Page 13 of Ties of Starlight (Tethered Hearts #2)

T he wrong husband was only one of Idonea's worries, and even though she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to accomplish with all of this, he was the lesser of her concerns. As each second brought her closer to the Ruins of Heava, she was consumed with simply trying to maintain control of her own mind. Her own memories were battering rams, trying to break her down and overwhelm her. She should have known they would only get worse as they got closer. Her most recent life and death were always the freshest, especially around the place where it ended.

The things she'd done in her last life were creeping up on her. She had to make up for it. She didn't want all those memories. She wanted as much distance between her and her past self as possible. Idonea caught brief snippets in her nightmares, and that was more than enough.

What she’d done…

It didn't help there'd been no word of Olaug. Was he dead? If he was, what had she done that could have ruined this cycle so terribly?

She might not have been the one with the dagger this time, but was she not just as responsible as before?

If he was dead, had she killed him a second time?

When they crested a hill and her eyes landed on the ruins on the next hill in the distance, the ruins stretching up into the sky, vivid red flashed before her eyes. Her hands were covered in it. Her own sobs ripped through the air, and then a blade was tearing through—

“Idonea?”

She startled in her saddle, Nyrunn on his steed, concern filling his gaze as he stared at the way her hands were shaking. He sounded so similar to Bror. She tugged on the reins, her horse shying away from him. She lowered her gaze and said, “It's a beautiful sight, Your Majesty, that's all.”

The nephew of her killer. Her husband.

Her deathmark ached.

Nyrunn was a question she had not yet answered. He was not what she'd believed, but she had seen enough to know she could not fully dispel that impression. At least, his cruelty was being dealt out on her behalf. What kind of an elf that made him, she did not know.

What she did know was that she did not trust him. She urged her horse on, brushing her hand over her deathmark, hidden beneath the fabric of her traveling clothes.

He was a liar, that much she was certain of, but his motives for it, she could not determine.

They reached the ruins in the late afternoon, and the camp quickly set off in a flurry of action, even though everything was already set up. Idonea was being rushed off her steed by Lady Asa and several servants and hurried away to bathe and get dressed in the Heava Dance's traditional garb.

Unfortunately, Idonea's dress wasn't going to fully cover the deathmark .

She ignored the way Lady Asa's eyebrow quirked up at the sight of it as Idonea slid into the tub prepared in one of the buildings that was still standing and had four walls. Idonea just hid herself in the water as best she could, flushing at the way the two elf servants gave her figure disapproving looks.

Her undesirable shape had caused her enough problems, especially at the ruins. She didn't need to be reminded of it.

She focused on getting cleaned up as quickly as possible and with the three elves’ assistance, she was dried off and getting into the dress as the sun began to go down. Lady Asa sat her down on a chair and the two servants began styling Idonea's hair. Their comments about its flat black color under their breath were not unnoticed. Lady Asa began doing the appropriate makeup for the ceremony. Similar to the paint Agnarr's chosen had for the wedding, her temples were colored with shimmering dark blue swirling with purple as well as her eye lids and her jaw. No Star Elf these days had the natural markings their race had used to have, so they had to paint them on for old rituals like this. If anything, it was more authentic since Gytha had painted the markings on her face anyway since she’d been completely human.

Idonea’s hair was wound up into braided crowns and pinned into place before being covered with a thin net of tiny pearls that shone like stars, almost making her hair look like a full elf's. Almost. Idonea could never truly pass as one of them.

Her human blood was always too strong.

Too violent.

That's what Captain Bror had written about her past life in his account. Her human blood contained a thirst for violence that had erupted at the slightest provocation .

It was why she'd had to be put down for everyone's safety.

But this time she would be better. She would be perfect. Well... if that were true, she'd be married to Olaug. Clearly, she wasn't.

But she would at least not mess this up like she had last time. No more blood on her hands.

She was brought out to the stairs leading up to the middle of the ruins where everyone was gathered above. Elves from neighboring villages had traveled a long way to witness it in addition to the court that had traveled with them. They were all gathered around the old market square.

