Page 61 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER SIXTY

Tarly

T arly had fallen unconscious when he hadn’t meant to. He came around groggily, registering the lightly snowed-on grass under his glove. Dusty snowfall fell on his face as water ran above his head. He was beside a small stream.

A loud huff jerked his stiff body in fright. Until he remembered his horse. He’d dismounted to refill his water skin and tend to the beast, but he must have passed out. His fatigue and pain were becoming intolerable.

Tarly pushed himself up on his one good arm. He’d had to fashion a sling for the other that had become useless. He wasn’t fighting the tiredness with hope anymore. He could no longer wield his bow, so he was of little use to anyone.

All that kept him moving was the persistent image of an angel in his mind—with beautiful golden-brown skin and the most stunning curly silver hair. He recalled Nerida’s firm encouragement to push forward, her laughs to wake up, the ways in which she looked at him like no one else to brave the wretched days.

He’d traveled for more than two weeks from High Farrow, where Izaiah had taken them after they’d fled Rhyenelle. Tarly harbored guilt for leaving so soon, when Jakon was grieving deeply and Izaiah was wounded badly. Selfishly, the dire events they’d escaped from made him even more desperate to reach Stenna’s fall—the meeting place Tauria, Nik, and Nerida planned to head to as well.

Tarly didn’t know if Nik would have gotten Tauria out of the high lord’s clutches yet. Or if Nerida had made it back from Lakelaria to be there by now. With Tauria and Nerida’s magick combined, they hoped to reach Hilia’s Cave and discover if it safeguarded the Aetherbonds that could silence a person’s magick no matter how powerful. Or the Spellthief, a dagger that could steal a person’s magick.

Though he yearned to see Nerida, he didn’t know how she would receive him after he’d abandoned her. He’d gone to Rhyenelle to serve a better purpose in this war rather than accompany her to Lakelaria on a selfish quest to find a cure for his dark fae bite.

He felt awful for it now, but his time was rapidly running out, and he wanted to try to make something of an impact.

His teeth bashed together as he trekked through the forest despite his feverish skin. Tarly believed his life hung in mere days, or less.

It took everything he had to mount the brown stallion. Barely able to sit straight, he edged the horse forward, using all his focus not to lose balance in his hunch and fall off.

Tarly found his fate both cruel and amusing. The moment he found the will to live, life was no longer his to plan for. If he hadn’t met Nerida, perhaps this ending would even be welcome.

The deep echo of crashing water told him he was near his destination. Peeling his sight up, through the tree line ahead he saw the rocky shore of Stenna’s fall. He’d only been here once: on the day he met Nerida.

She’d told him the stories of the fall and the nymphs that had once ruled the lakes and oceans—or still did but remained secluded from land beings now.

He never wanted Nerida to stop telling him the wonders she’d gathered in all her travels. He wanted to follow her, even when she didn’t want him, to the ends of the world.

Tarly had learned that love was the most vulnerable emotion a person could expose themselves to, but the reward, should that love be true, was worth the risk of a shattered heart.

The great lake expanded far and wide through the end of the trees he passed through.

His heart pounded in his chest, tight and protesting, warning it didn’t have many beats left. Tarly dismounted clumsily, barely finding steady feet. Urgency gave him a false sense of stability as he stumbled out through the trees, catching himself on one at the edge to scan down the rocky bank.

He was alone.

The next breath that left him deflated his whole body, which sank down. He rested his head back against the tree, looking over the peaceful sight.

Oh well , he thought. At least this is a calm place to die.

He hadn’t feared death for a long time, so it was quite irritating for sorrow and disappointment to fill his chest now.

I’m not done here.

Was it the curse of all dying souls, no matter how prepared for death, to find unfulfilled desires they never strived for when their days were vast and uncertain? When time was their gift with no knowable countdown?

Wicked, tormenting thoughts.

Tarly might be losing his mind in his final hours. Believing he’d have days left broke a breathy chuckle from him now.

“You look like shit.”

His eyes, which had begun to close, flew open at that irritating, infuriating, but damn relieving voice.

He looked up as Nik’s footsteps left the soft grass and crunched over the rocks. But it was Tauria, her steps hurried after whacking Nik’s chest, who lit up his world.

They’d left each other after the horrific events of the near wedding in Olmstone. He’d betrayed her, giving up her escape location thinking it would save his sister, Opal, but he’d been double-crossed by his father and Mordecai, who planned to Transition her to dark fae anyway. His sister was now safe in a human’s farm home with her mother, far from here, but he’d never gotten the chance to explain this to Tauria and beg for her forgiveness.

