Page 10 of Ties of Starlight (Tethered Hearts #2)

N yrunn was torn between hatred and relief over the fact that the first few days of his marriage were full of the Constella drilling into him everything he needed to know for the Heava Dance, the Rescue, and the Constellation Pool. Like he hadn’t already learned all of it the second the Constella had selected Idonea. Still, given how poorly his first night had gone as a married man and how he needed to smother his feelings and see this as just fulfilling his duty to his people, not interacting with Idonea was for the best.

But that didn’t make it easy.

He could see her out of the corner of his eye, at the back of the group, alone, always alone. She looked at everything like she’d already been here and done all of this a thousand times before and there was nothing new or exciting left in life. It had his heart twisting into knots and sent his mind racing.

Why wasn’t anyone speaking to her? She was married to their king. They should be trying to curry favor with her. But also, why wasn’t she speaking to them? She should be establishing herself as well.

But he didn’t intervene. It wasn’t like he was any better than her, always waiting until he was certain she’d gone to bed to slink into their tent and decide which uncomfortable sleeping position he would take that night, and then spend the rest of the night pretending he didn’t wake up every time a nightmare overtook her.

He was giving her what she wanted. She’d told him to stay away from her.

A coward’s excuse, but one he would take.

At least he thought she wanted that until on their fifth night, he slipped into the tent, fully expecting her to already be asleep, when instead she was sitting at the vanity, braiding her hair with red-rimmed eyes that betrayed her night certainly hadn’t been uneventful.

Her back was to him, but he could see her reflection, and she quickly straightened up, taking a deep breath. She tied off her braid and wiped at her eyes.

“Your Majesty—” Her voice was thick as she started to push herself up, but he was already moving across the tent toward her, catching her gaze through the glass.

“Who is responsible for this?”

Idonea stood up, spinning to face him and saying, “No one. I mean—no one specific.”

That was a blatant lie. He came to a stop directly in front of her, and she stumbled back, catching herself on the chair.

“Who? Give me their names. What did they say?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle. Just the usual, putting the blame for all of this on me.”

“Usual?”

Her eyes widened and she blanched. “I just mean, everyone is blaming me. I’m the half-human, after all. But that’s not important.”

He was about to insist it was, but she quickly cut him off.

“Your Majesty, there’s been no chance to speak, since—since—” She stuttered, her hand brushing over the lines that bound them together as the Cometa Couple. “I wasn’t in my right mind, and I didn’t ask all the questions I need to.”

Oh. Maybe the distance had been the right thing to do. Maybe it had been the time she needed to come to terms with the unexpected change in the identity of her husband.

He gestured for her to continue. “Go ahead, ask me whatever you wish.”

There was much they would have to discuss about the future and what their marriage and their lives would look like after they finished the ceremony. If she wanted to talk to him about that, surely it was a good sign maybe this wasn’t the mess he feared.

“Olaug—”

Nyrunn couldn’t help the noise in the back of his throat that came out the second the name of that despicable, loathsome creature left his wife’s lips.

“Please, I know you said he left of his own will, but in case you’re wrong, you are looking for him, right? If the Moon Elves—or someone else—took him, he could be in grave danger.” Idonea looked up at him, her sincerity spilling out into every desperate word. “If he was taken to prevent us from completing the rituals, then he has no value to them now.”

How much she loved Olaug filled every anxious syllable.

He couldn’t tell her how he was certain Olaug had spat on her love for him unless he wanted to break her heart. Nor could he tell her how he did have men looking for him, but not to ensure his safety, unless he wanted her to start begging him to spare Olaug.

The elf was far safer wherever he was hiding because when he was located, Nyrunn was going to hold him accountable for abandoning not only a woman who adored him but his country who had been counting on him.

“Do not waste another moment of your time worrying about him,” Nyrunn said, doing his best to keep his voice cold so his fury at the man didn’t spill out and arouse any suspicion. Her wall should keep her from sensing his true feelings. “I am handling it, and he is of no more concern to you.”

Idonea’s mouth parted in a sharp gasp and color flooded to her cheeks. “You might be king, and I might be bound to you as your wife, but if you think I’m going to let you control my thoughts and emotions, you are gravely mistaken, Your Majesty.”

Had this been what she’d been doing all these years? Taking every word out of his mouth and twisting it? This time he failed to rein his boiling emotions in after days of stewing in his humiliation and jealousy. The fervor was quickly boiling his blood and running away with his tongue.