They were all looking at Nyrunn. Those who hadn't yet heard the news were gaping at their king standing in the position of Agnarr's chosen. Actually, even if they had heard the news, this was something that could only be seen to be believed.

Idonea was still struggling to believe it.

She paused for a moment, staying in the shadows and watching her husband.

Nyrunn had his hands clasped behind his back as he looked up at the sky. The expanse was painted orange and gold even as the moon and the stars began to come out; the warm light washed over him, and the little gold and white stars shone, reflecting the light against his dark purple ceremonial clothes. The cape around his shoulders fluttered softly in the breeze. Nyrunn… he held himself so differently than Olaug did. His shoulders were rigid as he ignored the crowd around him, or maybe more specifically, Frode. He was so solid. Olaug was almost always moving, never sitting still.

Nyrunn closed his eyes as the breeze rustled his dark purple hair, sending a few strands across his jaw. Idonea’s breath caught in her throat. Had she really looked at him before? Had she looked at him since this had all started and actually seen Nyrunn instead of not-Olaug?

Had she ever looked at him and seen Nyrunn and not Bror?

Lady Asa came up to her. They still had a minute or two before she needed to climb the stairs for the Heava Dance.

Lady Asa’s voice was soft as she said, “You’ll be in good hands with King Nyrunn.”

Idonea startled. “What?”

“For the dance. I promise, he really is a good dancer.” Asa reached over, tugging one of Idonea’s sleeves back into place. She smiled. “He’s been practicing. In case he didn’t tell you what he’s been up to. Why he comes back to your tent late most nights. I don’t know if anyone else has caught him, but I saw him the other night, in the shadows, away from the main camp.”

A good excuse to avoid her as much as possible.

Idonea watched Nyrunn open his eyes.

Who was he?

“Good.” Idonea’s voice came out raspy and dry. “That’s… good.”

“Surely you’ve seen King Nyrunn’s charming side now?” Asa’s lips curved into a smile.

She could feel the phantom sensation of his hand on hers, his fingertips brushing her jaw. Her heart began to pick up speed. Warmth flooded her face.

She grabbed her skirts and started for the stairs.

“Idonea—” Asa reached for her arm, but Idonea dodged her, twirling on her heel and out of the way.

She hurried up the first few steps, throwing over her shoulder, “I have to go start the dance.”

Asa didn’t try to delay her or say anything more. Idonea faced ahead, forcing herself to slow down before she tripped and made a fool of herself. No one above had noticed her approach yet.

The Constella stood next to Nyrunn, and his eyes landed on Idonea first, knowing the exact moment she was supposed to climb the stairs. The final rays of the sun were disappearing as the stars came out fully. The Constella gave her a nod, and Nyrunn turned to face her.

Her hands were in her skirts, giving them a slight lift as she went up the stairs but she wished she could instead use one of them to cover her deathmark.

But he wasn't looking at that. Or, well, he wasn't focusing on it. His eyes traced over all of her, and she shivered, but that was because there was a breeze and her shoulders were bare. He was only looking at her to find fault. His eyes dragged up her skirts, then her bodice, then her neck to her face. He was taking stock of all the ways she didn't look like an elf. She was serving as a reminder to him of what she was.

If her violent human blood rose to the surface again, he would be on guard, ready to put her down just like his uncle had.

He frightened her, so much so it was often his face that she saw out of the corner of her eye in her nightmares as the blade cut through her heart and not Bror’s. However, she could not truly blame him.

She waited for the disgust to flicker, for him to swallow and brace himself for being forced to be so close to the wife he was rightfully repulsed by.

It never came.

She reached the top of the stairs, stars hanging in the air and lighting up the stone platform. Broken columns that had once held up an arch framed the space around them. These ruins had been ruins ever since Idonea’s first life, but they’d certainly eroded bit by bit ever since then.

Nyrunn's lips parted as she stepped into the light and his breath hitched. Something flared distantly on the other side of her wall.

Her wall wasn’t as strong as it could be. Her memories and nightmares had been slamming into it, sending cracks and fissures through it she had not had time to repair.

Idonea had lived a long time. She'd experienced a lot of looks. She'd never had someone look at her like that.