So to his surprise, when she dropped down in front of him with nothing but concern over her delicate features, he didn’t know why she wasn’t upset with him.

Along with Tauria, Asari came bounding toward him. The white wolf sniffed him furiously and licked his face in greeting.

“You didn’t find any cure for this yet?” Tauria asked, assessing his graying skin, which had spread up his neck, touching his jaw now.

A feminine gasp drew his attention to a small dark fae who stood a little behind Nik.

“What type of creature caused that?” she asked.

“This is Edith. She’s a friend,” Tauria explained. She must have felt his tension and seen the weariness in his stare. He’d never encountered a dark fae on good terms before, and he didn’t let go of his reservation around Edith either.

“There is no cure,” he answered. Tarly’s hand cupped Tauria’s at his face. “I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“I know why you did it. There’s no need for apologies now. We need to get you help, because we have so much work still to do, Tarly Wolverton. You’re not allowed to die.”

“It’s over for me, Tauria. But I need to ask for something…for you to carry a message to someone for me?—”

“You’re going to tell her yourself,” Nik cut in. He stood tall, cross-armed, with a deep frown, as if disappointed in him.

“I piss you off even by dying,” Tarly sulked.

“It’s you giving up that’s pissing me off. It’s pathetic.”

“Stop being mean to him.” Tauria reprimanded Nik.

“I’d be worried if he was anything else,” Tarly said. He was so tired, letting his eyes slip closed.

He only got a second of dark peace when a sharp slap across his cheek snapped him wide-awake. Tarly stared at Tauria in bemusement.

“You can’t sleep,” she said firmly.

Tarly tipped his head back again with a groan. The clouds were thick, debating a storm, but the sun glowed behind them, fighting to break through.

“Nerida should be here,” he said quietly.

Tarly assumed Nik would have told Tauria everything. Her features twitched, and she scanned along the bank.

“We hoped she would be, but we may need to make camp for a few days and hope she still makes it,” Tauria said.

“I don’t have days,” he said. He knew that in his core.

Her eyes turned desolate, accepting no amount of denial nor words of determination could slow or stop the inevitable claim death had on him.

Tarly coughed, turning violent, and he reached into his jacket for a cloth when the tang of blood filled his mouth. What he felt instead made him pause…

Blood.

He pulled out the vial he felt, having forgotten his possession of the Phoenix Blood potion. Tarly stared at the liquid, swirling as if alive in the bottle.

“Ooh, that’s pretty. What is it?” Edith asked.

“Where did you get that?” Nik inquired.

Tarly froze.

They didn’t know about Marlowe’s death yet.

He looked up at Nik, unable to suppress his horror with the news he had to deliver.

Nik’s stance slackened. “What?” he demanded.

“Marlowe gave it to me,” he rushed out, scrambling to find the right sequence of words to tell them how their friend had been killed.

No arrangement would lessen the devastating blow, and so he relayed the horrifying events to them as quickly as he could.

Tauria broke into cries, and Nik held her, his face completely blank and wide. He’d never seen him so ghostly, angry, and grief-stricken all at once—all of that displayed in Nik’s utter stillness.

“Are you sure?” Nik asked vacantly.

“I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could have done to save her, but…” He trailed off.

Tarly had reeled over that grim day many times, tormented by all the ways he could have seen Malin’s snap of madness just a moment sooner. Could have provided a distraction. Intervened somehow. Yet in all his reorganizing of events, he could hear the human’s gentle voice carried in his mind. As an Oracle, she would tell him the future could not be known by those involved in it.

“We need to get back to High Farrow,” Nik said tightly, no doubt thinking of Faythe’s reaction to the news.

They needed to grieve together, and Marlowe deserved to have her friends together to mourn and celebrate her life.

“What about the Spellthief dagger?” Edith said timidly.

Tarly didn’t know why he felt distrusting of this dark fae. She seemed shy and innocent, and maybe it was his own prejudice instilled in him against her kind that he had to work on.

“If you want to go back to High Farrow first, I understand?—”

“No—she’s right,” Tauria croaked, sniffing hard and wiping her tears with the back of her gloved hand. “If the dagger or bonds are in that cave, we have to find out.”

