The kindest thing she could do for him was not to answer, so she closed her eyes and accepted his healing one last time.
She stirred and rolled onto her side. She’d fallen asleep. For how long, she didn’t know, but Taven was back in his own bed, watching her.
“Did it work? Does this old dog still have a trick in him?”
Elloven gasped in wonder as she sat all the way up on her first try. She was still tired, and her arms and legs felt like jelly, like they’d been carrying heavy weights, but when she twisted, stretched, it felt so wonderfully right, like sliding back into her favorite trousers. She knew without trying she could stand, too, and probably walk. Perhaps not gracefully, but that had never been a word she’d used to describe herself.
“I’d say so.” She was back in her own body, and it was real, and she was alive, and it was all so much to process. “Are you...”
“Same as I was.”
Elloven dangled her legs over the bed and wiggled her toes. She would never again take anything so simple for granted.
She tested out her balance next, but there was something else she’d meant to do... and then she remembered.
Taven’s confession. She hadn’t given him a proper response, but she wanted to. Needed to.
“Taven... what you said before...”
“Doesn’t matter, Ellie.” His voice was heavy with emotion. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“No, it does matter. It matters to me.”
“Ellie—”
“I want you to know I have heard your words, and one day, I might actually find from them the peace you feel saying them. And if Jesstin did in fact open a door for the dead to move on, then better days await.” She smiled from her bed. “I do want that for you.”
Tears coursed down his solemn face. She had loved him—a confusing love, but not all love was so tidy. Even through his manipulations, he’d believed what he was doing was love as well.
“And... If you hadn’t wandered onto our little farm when I was eight, my life would have taken a very different path. I never would have ended up at the Reliquary, met Castien. Fabrien wouldn’t have seen me and claimed me like a prize. And I never would have made the gruesome choice that brought me home. If I’d never done any of those things, Taven, I would never have met Jesstin. I would never have known what it is to be truly, unselfishly loved.”
“Elloven! You’re awake.”
She spun around and found another old friend she only barely recognized. Sesto had to be close to Taven’s age but looked at least twenty years younger. Healthy, spry. “Sesto! My goodness, it’s so good to see you!”
“And you, Lady Elloven. And you.” Sesto smiled and rapped the doorframe. He sighed twice. “How are you... Can you walk? Should you be walking?”
“I think I can. I’d like to try anyway,” she said. “Taven helped me.”
“And good on him for it. But Taven should rest now. Why don’t you come to the kitchen, and we’ll feed you?”
Elloven turned back. Taven’s cloudy eyes had drifted to something on the other side of the room. “I’ll come back later, and we’ll talk some more.” She wobbled to a stand, but it was easier than she’d expected. She clasped his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze before following Sesto into the hall.
“Where’s Jesstin?” she asked.
“How are you?” Sesto gripped her upper arms as his eyes conducted an intense examination.
“I’m alive, but beyond that, I’m not sure,” she said. “But where is Jesstin?”
“You have been through something singularly incredible,” Sesto said. “There’s no way to know how it will affect you.”
His tone immediately set her on edge. “Something’s wrong. Isn’t it?”
Sesto released her. “Elloven, none of us have seen you in thirty-three years, and we only want to ensure you’re all right. Come, sit. Daire’s been dying to feed you.”
“I am all right.” She squeezed his shoulder with a harried smile. “I am. Just not yet myself and trying to adjust to all this.”
“As are we all,” he said. “Jesstin is fine. He went out for a walk.”