It wasn't repulsion. It certainly wasn't desire. While she most often experienced the first, she'd been married six times to her soulmate. She'd experienced the second enough to know what it looked like.

Then Nyrunn lowered his gaze as she continued her approach, reaching him and the Constella, and he was staring at the ground. His hair fell into his face so she could not see what was in his eyes. Maybe he was trying to hide his repulsion that way.

“Agnarr's chosen, Gytha's chosen, your hands.”

Idonea extended hers and Nyrunn finally looked up, but directly at the Constella as he extended his. The Constella took their hands, the ones with the starry lines marking this bond, and joined them together. His magic flared and more starlight wrapped around them, joining them. More starlight went up, painting a pattern through the air, the white nearly blinding.

“Agnarr's chosen, Gytha's chosen, as Agnarr and Gytha once danced together, sealing their magic beneath the stars, now you will follow in their footsteps and seal your magic together.”

The Constella backed away, stepping off the platform as the music started up. Idonea held her breath when Nyrunn's grip on her hand tightened before he looked at her again. But before she could look at him, the dance began. He spun her back to his front, and they were dancing between the lines of starlight both pinning them in and outlining their path.

Idonea threw herself into the dance. This at least she did not believe she could mess up if she tried.

She knew the steps of the dance by heart. The man she was dancing with, however, she did not.

Nor did he know the dance by heart. As his arm slid around her waist as he turned her to face him, as their feet kept moving and winding along their destined path, but he stepped too far, and she quickly sank her other hand into the back of his cape and jerked herself closer to avoid stumbling into the strand of starlight. The misstep was hidden, and she was spinning again before being lifted into the air, heart in her throat. Nyrunn set her back on her feet, but when he hesitated, she whispered, “You come forward, now.”

So much for the claims Nyrunn was the best dancer in the court.

He immediately did so, and she shifted back in time; his hands held hers, bracing her as she dipped back, bending over and beneath the starlight. So they went—any time he hesitated, she whispered the right move and he executed it.

He wasn’t awful, and she couldn’t fault him too much since it was likely the first time he was actually dancing it with a partner. With that in mind, he was doing better than anyone had any right to.

While Idonea had never seen it from the exterior, she’d always heard the Heava Dance was a breathtaking sight. It was part performance, part bonding ritual.

Nyrunn’s magic did the majority of the work, moving the stars and creating the lines that boxed them in and took them along an ever-changing path, but Idonea’s magic was drawn to it to respond .

The dance was usually Idonea’s favorite part of the journey.

The music kept on, filling the air, but Idonea’s mind was torn in a thousand different directions. She needed to ensure Nyrunn didn’t mess up, but at the same time, every time she blinked, he was no longer the elf in her arms. Her hands were no longer plain and pale but slick and stained.

Nyrunn’s emotions on the other side of her wall kept flaring and crashing against the other side while her memories and the horror and guilt that came with them slammed into her side.

He was too close. The whole point of this was to bring them closer. The bond was getting stronger with each note. It was too much.

It wasn’t just her previous life and the previous dance pounding away in her skull. Every other life. Every other dance. It was all haunting her.

Six ghosts of herself all clawed at her as she retraced their steps.

Finally, they'd made their way through every step of the dance as the music came to an end, and he lifted her one last time, but when he set her down, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest instead of an arm’s length apart like he was supposed to. He just held her tightly, fingers curling into her bodice as he leaned over her, huffing for breath as he stared down at her.

Idonea could feel his heart racing beneath her palm on his chest. She didn't look up. She would not meet his gaze.

Not when she could feel how thin and cracked her wall was and the slightest provocation would shatter it.

Whatever it was that was on his side, she didn’t want it.

“Idonea...” he breathed out, something barely restrained in his tone, something begging to come forth.

She kept staring at his chest, focusing on the glimmering threads in the fabric. She didn't want to look up to see what was in his eyes.

If it was what she feared, she did not want to know. It would not last. It would fade. The Heava Dance was meant to bring the Cometa Couple even closer together. It wasn’t real. It was just a show. He was just feeling the rush of completing the ritual. Of their bond growing stronger. It had nothing to do with her, and soon enough reality would set back in.