That was the heart-wrenching side of war still in motion—it granted no time to grieve the fallen properly. Healing was its own battle that awaited the living when it was over.

Tarly gritted his teeth, using his back against the tree for purchase to stand. He didn’t want to, but he had to use every last hour he had. He stared at the Phoenix Blood as if it were a riddle.

“What if she gave this to me to give to someone else?” he asked aloud, mulling over other possibilities in his mind.

“If it could give you more time, you have to take it,” Nik said coldly.

Tarly didn’t take his tone personally. Nik was dealing with his loss.

He looked at Tauria. “Nerida consumed the potion Nik gave her. We hoped it would advance her healing for me, but it didn’t. What if it amplified her water ability instead? For this task. Maybe Marlowe gave me this for you, to make your wind stronger to reach the cave.”

Tauria immediately shook her head. “I don’t need it. You’re taking that potion.”

His grip tightened around it. Why was he always the one with only selfish options?

“Marlowe believed with all her heart in an order. She gave me this for a reason, and if it was to prolong my time, she would have told me to consume it right there and then,” he snapped.

Tauria’s lips pursed, and their disagreement sparked in their stare-down.

All Marlowe had said when she gave the potion to him was that he would know what to do with it. This felt right. He pushed it into Tauria’s hand, and she didn’t reject it, though her face fell sadly. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her care and friendship, but he was so damn grateful for it in his darkest hours.

“We should find the best tree cover to rest in case the rain breaks,” Nik said.

“I’m staying on the bank in case Nerida comes,” Tarly said, already resisting the urge to sink back down. “I’ll take first watch. You two need rest. I’m banned from sleeping anyway.”

Tauria met his humor with a flat look. “You will need to sleep, but not unless I’m watching you. I’ll push the air in and out of your lungs myself if I need to.”

“You both need to come to terms with the fact I might just drop dead any hour,” he said, growing exasperated.

“Not on our watch,” Nik muttered, staring off into the trees.

By nightfall, Tauria and Edith were the only ones resting after Nik built a small fire for them. Luckily, the rain had spared them so far.

Nik sat against the tree next to his, angled to not quite face each other but close. Tauria’s head lay over his lap, and he absentmindedly brushed her hair or cheek.

“I haven’t forgotten you almost followed through and married my mate,” Nik said.

It wasn’t what Tarly expected, but he supposed it was coming sooner or later. And he might not have much later.

“Had to get that grudge off your chest before I died, did you?”

“No. I guess I’ve been wondering if you’re just a mindless follower of your father or if you had some other motive.”

“Why don’t you just ask me outright, did I fall in love with Tauria?”

Nik’s eyes flared, and Tarly acknowledged the dangerous territory he walked with a mated male.

Tarly said, “I care for her deeply. I always have. Don’t forget she came to Olmstone with the intention of marrying me. I don’t care for your reasons—you hurt her more than I ever did by making her believe you didn’t want her. So I was prepared to love her, but it never would have been the same as how you feel for each other.”

Nik didn’t take Tarly’s enlightenment well, but it was nothing but the truth. “So now you can’t have her, you fall for her sister instead.”

Tarly’s surge of anger was far beyond what his body could release. “If I wasn’t dying, I would beat the shit out of you right now.”

“You would try and fail.”

“Arrogant as ever. You’ve never even fought me.”

“I know you favor the bow as a weapon. Hand-to-hand combat would be child’s play against you. Stick to shooting bunnies.”

“You don’t deserve her,” Tarly said sourly. “You never have and never will.”

“We might actually agree for once.”

Tarly looked away, his jaw working in his vexation, so easily and quickly inspired in Nik’s company.

Nik’s implication for why he he’d fallen for Nerida riled him far more than it should. Dominantly, possessively so. Tarly stood, needing to walk off his anger if he couldn’t swing it at Nik.

He got two steps before Nik drawled, “Where are you going?”

Tarly spun back. “Don’t ever taint my affection for her like that again,” he seethed under his breath, mindful of Tauria and Edith sleeping. “Nerida is not Tauria. Your mate has nothing to do with what I feel for her. All Tauria and I had was a desperate attempt to try to find joy in something that was forced upon us. But Nerida is mine . Do you get that? My person for all her reasons.”

Tarly’s chest heaved, hating that he had to spill this all to Nik. That he’d confessed something he hadn’t even dared to think fully in his own mind.

Nerida is mine.

At least, with all he was, that was what he wanted more than anything.

