Chapter38
‘I love you.’ (Rexxan)
Talyn and I operate on Onyx's leg for six hours in total.
Only then do we risk loading him onto the boat to go back to my Kingdom Gates. He fades in and out of consciousness and screams into the cloth between his teeth until his voice is torn to shreds. I'd rather we were in a sterile healing room, and not a dark, damp cave, but such is life, and there is nothing I can do.
Adapt and overcome. Renna always says that to her hunters, and that is what I have done today.
I have not felt grief for anyone since I lost my family, but I find myself stricken with it over Stellan's loss.
I’m broken for Renna, and though I would like her to be well again, I dread the moment she wakes up, because I know there’ll be a split second where she won’t remember what has happened. And then I’ll watch confusion, realisation, and finally heartbreak wash over her face. This will be no quick recovery for her. She has lost half of her tiny family, and the other half remains semi-alive in the only cabin on this ship.
She has not woken up since she passed out on the cold, blood-soaked floor of the cave. She just lies on one of the daybeds on the ship deck, out cold and badly wounded. As the wind whips around us and the floodwaters rock us from side to side, I run my hand over beautiful dark umber hair, watching her rest.
I could watch her sleep each night for the rest of my life and die a happy man.
Flowers gather at the head of her bed, my soldiers leaving notes for her and Onyx. I pluck one out of the pile.
Commander Renna,Deputies Onyx & Stellan,
My childhood home is under the floodwaters. My mother is desperate to get it back. We can't thank you enough for what you've done.
Yours in undying gratitude,
Escelien,
Second-in-Command, Fifth Rank.
I putit back and run a hand over my stubble, longer than it usually is. News of Stellan's death is under wraps until Renna wants it to come out, but the endless letters to the three of them will only make her pain worse. I ask one of my staff to start putting them in boxes for her.
I wish she'd wake up.
There'ssomuch I want to say to her.
I jump off the ship first when we pull up to the overcrowded beach that forms the edge of the flooding, plummeting down into the knee-deep water with a thud. The waterline has receded by a few yards today already, and I have the love of my life to thank for that.
The scene at the beach is sickening, endless boats washing up on the shore, full of unwell and injured people grieving the loss of their loved ones and their homes. There is a queue to get onto the riverbank, four rows of boats waiting to unload. Soldiers chop down trees on the border of my forest to make more room for the wounded and the sick.
Hundreds arrived yesterday. Hundreds arrived today. Hundreds will arrive tomorrow. We will find room for them. We will find food for them. We will find space for them no matter what the cost. Because somewhere else, my own son might be washing up, wounded and sick on someone else’s land and I can only hope that he will be treated with the same unconditional kindness.
It is in the greatest of tragedies where we see the greatest outpourings of love. I’d said that in my first speech I wrote as King. Just a boy I was back then, but it rings as true today as it did seven hundred years ago.
Lynna stands out, as she always does, on the beach in an immaculate and somehow completely clean white gown. She directs healers to different boats, sorting all the arrivals into mortal and immortal, assessing injuries, and directing any bodies to the tents for the dead. She spots me as I tie up the huge boat that carries some of my army and walks over, her face wrought in worry.
I lead her to the small cabin nestled on the orlop deck that houses Onyx and seven healers working shifts to keep him alive. "Stretcher him to the Healer’s Halls."
Her eyes widen, filling with tears as her hand lands on Onyx's arm. Her flawless porcelain skin looks out of place beside his wrist; scarred, bruised, and caked in blood and dirt. "What happened to him?"
"Wolf bite. Broken thigh, exposed bone. I pulled teeth out of his femur."
She scrubs her hand over her pink lips, tears pooling on her brown lashes. "Gods save him," she whispers, seeing what I see. Onyx will never return to hunting the way he does now.
"And the other two?" She asks, bright teal eyes looking back up to mine.
"Renna is sick and unconscious. Stellan is dead."
"No," murmurs Lynna, the tears that gathered in her lashes finally spilling down her pale face. Her bottom lip trembles as she draws a shaky breath and tries to hold herself together. She’d formed a strong friendship with Stellan, and whatever it is that’s going on between her and Onyx, they’re very close. "Tell me that’s not true."
