Page 79 of Lore of the Tides

The royal family’s personal physician had been sent for. He’d examined him, given him a draught, and declared to no one in particular that his body had had quite a shock and that Finndryl just needed to sleep it off. When he awoke he would be fine, and any hint of his fever should be gone.

Once the draught took hold and Finn’s body temperature lowered, Syrelle and the doctor lifted him onto the bed to rest. The moment Finndryl’s head lay upon the pillow, the physician practically flipped over himself getting to the door to make a swift exit. He’d kept staring at Lore’s legs and feet, which were bare beneath the loose, flowing dress she’d donned upon her return, with barely concealed horror.

Lore had sat down in a chair, tucking her offending legs and toesies beneath her.

Lore didn’t think the physician felt comfortable around landers. Though as a healer you would think he would be more comfortable than most around others’ bodies.

She hadn’t moved from the chair, though dawn had long since come and gone.

Finndryl’s broad, well-muscled chest rose and fell at regular intervals. His brow was smooth, unfurrowed. His flawless mahogany skin positively gleamed in the low lights cast by the glowshells on the ceiling.

Not one of his hairs was out of place, the beauty of artfully coiled locs—no flyaway curls or bad hair days. He permanently looked ethereal, immaculate. Lore couldn’t help but lean over him, sweeping aside a phantom strand. In truth, Lore brushed her knuckles across his cheek because she just wanted to assure herself that he was still here. That he was no longer scorching hot to the touch.

He is fine, she repeated silently. More than fine; his breaths were soft. He was sleeping.

Serenely, even.

She hadn’t killed him with her wild idea to save a kingdom and, at the same time, surprise one of the most important people in her life by breaking a generational blood curse that, oh, turned out to be... yes, possible to accomplish, but maybe was ashock to the system, quitedangerous, and extremely, if his groans of agony were any tell, fuckingexcruciating.

She brushed his cheek again with her knuckles.

Hewasfine. Just fine.

He would wake soon, and maybe they could laugh about this. If not, she would let him be as grumpy as his big, secretly bleeding heart desired.

She couldn’t believe that she’d thought him selfish when she first met him. Callous, even. Finndryl always put others before himself. He just did it in an understated, subtle way. Usually. Unless he was cutting down fae guards in a tower in order to free women and children from a maniac’s clutches. Or risking his life to restore a kingdom of sirens. Or grabbing her hand without a single ounce of hesitation when magic threatened to tear her apart. Then... Finn was the opposite of understated. He was just... him. A natural-born fucking hero.

And she almost fucking broiled him alive from the inside with his own magic.

Once again, Lore was losing faith in her decision-making skills. She just so often made the wrong ones, and it endangered everyone she loved—again and again, on repeat.

Goddess, what if he didn’t wake up? What if she’d jeopardized him to the point where he slept forever and died?

A sharp knock at the door startled Lore out of her spiraling thoughts. It slid open before she had a chance to inquire who was there.

Syrelle had changed clothes, which had all but melted from carrying a scorching Finn on his back for hours. He looked striking in formfitting checkered trousers, black boots, and a dark-blue button-up shirt. Because of course he did. What about the fae made them constantly look like they had seventeen hours of sleep and dined on the gods’ diet?

Finndryl would hate for him to be in here. She should ask him to leave, tell him to leave, or order him out.

Out of the room. Out of the palace. Out of their lives.

But Syrelle had carried an unconscious Finndryl. Lore could actually see the heat radiating from Finn; it would have burned like hell, no matter how powerful Syrelle’s magic was, and still, he’d carried Finndryl all that way to Lapis Deep.

Over uneven volcanic rock, safely skirting spouts of steam. Across miles of ocean floor. Through kelp forests, up and down valleys, around venomous anemones.

And Lore had no doubt that if the Nikoryxia, who had been trailing them all the way to the volcano, hadn’t fled the moment the magic was set free, Syrelle would’ve protected Finndryl with his life.

Despite their mutual dislike.

Everything Syrelle said was continuously at odds with his actions.

“I still can’t believe you managed to break the curse. We all thought it impossible,” Syrelle said, walking into the room.

Lore wrung her hands together before dropping them into her lap and twisting the fabric of her dress. “I try to live my life as if nothing is impossible. I’ve been thinking about this for days. I just needed a super-powerful, practically infinite flood ofSourceto achieve it.” Lore’s determination broke, and she swallowed back a sob. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. When it put him at such risk. It’s not like he asked me to. I just thought...” Her sob escaped her clutches, and she spoke through tears that she wiped away purely out of habit because tears were indiscernible in salt water. “I just thought that it would make him happy. Not almost...” Lore hiccupped, trying desperately not to wail. “Not almost kill him!”

Syrelle’s gaze alighted on her face. “I wonder what form his magic will take.”

“Wh... what?” Lore asked, once again wiping her cheeks. She could feel tears squeezing out of her ducts, but the salt water surrounding them just accepted her tears as its own and whisked them away.

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