He couldn’t stand to have it linger anywhere that Nerida was a second choice. She wasn’t. He felt more intensely for Nerida than he’d felt for Isabel, the one he’d believed was his mate and who had rejected him. Nerida wasn’t just his first choice—she was the only damned choice he’d ever wanted with every fiber of his being. At times it was tormenting.

Nik sighed. “I do get that,” he said, looking down at Tauria’s peaceful face. “Shit, that was wrong for me to say. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Your territorial bullshit with the three of us finally getting to address the awkward near arrangement last summer, and your usual insufferable arrogance,” Tarly ranted.

Nik smiled, actually huffing a laugh. It defused some of their tension, but Tarly didn’t want to sit back down. The more he looked upon Nik and Tauria’s peaceful closeness, the more his dire situation became despairing.

“You can’t go walking on your own—you might pass out and die. Between you and me, I might not shed a tear, but Tauria would kill me.”

It was Tarly’s turn to let go of a partial laugh. He looked at Nik, and perhaps it was his draining time that opened alternate scenarios in his mind. The wonders of what could have been.

“Why did you always hate me so much?”

To his surprise, Nik frowned as though confused. “Hate you?”

“You weren’t exactly welcoming to me. You or Callen.”

The mention of the Prince of Dalrune struck a chord in them both.

“And here all this time I thought you detested me.”

Tarly scoffed. “I tried to be your friend.”

“When? In any formal gathering you would stand awkwardly by yourself, throwing daggers at me.”

“Because every chance you got, you would either insult or humiliate me!”

Nik grinned . Tarly’s fists balled.

“I’ve never hated you, Tarly. I’ve always thought you were stuck-up and gloomy company in our youth, but I guess I misread your loneliness, and for that, I’m sorry.”

Tarly felt hit by a wave. Did Nik really just apologize?

He shook his head, questioning for a moment if he was awake. Asari stood, coming over to his side and brushing along his leg. Reaching down to the soft fur confirmed his reality a little more. Tarly looked down at the wolf with a twinge of yearning in his chest for Katori, his own companion wolf. Though he hoped she was keeping Nerida safe instead.

Tarly said, “I’m not going far, and I risk falling asleep if I stay down.”

He was so tired, but he feared closing his eyes in case he could never open them again. He just had to hold on until Nerida got here as the last thing he wanted to see in this world if he was to leave it.

“Fine. I have a feeling Asari is smart enough to call for us on your behalf.”

Tarly turned away, heading along the shore.

Every step became heavier, and it wasn’t long before he was regretting the idea to walk. He just wanted to lie down, rest his aching body for a few minutes. His bad arm still hung in a sling.

When Tarly cast his sight up, he stumbled to a halt.

Smoke billowed from the small home atop the hill. The one that had belonged to Nerida’s friend. A gentle glow filled one window, and Tarly’s heart skipped a beat.

“Nerida,” he breathed.

Was it her inside? Who else would occupy such a home in seclusion not long abandoned?

Tarly forgot his fatigue. He didn’t feel the aches of his body pressing forward with more determination than it had in days. He climbed the hill, reaching the home completely breathless while dark spots crept into his vision.

He just had to reach her. Just see her one last time and tell her how sorry he was for leaving, but that he’d done so for her.

His hand slammed down on the handle, and he tumbled inside with her name on his lips.

Yet Tarly wasn’t welcomed by a warm embrace of fire and the bright smile of his angel.

Instead he stumbled over debris, unable to catch himself before tripping, crumbling to his knees. Tarly’s head bowed, staring down at the splinters of charred wood that surrounded him.

His confusion started to clear, recalling the day they’d come across this home and found Nerida’s friend murdered inside by the hands of thugs who’d wanted to capture Nerida for her Waterwielding ability.

Before they’d left, Tarly had set fire to the home rather than leave the body to rot.

Tarly couldn’t even hold the weight of his upper body anymore as he fell over the burned wreckage. Asari whined but didn’t howl to summon Nik for help. He was glad to be spared of that humiliation. That is until the wolf took off, perhaps going to retrieve him instead.

Then he didn’t know what the wolf was thinking when it returned within a minute, more boisterous than before. Tarly was about to yell at it for nudging his side and face and sniffing his body.

Until the most exquisite voice called his name.

“Oh, Tarly, what have you done to yourself?” Nerida said.

He must have fallen unconscious after his delirious vision, but he didn’t care. This was the most beautiful dream he could have fallen into. Two wolves circled him now. Katori had come back.

