An assistant healer hustled into the room with buckets of fresh water on her arms.
Lyra gestured for Stella to get on the table with one hand while waving the other healer out. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Stella’s side twinged as she climbed onto the table and lifted the hem of her shirt. She closed her eyes and listened as Lyra soaked rags and began to clean the wound.
“This is deep, and the skin is shredded. It’s clotted but you got very lucky.”
“I know,” Stella said quietly. She dreaded the inevitable words she knew would come next.
“I can fix most of it but?—”
“It will scar. I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Lyra said.
Stella wasn’t vain. Her mother had beautiful scars that were a living story of her past. But without a happily ever after, Stella couldn’t help feeling like she’d marked herself permanently for an outcome that was still unwritten.
The longer it took Arden to show up, the more her mind struggled to grasp for reasons he couldn’t.
Lyra cleaned the wound and meticulously healed it. The tingling warmth of her magic combined with the whiskey lulled Stella into a calm, half-asleep state.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there as Lyra worked on her. It felt like just a moment, but when Lyra touched her arm and startled her from her daze, sweat had beaded on the healer’s brow and the sun streaming through the windows was more slanted.
Lyra held up a mirror, and it took Stella a moment to realize she was trying to show her the scar. The skin was not terribly puckered where the Octobear had scratched her. Faint lines drew out from the middle of the scar, making it look like an exploding star.
Lyra looked at it like it was beautiful, but Stella could only see the ugliness of the wound and the fear she’d felt when she received it. Where her skin had once been pristine and delicate, she was now marked forever by her failure.
A memory rose unbidden.
Arden sprawledon the bed in one of the Olney Castle guest suites. Sunlight cast Stella’s pale skin golden as he traced the freckles up her side with his pointer finger.
“I can tell you’re meant for me because these freckles spell my name,” he whispered.
“They do not.” A thrill ran through Stella at the thought.
“They do,” he said, a teasing tilt to his smile. “Now close your eyes and pay attention.”
He wrote his name on her side in cursive. When she blinked her eyes open, he hesitated, looking unsure of himself.
Then he continued to trace letters. It wasn’t until he got to “o” in “you” that she realized he was writing “I love you.”
“Stella?”Lyra’s voice brought her back to the present.
“Sorry. A memory,” she mumbled.
Stella stared at the star and her shredded freckles. Arden would never be able to write his name in them again.
“I had hoped I could fix it completely, but the ragged wounds are so difficult. I tried to at least make it something faint,” Lyra said. “Can I get you anything else?”
Stella smiled sheepishly. “If it’s okay, I think His Grace might be looking for me. I’d like to stay a bit longer so he can find me. Would you please make sure the other healers let him in to see me?”
“Of course.” Lyra smiled knowingly and ducked out of the room.
Stella stared at the ceiling, and the exhaustion of the day hit her hard.
She desperately wanted to see Arden. If she could just look at him—if he would just hug her—she’d feel better. He’d told her he would find her as soon as he could afterward. But he hadn’t come to the healing tent while she was there. Nearly an hour had passed since she’d left the arena. Stella and Fionn were not the last competitors, but there was only one duo left when they’d climbed out of their pit and left the field. He would have had to remain in the royal suite until the challenge was over, but he should have been here by now.
A moment later, the door flew open. But it was not Arden who stood backlit by the late afternoon sun shining in through the windows. It was Stella’s best friend.
