Page 59 of Season Warriors & Wolves

His smell—gods, his smell. “I think you might have missed me.”

He laughed. A laugh that turned to breaking sobs. I felt his tears on my skin. I felt his scent of radiant spring brush my face. I felt his warm darkness caress my hurt and my pain. I felt my own senses suddenly spark to light, and I hated it for a moment. Hated that I was suddenly able to feel. Until I remembered that I felt love, too. That I loved him. I hated that it had to be buried with all the rest that I felt. That to love him, I had to hurt.

I winced from a dull pain whistling over my bones when his hand rested on the side of my ribs.

It was all it took for his massive frame to seize, his breathing seized, too. As if he was listening and waiting for signs. Or maybe for me to confess.

“A harhound knocked me down briefly,” I said quickly. Perhaps too quickly because when he pulled back, the frown that he wore was full of doubt. Another thing I’d missed.

But I didn’t like this. Not at all. The way my inner pain was painted in his face, as if he felt what I was feeling, as if he was in as much pain as I was.

“Maybe she needs to see a healer,” Nia said, reaching a hand to me. She knew. She would always know. “I’ll take her.”

My husband shook his head, clinging to me closely. “No—”

“Kilian,” Nia said slowly, carefully prying me from his strong grip. “She won’t go anywhere. I’ll take her. Deal with the court, you will have to let Olympia know that she is back safely. It is your duty as king. She is safe now,” my friend repeated, taking my hand and slowly backing away from him. “I have her. She is safe.”

Nia sat before me, crouched on the ground with arms around her knees, pointing a guilty look on the floor as the Medi Healer crossed the room to me with her bag of contraptions.

“Thank you,” I offered quietly, and she smiled at me, hazel eyes drowned with silver tears.

The old woman gasped when I pulled my shirt down and I quickly put a finger over my lips, knowing that he would break right in if he heard her even breathe a note lower than she normally did.

When Nia spun away from me, refusing to look, something told me I shouldn't have let her in either.

My healer studied the map of wounds and gnarly scars that had healed badly and some that had refused to heal at all. She mouthed a string of curses when I removed my trousers. The same old woman who had not flinched once however many times I’d seen her the past thirteen years. “What do you want me to heal?” she asked.

“Everything,” I said, peeling my gloves off and showing her my shaking palms. “Starting with them.”

She stared at me in disbelief. “Everything? Are you certain?”

“Certain.” I could not tell which of my scars and wounds were new or old, but he would. I know he would.

She took a few pieces of colourful crystals from her bag and kneeled before me. “You never have permitted me before.”

“I will remember them even if I don’t see them.” But he doesn’t have to.

They were only remainders of my hatred, but to him, they would be reminders of my pain.

Watching the raised and mangled flesh disappear under the healer’s touch was the strangest pain I’d gone through. It didn’t exactly hurt. Or maybe it did.

The room smelled of medicine and sunlight when the healer finished, but I didn’t move for some time, inspecting the smooth skin with my fingers until it blurred behind tears. Unmarred with memory.

The Olympian skies were drowning under a tangerine coloured sunset when Nia pulled me up from the bed and helped me onto the bath.

She sat by my side, her head resting on her knees while she quietly told me all that had happened while I was gone.

I ghosted a finger over the scar on her throat. “Does it hurt?”

“A little when I speak. Healers say it’s normal since it was caused by dark magic.” She lifted a finger to trace the scar on my cheek. “Like yours.” Her hazel eyes shone less than they had normally, like a little life had been stolen from them. “You’re tired. I should go.”

I grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Stay a little longer.”

She rested her cheek on the bathtub’s edge, looking at me. “Alright. As long as you need me for. I’ll stay.”

“Lifetimes, Nia. I will need you to stay with me for lifetimes.”

“Then I will stay with you for lifetimes.” She reached in her jacket pocket and brought something out. “I was going to give this to you before Silas took you to Isjord.”