“I was ready to be very mad at you, and yet I have to find you like this.” Her tone was irritated, and he loved that. Loved her voice in every emotion. “It’s hardly fair.”

She was right beside him now, lifting his head and slipping her knees under him. Gods , her scent was bliss in his misery. He reached his good hand up, and before he could touch her thigh, her hand slipped into his.

Their eyes met, and he was home. He’d never known what that truly felt like until right now.

“I’ll…I’ll make it up to you,” he answered. His words were slipping away from him, but he grappled at them desperately, wanting her to keep talking to him.

“Yes, you will. The more extravagant the better. Drink this,” she instructed, bringing a small bottle to his lips.

The liquid eased down his throat, but he was only focused on her. Next, the gentle blue glow of her magick over his chest lifted a crushing weight he hadn’t been fully aware of. He was so immeasurably beholden to her in this moment.

“Nerida…” he said, letting go of her hand to attempt to reach her face.

“Yes?”

Her brow was tightly pinched in worry, and he wished he could take it away. Her gentle fingers brushed the loose locks of his dark blond hair from his eyes. The full clarity of her attacked his soul. So powerfully that he had to say his next words, as mad as they seemed.

“I think you’re my mate.”

She drew a shallow gasp before her brow deepened more. Her eyes glistened. “I think so too,” she whispered.

Tarly stiffened, not expecting the agreement. He blinked, slowly realizing this was no dream. Nerida was really here. She’d found him.

“I don’t know how it’s possible,” he confessed. “Maybe I just feel for you that strongly it’s like a mating bond, but…I haven’t felt this way before, and I’m confused. So painfully happy but confused.”

His thumb brushed her tear before it fell.

“I don’t know either. But in a life as fragile and uncertain as this one, I don’t really care how.”

He swallowed hard. “Do you…do you want it to be true?”

A smile broke wide across her face, and she laughed through another falling tear. “Yes, Tarly Wolverlon. I want to be yours. So long as you stay alive for me.”

His eyes closed with the warmest, brightest wave of reprieve he’d ever felt in his existence.

“I really, really want to stay alive for you.”

“Good. Because I’ve said it from the start, you’re not going to die.” She sniffed, adjusting her position and assessing his wound. “It’s spread a lot more since you left me. Why did you leave me?”

“I wanted to use what time I had left to make some kind of impact in the war, not search for a fantasy of a cure. And I…I tried to make you hate me so you wouldn’t hurt so much when I’m gone.” His hand slipped down over her collar as he listened to the song in her chest. “Your heart is so full and beautiful, and I wanted you to keep it whole for when you finally give it to someone.”

“It’s yours. You took it long ago, and I took yours in return. That was an exchange our souls made before our minds could find a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t.”

She was so precious it hurt. So his that he couldn’t believe it.

“I love you, Amelie Valaria Nerida Da’Naid. I have for some time.”

Her eyes widened, and he knew it wasn’t his declaration of love for her.

“How did you know?”

“Your father was the King of Fenstead. I came across a book once in the Livre des Verres. It documented frequent and consistent travels to Lakelaria taken by the King before Tauria was born. When I found you, you were a traveler of many centuries, wanting to stay hidden. So I knew you had to have a mother wealthy enough to potentially have spies. You were afraid when you learned who I was, because a link to another royal could get you found out quicker.” Tarly felt so much more alive from her presence and her magick that he sat up with more ease than he’d felt in weeks. He cupped her cheek then ran his fingers through her hair. His eyes marveled over every perfect inch of her. “It makes so much sense. You’ll make a spectacular queen, Nerida. If that’s what you still want to be called.”

She nodded, tearing up more. “To the people I’m Amelie, but I want to always be Nerida with you.”

“My Nerida,” he said tenderly.

He kissed her. Deeply and only once.

“My Sully,” she murmured against his lips.

That pulled a genuine chuckle from him, and he circled an arm around her, tucking her against him, never feeling so light from any burden than while she was in his reach.

“I want to hear everything that happened in Lakelaria,” he said.

“Then you have to tell me where you went. If you’ve been wandering around in self-pity all this time, I’m going to be very mad again.”

Tarly smiled though she couldn’t see it. He kissed her neck, running a hand up her spine. “I’m so relieved you’re here. I promise to stay by your side from now on. I promise to fight to stay here against the odds. For you.”