“Do you really think it’s a wise idea to tell your husband you’re going to ignore his advice so you can continue worrying about and pining over the man you wish you’d married instead of him?”

“Calling an order advice is far more creative of you than I expected, Your Majesty.” She spat the honorific as if it was a great insult. The fact that she still would not call him by his name dug under his skin. He’d been giving her the space she’d screamed that she wanted and yet all she’d done with it was sigh and wring her hands over that worthless creature .

“If you think that was an order, then you think of me far more kindly than you ought to. If I give you an order, you’ll know it.” Nyrunn nearly shattered his jaw from how tightly he was clenching it to keep the words from spilling out of him from Olaug’s letter.

It was so tempting to let it out and shatter the perfect image of him she had, but the part of him that cared about her more than he cared about his wounded pride and seething jealousy won out. He swallowed back down the words Olaug had written about how he could not even “suffer” her to have an heir.

He took a deep breath and said, “I’m saying it for your own good. Let me do my job as king and handle Olaug. You are better off forgetting about him.”

Idonea stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself, one hand sinking into the fabric of her nightgown right over the birthmark he’d seen the other day. Her eyes were wide and there was a tremor to her voice. “Or what?”

He couldn’t sense anything on the other side of the bond, but her expression and voice gave her away.

He stared at her for a moment. “Do you… How little do you think of me to think that was a threat?”

She shifted back, eyes skimming over him before her voice came out in a raspy whisper. “You’re Captain Bror’s nephew. King Hrorr’s son.”

She might as well have plunged a knife into his chest.

“You have no estimation of my character outside my father and uncle?”

“If you should like to be judged on your actions, then I shall!” She let out a sharp, breathy laugh and started counting on her fingers. “Let’s see, the first time we met you swept into the library as though you were the only one in the world, interrupted me as I was trying to reshelve a set while standing on a ladder, nearly sending me to the ground by scaring me, but certainly causing me to make a mess and one of those books to this day still has a damaged corner. You then proceeded to interrogate me about who I was and how I could be qualified to work in the royal library, insulting both my age and my lineage—because how could a half-elf possibly be good enough for the royal library?”

He opened his mouth, a thousand defenses rising to his lips, but her sharp laugh and shake of her head stopped him.

“Of course, I made the mistake of not immediately recognizing the crown prince and falling over myself to accommodate you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or shall we recount all the times you came to the library with the sole purpose of trying to get under my skin and make me snap so you could have me fired without looking like the cause? How about all the times you tried to distract me and keep me from doing my job to get me in trouble? How about when you tried to manipulate the Head Librarian into giving me fewer shifts? Years of torment all because I didn’t recognize who you were the second I saw you. Was that one crime really worth years of cruelty?”

“Cruelty?” Nyrunn sputtered.

“You relentlessly mocked me. All those little digs at my ears and my hair. You never let an opportunity pass to emphasize my lack of height. You took any chance to make me blush and embarrass me. You would stare at my—” She wrapped her arms around herself tighter, cheeks staining red. “—at me , and all the things that make it clear I’m not a full-blooded elf, all with that awful, cold, calculating look, criticizing me in your head. Then you’d have a laugh, mocking me, calling me beautiful when you clearly thought I was anything but.”

This… He couldn’t say everything was making sense, be cause none of this made any sense, but he was starting to see why she hated him.

While he’d put it together she had twisted every single word he’d ever spoken against him, he’d been unable to see how. Was it never even a possibility in her mind that she thought he meant it?

He whispered, “You thought every time I told you that you were beautiful that I was mocking you?”

“Is there some other explanation? I’m not stupid! You’re a prince. I’m a mongrel.” Her voice cracked and she cleared it, knuckles turning white. “I know my human blood and my human-ish features make me repulsive to most elves. I know I’ve never once been beautiful by your standards. And what better way to humiliate me after I insulted you than to remind me of my place and how undesirable I am by rubbing my face in my imperfections?”

That’s what she thought of herself? What she believed he thought of her? A mongrel ?

She truly had no idea how much he’d meant every word he’d said to her.

He shook his head with a low, bitter chuckle. All he could say was…

“You are a master at twisting anything and everything to fit your narrative.”

Idonea let out a hysterical, shrill laugh in return. “What else could it have been?”

