“El?”
“I feel... I feel...”
“It’s the fucking bond. It’s killing you too,” he said, gritting. “Get up.” He turned his head away.
Her vision wavered. “Please?—”
“I said get up, go!” he roared, and she fell back. “I’ll do it. Just... go sit. Sit and rest.”
Elloven’s gratitude skated just under her shaky breath.
“You know,” Taven muttered, his eyes closed as he passed his hands just above Jesstin’s head wound, “if you cared that much whether he lived or died, you’d have healed him yourself.”
The palpitations in her temple subsided. She pulled herself upright. “You know I can’t heal.”
“An hour ago, I didn’t know you could turn a man into ice. Did you?”
“I don’t... don’t know what that was. Nothing like that has ever happened before.”
“I know what it was.” He roughly nudged Jesstin’s head farther to the left. “Your magic is chaos. You are chaos.”
“Then why didn’t it happen at the Reliquary? In Whitechurch?”
“Were you ever afraid for anyone but yourself?”
Elloven hesitated. “No.”
“There’s your answer.” He closed his eyes and focused on Jesstin alone for a moment. “You’ve always been thoughtless with your own well-being, but you were afraid for him.”
The truth hit her like lightning. Her self-preservation involved retreat and disassociation, but she’d been terrified for Jesstin, and in her terror, she’d never been more present. She remembered feeling the same nagging buzz in Mythgarde, after they’d arrested him, but he’d asked her to get his family, and that had taken precedence.
“I accept your acceptance of my betrothal,” Taven said peaceably. He somehow managed not to look as smug as he sounded. “And I have no doubt in my mind you could heal this boy if you wanted to.” He half smiled. “It does warm my heart that this means you couldn’t possibly love him.”
Elloven was still several moments behind in the conversation. “Love him? I hardly know him.”
“Yet you’ve offered your life for his. Twice.” Taven finished and perched at the edge of the bench near Jesstin’s bent knees. Elloven relaxed as she watched Jesstin’s wound slowly close in, the flesh returning. “How’s your head?”
She rubbed near her ear. “Better.”
“There are things you don’t know about him, Elloven, and I can’t decide if telling you would be a mercy or a punishment.”
Taven’s sudden earnestness put her off-kilter again. “You lied about him once already to get him killed. Why would I believe anything you say about him?”
A light knock on the door made them both jump. Taven cursed when his head smacked into the ceiling. Elloven, without thinking, tugged at Jesstin’s broadsword, still lying across the seat.
“Be quiet,” Taven whispered. He was as still as a statue.
The steel scraped when it came loose, then thumped when it smacked the ground. The cursed thing was twice as heavy as it looked, and she wasn’t sure she could hoist it, let alone swing it, but she was fully prepared to use it to the end of her limitations.
Are you mad? Taven mouthed. He motioned at her to sit.
Elloven reached for the door and shoved it open. A familiar, friendly face stared back at her with a broad grin.
She released her breath. If she weren’t so damned tired, she would laugh too.
“I came to offer my services, such as they are,” Sesto said. With a glance over his shoulder, he added, “though it appears I may have arrived a smidge late.”
Chapter 8
