She nods, wobbling a little as she stands on the cool stone floor, looking up at the jungle canopy above our heads. I wrap her in a warm forest-green towel, waiting as she walks at a slow pace back to the bed.
"How did you cope?" She asks, as I pull one of my linen shirts over her head and do up a couple of the white buttons after putting a glass of juice into her hand. "When you lost your parents, your brother, and your friends, how did you cope? How are you supposed to carry on when you can't see your life without them?"
"It's not easy," I reply, truthfully, as my fingers plait her hair into one long braid, tying it at the end. It’s nostalgic of all the times I’d put a tiny braid into my son’s hair whenever he wanted me to. It was a frustrating few days of learning how to do it. That’s life as a single parent, I suppose.
"There's no method to it either, Rennalya. You just cling onto the things youdostill have and take every day as its own. I still had my son, and I clung onto him for dear fucking life. Don't try and think about how you're going to get through this year, just this afternoon. Then when you wake up tomorrow, try and get through the morning. It'll get easier," I plant a gentle kiss beneath her ear and lie her back down on the pillows. "Sleep."
"Sleep with me?"
I hate being King. "I have to go back to the riverbank. It's a bloodbath out there."
"Please?" She whispers, with big teary eyes.I can't say no to this woman. This is definitely going to be a problem in our marriage; she's got me wrapped around her little finger. Gently, I lift her up with one arm and flip her onto her side, lying behind her and enveloping her body with mine. She wriggles a little to burrow a bit further into my chest and my heart swells to the point where it bursts, spreading golden warmth across my chest and through my cold, empty veins.
"Ren," I whisper, and she turns her face back to look at me, sunrise-orange eyes gazing up at mine. I turn her whole body over to face me.
This is long overdue. I owe her this.
"I've loved you for so long.Solong. I think I fell in love with you last year in the hallway about twenty yards from here when you told me your favourite food was strawberries. I tried to deny it in the months we were apart but the first thing I thought of every single day was you and whether I'd ever see you again. It truly hit me how utterly fucked I was when we helped at that orphanage.
“I just remember looking at you and thinking that I could never have you, but that I'd kill anyone who ever tried their luck because no one that ended up with you would ever truly appreciate how privileged they are just to wake up in your presence." I kiss her neck gently. "I'm so mind-bendingly in love with you, Rennalya, that it hurts my chest," I whisper, forcing the words out through my unwilling lips.
As I stop talking, I worry that I didn’t convey the message enough. I take her head in my hands, my eyes burning into hers. "I. Love. You."
Fresh tears well in her eyes. "Rexxan," she croaks, burying her head in my chest. "I love you so much more."
It's not true, because my love for her eclipses the sun, the moon, and the stars above us. But I don't reply, instead just holding her close until her slow, sleeping breaths lull me into some desperately needed sleep too.
* * *
"Siddie!"My voice echoes off the ivy-covered stone of my bedroom walls, waking me up as I jolt upright in bed, my heart pounding beneath my ribcage. Renna sits up beside me, a hand landing on my bicep.
"Rex?"
"Fuck!" I gasp, a hand on my heaving chest. I feel sick to my stomach, my arms glistening with sweat. "Just a dream. Just a dream."
"Rexxan, we'll find him," she whispers, holding my hand. "I swear."
I lie back down, my heart thundering in my chest.Just a dream, I tell myself, clinging onto those three words like they’re the only things keeping me afloat. I’m not getting back to sleep, that’s for sure.
"He slept in this bed with me most nights," I say, not for any reason. "He used to scream in his cot, and eventually we'd both be so exhausted and tearful that I'd give up and let him sleep on my chest in my bed."
"Was he good?"
I can't help my smile. "Oh, no. Lynna, Frian, Ascan, or I often had to collect the little tyrant from school. He was a nightmare. He was like I was at his age; not built for indoor spaces."
A smile crosses her pretty face. "I can't wait to meet him.”
After breakfast, Talyn greets us at the private royal entrance to the Healer’s Halls where the crowds can't swarm us, his long dark hair in a ponytail and his skeletal frame swamped in a healer’s robe.
"He's still unconscious, but we were successful with resetting his wrist. It'll heal nicely," he informs us, opening Onyx's door. Rennalya creeps in tentatively, as if scared of what she may see. His face and hair are cleaner, and he lies on the healing table beneath a white cloth, his chest rising and falling at a reassuring pace as a healer gives her energy to him, pale light flowing into his chest.
"It's me," she whispers, taking a seat beside him. "If you could just...if you could just wake up, and show us all that you're going to pull through...I'd really like that," she mumbles, fiddling with her fingers nervously. "And I know you're probably scared about your losing Stell and what happened with your leg but... but I'll be right here and I'll always be here for you. Always."
My chest aches for her. She's so young but she's seen so much, so compassionate and loyal to those around her. She just quietly chats away to Onyx for an hour, never letting go of his hand.
"Renna," he whispers, interrupting as she rambles on in astronomical levels of detail about the juice she drank earlier. Her face lights up.
"Onyx?”
