“Don’t try to talk, beloved,” he said. “Save your strength.”

I tried to nod, but couldn’t even do that.

“Save your strength,” he said again, “and I will explain everything in time. When you are stronger. Just sleep and...” The look of pain intensified on his face. “And I will see you when I return.”

Return?

You’re going away?

I asked the question with my tired eyes, and Wylfrael read it there.

“I know, beloved. Sweetness, I know,” he groaned. He bent, rubbing his forehead against mine. “But it’s been three days, and Sceadulyr is waiting. I couldn’t bear to go before you’d woken and I waited as long as I could, but I’ve run out of time.”

I blinked heavily, trying to stay awake, to understand what he was saying. Why was he going away? Why was he seeing Sceadulyr? Why did my chest feel like I’d been kicked by a horse?

Even just thinking exhausted me. The tender ghost of Wylfrael’s lips grazing my temple, I drifted back into the deep.

When I awoke again, I felt a little more clear-headed. I could actually move my head, too, which I considered to be a vast improvement. What wasn’t an improvement, though, was that Wylfrael wasn’t here this time. Tears gathered in my eyes, and one slipped out. I was afraid of his absence, afraid of my own pain, afraid of what I didn’t remember. And I needed my husband here.

“Oh, oh! Torrance! You’re awake!”

I smiled weakly through the tears. At least I’m not totally alone.

“Torrance! Here! Lord Wylfrael said to make sure you drink something when you next woke up.” Aiko’s surprisingly strong hands hoisted me into a slouchy sitting position against the pillows and headboard. My head swam, and my chest cramped up. I breathed slowly, trying not to faint, as Aiko lifted a cup to my lips. Swallowing the hot liquid hurt, just like it had last time, but I knew if I didn’t get some fluids and calories into me soon I would get even weaker.

“What happened?”

I was actually able to get the words out this time, at least.

Aiko placed the cup down on the crystal table and hurried back to the bed.

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you much,” she said. She looked anxious, her eyes wide with concern as she spoke. “Five days ago, Lord Wylfrael brought you back here. You were unconscious, and he said that you’d been badly injured. Apparently, another stone sky god helped heal you, and now Lord Wylfrael owes him a debt of service. He had to return to that god’s world two days ago.”

Sceadulyr...

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. At least I knew why I was so weak and in pain – something had happened to me. I just didn’t know what yet.

I’d have to wait for Wylfrael to return to explain it all.

My chest seized up when I thought of him. Emotional pain twining with physical. I missed him, and I tried not to get too sensitive about the fact that he was off doing something for Sceadulyr instead of being here with me.

I trust him, I reminded myself. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

I resolved to wait for him.

But as the days passed, it got hard. Really fucking hard. Every morning I woke up calling his name in my sleep, only for Aiko to tell me that he had not yet come back. Every night I fell into exhausted slumber, hoping to feel him curl around me.

He didn’t.

The only upside to the days blurring into each other without him – ten days, then twelve – was that I continued to get stronger. I wanted to make him proud, wanted to impress him with how well I was doing when he got back, which encouraged me to keep eating, keep drinking, keep trying to take a few shaky steps across the bedroom, holding tightly to Aiko or Shoshen’s hand.

After two miserable weeks, in the middle of the night, he finally came.

It brought back memories. Memories of our early days, when he’d disappeared into the Sionnachan villages every day and had watched over me silently at night. I could feel him there, bending over me just like he’d used to, even without opening my eyes.

“Wylfrael...” I turned over in the bed, reaching blindly for him, my hands tangling in his hair and pulling his face down to mine. He stiffened, as if afraid that even kissing me would hurt me, but then with a groan dragged his mouth over mine.

My heart hammered, slamming my chest with pain while simultaneously flooding the place between my legs with heat. I moaned and spread my legs, my nightgown riding up around my hips, my bare pussy grinding against the fur blankets, searching for him.

But he didn’t give me what I wanted, what I needed. He tore himself away, cursing under his breath, wings slamming open as he paced the room with raging steps.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Hurt, and not just physical hurt, plagued me.

“Stronger every day,” I said. “You’d know that if you’d have been here.”

It was like my words had stabbed him through the heart. He stopped pacing, agony scorching his features.

“I know!” he snapped. “I know. But Sceadulyr has me by the throat. Every time I tried to break the bargain or get leave to return to you, he dangled your death over my head like a cursed blade about to fall!”

“What are you talking about?” I cried, wriggling into a seated position, something I could do on my own now. “What the hell is going on, Wylfrael?”

He breathed out heavily, his broad, strong shoulders sagging. He returned to the bed, sitting on the edge and twisting his torso to face me.

“I have thought, long and hard, about how I would tell you what has happened,” he said softly. “About how I could explain this all to you.”

He looked so fucking sad that it scared me. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it, chest pounding painfully.

“The first thing that I must say is that I’m sorry, Torrance. I am sorry for so much. I do not ever hope to earn your forgiveness, even though I am weak enough to want it.”

“You’re scaring me,” I whispered.

His eyes were haunted as they trekked over my face.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“Nothing!” I cried, all my confusion and frustration from the past two weeks flowing out of me like lava. “I remember the gathering. And Heofonraed. You went to go fight, to do the trial. And I was alone for so long. Fucking terrified. And then I got sick. Like I had a fever. I was so sick I’m pretty sure I lost consciousness because that’s where everything ends.”

“Fated bride of Wylfrael, starburning but afraid...”

“What? What does that mean? You’re not making any sense!”

He didn’t try to explain the bizarre thing he’d just said. Instead, he took in a short, sharp breath, and said, “I killed you.”

The world tilted, and I fought to right it.

“OK, now you’re really not making any sense. Pretty sure I’m alive and talking to you right now,” I snapped.

“You are alive now, it is true. Thanks to Sceadulyr,” Wylfrael replied.

I shook my head, over and over again, uncertainty rising in me like nausea.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

“You’ve asked me, several times now, why I wouldn’t go search out my fated mate.”

I froze. Was he finally going to explain that to me? And why now?

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Because I knew that this would happen, in a way.” Wylf’s voice grated, and he sounded just as exhausted as I was. “I knew that this would happen to her. I just didn’t know that she was you. When I went to see Rúnwebbe, she did not just give me webbing, but also a prophecy. She told me I would kill my fated mate with my own blade. So, I vowed never to find her. Little did I know, she’d already found me. She was in my Dawn Tower the entire time... A partner and a pawn. Trapped under the arching sky of dawn.”

“That’s why you never wanted to find your bride. You didn’t want to hurt her,” I replied, slowly sifting through what he’d just said.