“A gift for you.” I cross to her and kneel in the pool of starlight at her feet, replacing the scroll in her lap with the blossom-studded crown. I wish she knew I offered it as the ruler of this planet and not a lovesick male in the grass, but from the look on her face, she would not treasure it more if it were wrought from the purest epylium.
“Mine?” she asks, voice hoarse with emotion as she traces its circumference, as though I’ve offered her something she doesn’t deserve rather than her goddess-given due.
“Yours, for all the days. The most beautiful crown for the most beautiful Alara. Accepting it will be a burden as much as a gift, one you cannot possibly understand right now. But I swear to you in Alioth’s sight, if you take my crown, I will do everything in my power to give you the life you want, no matter what it costs me. If you hate living in the palace, I will build you a valith out here in the grass. I will remake all of Irra for you.”
“Understand,” she says, even though she doesn’t, and touches my face with her fingertips. I lean into her palm, and she strokes my cheekbone with her thumb. “Jara and Alara, together, beautiful. Yes.”
She understands what’s important. This is our true joining, these broken sentences and crown of grass. Even if we have another ceremony with priests in their finery and a priceless epylium circlet, this is the one I’ll remember.
I lift the crown and settle it on her brow, where it blooms, still living, like it’s part of her.
“Oh!” Her back arches and eyes slam shut. Reflexively, I catch her before she tumbles off her stool again. Lips peeled back from her teeth, she hisses, every muscle tensed. Panic sizzles through me as I lift her in my arms, unsure what to do except hold her close.
“Praise Alioth, it’s working,” Saana says as she draws nearer, sounding awed.
A growl tears out of me. “Give her something! She’s in pain! It’s killing her!”
“No, look. Look at her face, Oljin. It hurts, but she’s healing.”
My heart still beating a frantic rhythm, skin purpling with fear and love, I look down at my Alara, dreading what I’ll find there. Every fear is realized when I see the pain and tension in her expression, the way her hands have curled into claws.
But as I watch, the ugly bruise on her fades away. I can only imagine the same thing is happening inside her. Her crown of braided grass and efala vines slowly changes from green to gold and sinks into her forehead. The delicate blossoms etch themselves into Rose’s skin. Little by little, her muscles relax until she’s heavy and soft in my arms. And when she finally opens her eyes to gaze up at me, she’s smiling.
Chapter 15
Rose
“Am I dead?” I ask. I feel too good. Warm and weightless and not a single stabbing pain in my bones. I wiggle my toes, and they don’t cramp. And with Oljin’s handsome face coming into clear focus above me, I know these can’t be my eyes I’m seeing through. I beam at him. “Iamdead. This is heaven, for sure, if you’re in it.”
“This is no afterlife, my queen,” he says with wry amusement. “Hopefully it will be many years before our ghosts meet the goddess.”
Surprise bursts through me on multiple levels. I can understand him perfectly, like Irran is my first language. It seems like he can understand me, too, even though I spoke in English!
And did he just call me hisqueen? Isthatwhat Alara means?
“Does Jara mean ‘king’?” I blurt out. He nods. I feel woozy, like I might pass out again.
“I think I need to sit.” I cling to his arm, voice shaky, as he gently sets me down. I reach for my scroll and add the new information under the word “Jara.” It soothes me to get it down on paper. I add an entry for “Alara” and then look up, feeling more like myself.
“What happened? The last thing I remember is—” I reach to touch the beautiful flower crown he made for me, but it’s gone.
Instead,I find a raised design on my forehead that’s a few degrees warmer than my skin. That crowndidsomething to me. And now it’s part of me, just like he’s part of me.
Oljin nods. “I have much to explain, so much I do not know where to begin.”
“It’s a good thing we can understand each other now, then.” I look ruefully at the scroll I’ve been fussing over instead of talking to this alienkingwho I think I might have justmarried. “I guess I don’t really need this anymore.”
I move to crumple it up, but he grasps my hand, stopping me. “No. These will be invaluable to our people.”
“Our people,” I repeat, still stunned by the concept. Saana, bless her heart, brings us two cups of hot nomo, which I accept gratefully.
He nods. “Your scrolls will have a place of honor in the archives. They’ll be studied for generations.”
I can feel myself blushing as I sip the calming tea. “I don’t think you can give an academic a better compliment than telling them their work will be read.”
His mouth quirks up. “We are very alike, I think. My brother always jokes that I prefer an afternoon in the scrolls to almost anything else.”
My brows shoot up at the new information. “You have a brother?”
