“This is not your fault, Rominy.”
“I should have guarded you better. I should have insisted on calling the doctor when you started slurring your speech. I have made one misstep after another, and now—”
“It’s not your fault. Do you hear me? None of this is your fault.”
“But—”
“It’s not your fault, my love. Now tell me the doctor gave you a third option. Please.”
“I sent for Tharios and put you on a spur line straight to Feressa.”
Relief so complete she might faint fills her, and she collapses against him. “Thank you.”
“You’re barely holding on, Elowyn. Dr. Fulton thinks my heart might be the only thing keeping you alive right now. What if I made the wrong choice?”
“You didn’t. Tharios is my best chance. He’s the most skilled healer in Lostariel. Young but powerful. His life magic rivals our mother’s. They made an exception to allow him to join the Healer’s Circle. They rarely allow anyone who might be called to fight in a war to take the healer’s oath. And since Tharios is a future king—”
“He’s a healer?”
Elowyn nods.
“Oh, stars above. I thought he just had life magic. But he may not make it in time. I sent a telegram, but—”
“Rominy. You made a choice. A good one. The best option with the knowledge you had. That’s all you can ever do.”
Swallowing, he nods.
“So where are we now? In the real world?” she asks.
“On a train to Feressa.”
“You’ve done everything you can, Rominy. All right? There’s nothing more you can do. Especially not from here.”
“I can’t ignore it this time, Elowyn. Please don’t ask me to. Even the heartlanding seems stuck in limbo, unsure whether the sun’s about to rise again or set for the last time.”
“And if these are our last moments together? How would you spend them?”
He looks deep into her eyes, and it’s as if time has stopped. That gaze. The one she imagined, so reminiscentof how Father looks at Mother with all the heat of a thousand suns contained within a single glance.
“I’d spend every moment with you,” he whispers. “I didn’t understand what it meant to...to live before you came along. I think fate knew I needed you, Elowyn. No one else could have fit their heart so perfectly to mine.”
And her hands begin tingling once more.
Where the Sun Never Sets
Episode 64
Rominycanbarelybreathewith the way Elowyn looks at him across the deck of their little boat, and when he manages a breath, it’s full of her. Her smoke and her waterfalls.
It’s intoxicating.
“I want to get lost in everything about you,” he whispers. “To ignite your fire and be consumed by it.”
Her breath catches.
“I want to go back to our waterfall,” he continues. “Where I kissed you. And make that moment last forever.”
When the scene transforms around them, he looks out in wonder. It’s still twilight, but their boat sits on the sandy shore where it ran aground that night in the heartlanding.
