbeat; I’ll lose myself completely without that reassurance.

Distantly, I hear the door open. Sigrid gives a cry of alarm. I don’t even look at her as I issue an order.

“A healer—Daenn needs a healer!”

Her footsteps recede at a run, and I let myself sink back into my magic.

It takes me too long to find the bond, but after an agonizing stretch of searching, I do. I can see at a glance why it took so long, and it makes my insides turn with nausea.

The bond is dwindling. It’s not only that the bracers are eating away at Daenn’s magic; they are. But it’s worse than that. I can barely sense him, and what I can sense is faded, like a used, threadbare rag.

I don’t need a healer to tell me what’s happening. I know with an icy, curdling certainty.

Daenn is dying.

31

An Agonizing Finality

Ihover as Master Healer Tyr examines Daenn.

Sigrid returned with him in record time. Eskil and two other warriors came too. They moved Daenn to the bed, and Master Healer Tyr took his vitals, careful to not touch any exposed skin.

Master Healer Tyr is a little more grey at the temples than I remember from before I moved to the lowlands, but he otherwise looks much like he did when I was a child running freely through his caverns while he and my mother worked together.

The other warriors have left, but Eskil stands beside me, arms crossed and watching the healer work with the same intense anxiety that I feel. I’m sure everyone will worry when they hear what’s happening to their king, but Eskil is the only other one who I know feels the same bone-deep fear about it that I do.

Sigrid comes to stand by me and presses one wrinkled hand to my forearm. “Emana, dearest. You need to eat.”

“No,” I snap, my voice tight. The thought of trying to stomach anything while this worry for Daenn churns in me is nauseating. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her lips press together in a thin line, but she doesn’t push the issue.

Master Healer Tyr straightens, and I take a step forward instinctively. “Well?”

He doesn’t look at me but rather taps a finger on the bracer as he ponders it. “You say these are draining his magic?”

“Yes.”

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