He could hardly tell her he thought she was the most stunning creature he’d ever laid eyes on now that he was trying to distance his feelings for her from their marriage. And if she hadn’t believed him the last hundred times he’d tried to compliment her, he doubted she was about to start now.

So he stayed silent. He should have been silent from the start .

She took a long breath at his silence and said, “So, if you must know, my estimation of your character is not just limited to your relatives. I have plenty of personal experience to base my judgments on as well.”

And yet all of that had only led her to thinking that he was a cruel tyrant and would be an even crueler husband.

She didn’t have a single clue how backwards she had it, believing Nyrunn thought her repulsive and Olaug had thought her beautiful. But if this was how she viewed herself, he most certainly could never let her know what that scum had said about her. Learning the one man she loved and still believed had wanted to marry her thought those very things about her?

It would destroy her.

So all he could say with a soft step back was, “You seem to have it all figured out. I’m not sure what you need to speak to me for then.”

She stared at him and her grip loosened as she shifted her weight. “Maybe I am foolish then, for thinking for just a moment you might care about the fate of someone who was likely kidnapped in order to keep our people weak and growing weaker for another two hundred and fifty years.”

Over a year of jealousy and reining in his temper was not proving to be any good to him now as she frayed every last shred of patience he had when she kept bringing him up.

“You’re right. You are foolish for thinking this conversation would go any other way, given how convinced you are of my poor character.” He tried to take a deep breath to temper himself, but it did him no good as each word came out as sharp and jagged as broken glass. “No matter the circumstances involved in their marriage, even a good, honorable husband would be furious about his wife pining after someone else. What did you expect a cruel one would do?”

She just stepped back as he approached, shrinking in on herself like she was bracing for the reaction of a truly monstrous man.

Clearly, she did know what to expect, and she’d provoked him anyway. For the slightest fragment of hope for the one she truly loved, she would have taken the abuse.

What was he doing?

Nyrunn had never thought of himself as particularly prone to anger, jealousy, or self-loathing, but that had changed the second Idonea had been engaged to someone else and had only gotten worse with each passing day.

Still, he pushed down his seething anger, which would do him no good in trying to convince her that he wasn’t the villain here. It wouldn’t make her any less afraid of him, and as jealous as he was over an elf who wasn’t even there anymore, he wanted more for his wife not to look at him like he might hurt her.

He stepped back. “Go to bed, Idonea. You might think me a cruel, monstrous creature, but I at least hope you think of me as a competent king if nothing else. I wouldn’t let any enemy of our people get away with a crime, especially one with consequences of this magnitude.”

Which wasn’t really a lie, even if he was letting her interpret his words incorrectly. As far as he was concerned, by abandoning his responsibilities, Olaug was an enemy to their people.

But Idonea simply nodded and hurried to the bed, burrowing beneath the covers. Nyrunn just took his blanket and resigned himself to the discomfort of the floor over the chair.

Did she think a cruel husband would be sleeping on the ground to respect her and ensure her comfort? Although in her twisted way of viewing things, she probably assumed it was because of how repulsive he found her.

If only she knew there was nothing more he wanted than to be near to her. But that would likely frighten her more than his imaginary disgust did.

As usual, he heard when the nightmares came.

But this time, he didn’t pretend not to hear. He pushed himself to his feet and crept to her side of the bed. As she tossed and turned, a whimper coming out of her lips, he reached over, brushing his hand over her shoulder. She whimpered again before her breathing turned increasingly shallow until she jolted, knocking his hand loose as she gasped for breath, choking on nothing and clawing at her necklace.

Why was she even wearing it while she slept?

“Idonea, breathe—”

“You try breathing when you’re drowning,” she muttered. Was that what the nightmare had been? Why was she having a nightmare about drowning? Did it have to do with the Constellation Pool?

“Your nightmare was about you drowning?”

She closed her eyes with a wince. He started to reach for the clasp of her necklace. “Sleeping with this on surely isn’t helping—”

She smacked his hand away, then stared at him with wide eyes. She stammered, “I—I’m sorry—I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

Before he could respond, she just drew the covers up over herself and hid from him, but he could see where her hands trembled, clenched into the fabric. He sat on the ground beside her, just watching as she pretended not to cower from his mere presence.

This wasn’t working.

But Nyrunn didn’t know what he could do to fix it.