He snaps his head up from his hands, his legs dropping fully to the ground as Isera crashes down on the grass right in front of him. Scrambling frantically, she pushes herself up from the ground and twists around while whipping her gaze from side to side, no doubt trying to figure out what just happened. But because of the way she fell, and the direction she turned when she tried to straighten again, she is now sitting on the grass with her back to him.
She looks down at his legs, which are stretched out on either side of her, and begins to turn around.
Right before she can, Orion wraps his arms around her chest from where he is sitting behind her and pulls her tight against his own chest. It stops her from turning to face him and also keeps her sitting there between his legs.
“Don’t,” he says in a broken whisper.
My heart clenches at just the sound of it. I desperately want to leave, because I’m not meant to see this, but if I try to move now, they will hear me. And that will be even worse.
Isera stops struggling, her mind at last catching up with the situation.
“Orion?” she says, her voice softer than I have ever heard.
Anguish floods his face, and he tugs her body tighter against his. “Don’t leave. Please.”
Pain flashes across her face, which he can’t see since he’s sitting behind her, but she keeps her voice steady as she replies, “I won’t.” Reaching up, she starts stroking her hand gently over his arm, which he still has wrapped around her chest. “She wasn’t able to heal your eye?”
A broken sob escapes Orion’s lips, and he tilts his head down and presses his forehead against her shoulder. “No.”
Sorrow and devastation crash over Isera’s face, and she squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip hard. But she keeps her body exactly the way it is, and she doesn’t stop stroking his arm. So only I can see the depths of her emotions from here.
Tears line her eyes when she pries them open again, but she is careful not to let them fall. And her voice remains as steady as ever when she says, “I’m so sorry.”
Another sob rips from Orion’s lungs, and his arms tighten even more desperately around her. “What am I supposed to do now?” He gasps out the words between broken sobs. “I will never be beautiful again. My face is… was my greatest asset.”
Tears slide down Isera’s cheeks. Reaching up carefully with her free hand, she wipes them off before they can fall down to land on Orion’s arms and give away the fact that she is crying. And she makes sure to keep her voice as confident and certain as ever when she says, “No, it was not. Your greatest asset isyou. Everything about you. Your intellect, your cunning, your strength, the way you move through the world and bend it to your will. And you’re still beautiful.”
More broken sobs tear from his chest, so violently that they make his shoulders shake.
“This wound will just make you more breathtaking,” Isera continues with that utter certainty in her voice. “People will look at your face, see your extraordinary beauty, and then see the badass scar across your eye and realize that you are more dangerous than they could ever imagine. It won’t make you less beautiful. It will make you look even more powerful and lethal.”
He drags in a shuddering breath. “The scar… If it was just the scar, I could live with it. I could even learn to like it. Because you’re right. It would make me look badass.” He lets out a broken laugh which quickly turns into devastating sobs. “But my eye. I want my eye back.” Hugging her tightly, he gasps out heartbreaking whimpers. “Oh God, please, I just want my eye back.”
Isera bites her lip hard, silent tears streaming down her face. Orion’s entire body shakes behind her. But she never stops stroking his arm with those gentle, reassuring movements.
Silver light from the moon shines down over them as they sitthere in each other’s arms, Isera keeping them both together while Orion Nightbane cries into her shoulder. Cries for shattered hope and broken confidence. For sacrifices that he shouldn’t have had to make.
And in that moment, he is not the Unseelie King.
He is just a boy who lost his eye.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The water in the bath has gone cold but I can barely feel it. After Haldia healed what remained of my wounds, I went back to the bedroom that Draven and I share.
It was not possible to grow a new eye for Orion, though she was able to heal the remains of that brutal wound in his eye socket. That first cut across his eyebrow, however, was so comparatively shallow that it had already healed on its own by the time he got back more than three days later, which meant that she couldn’t remove the scar.
As with the wound to his eye socket, my stab wounds were much deeper, so they were just barely still considered fresh enough for Haldia to be able to heal fully. So physically, I’m fine now. My mind, however, is not.
When I returned, Draven asked me if I was okay, but I just told him that I needed to take a bath first and wash off all the blood and dust. Since he had done the same before I got back, he just nodded in understanding and even took my fighting leathers to go and find someone who can mend the holes in them.
But he has been back for a while now, and I finished washing off long ago, but I still can’t make myself get out of the bath.
Watching that heartbreaking interaction between Orion and Isera rattled me to my core. I feel empty and broken and full of emotions all at the same time.
A soft knock comes from the door.
“Selena?” Draven asks in a gentle voice.