The magic wasn't that strong. The feeling would fade within minutes.

It had last time.

The elves' applause wasn't even enough to pull his attention away. She shifted, pushing on his chest slightly, but he just breathed out again, “Idonea, I—”

But the applause was just bringing her back to the last time. When she'd been staring at her husband with adoration and desire, thrilled they'd gotten the dance perfectly right, feeling closer to him than she ever had before in any life.

And then all she saw were her hands coated in red as they rested against Nyrunn's chest. A flicker and then they'd been pressing against Olaug as the blood kept coming.

All her fault.

She ripped herself out of Nyrunn's grip with a sharp gasp. As she stumbled back, his hands hovered in the air where they'd been clutching her before he dropped them and lowered his gaze. She turned to face the crowd, giving them a weak smile even though none of them cared.

Her head was pounding. Memory after memory banging at her skull, trying to get through. It was too much. There were too many. She had too many lives all screaming to take her place. Life after life stuffed into a mind that was only meant to hold one.

Maybe it was her vile human blood, or maybe it was her overfull mind unravelling more and more each time she came back.

The crowd was turning to celebrate, glasses being passed around, and she just hurried to get off the platform and away from the man she wasn't supposed to be here with.

She looked over her shoulder as she dove into the crowd to see Nyrunn coming after her, but Frode and an elf she'd never seen before cut into his path. Thank Gytha.

Idonea kept moving, losing herself in the crowd, trying not to look too closely at anything and failing. Around the corner to her left was where in her third life she'd been ambushed and kidnapped by Moon Elves to be held until the comet had passed and the ceremonies failed. The memories of what they’d done to her were better off buried as well.

She turned on her heel and wove through the crowd. To her left now was the spot where in her fourth life an elf with an eighth of human blood had given Idonea a poisoned glass of wine in the hopes she might be able to take Idonea's place. Idonea had survived, barely. The human blood had made the poison less potent so Idonea had been able to finish the ceremony. She'd been weak and bedridden for the next decade before passing away.

Idonea didn't have good memories of the ruins no matter what life it was.

She was focused solely on avoiding Nyrunn until he came to his senses when someone bumped into her and she was gasping as her hands and chest were soaked in red and the front of her dress was stained.

“Lady Idonea, I didn't see you— ”

But Idonea couldn't hear anything else. Her wall shattered.

“Lady Inga, I didn't see you there!”

“Inga, I can explain—”

Her own voice filled her head. “Explain? How can you possibly explain this? How could you? Again?”

“Nothing's really happened—”

“Get away from my husband!”

“Get away from my wife! Get back! Give her some space!”

Idonea snapped out of the memory to see she was on the ground, on her hands and knees, cheek stinging and deathmark aching. Her hands were stained red and burning from scrapes against the stone. Her throat was raw and she was wheezing and gasping for every breath.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

She held her breath, waiting. She'd snapped again. Either her human blood or her lifetimes had finally split her head and now she was waiting for the blade.

But all that came was a soft palm brushing over her shoulder and then her vision was filled with Nyrunn kneeling in front of her. He ran his hands over her shoulders and then to her jaw, tilting her head up. He locked eyes with her.

“Deep breath, little lily.”

She obeyed, but it was shaky and fell apart as a sob wrenched out of her mouth as she waited for the blade to plunge into her chest.

It didn’t.

He looked up and around at the crowd that was gaping at them, one of the guards holding Katla back. She was clutching her cheek, red scratches peeking out from under her hand.

“Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up,” Nyrunn said. He quickly pulled his cape off and wrapped it around her. She didn’t move to grab it. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to her feet, holding the cape in place. She stumbled on shaky legs and then Nyrunn was pulling her into him, sliding his hand to her waist, taking on her weight and steadying her. The crowd parted for the king as he pulled her away, and Idonea winced at the way everyone looked at her.

She looked back over her shoulder. Katla was being let go and her scratches being examined. Idonea looked up at her husband.

The nephew of her killer.

It wasn’t about how she’d failed in this life. This was punishment for what she’d done in her last. How poetic.

This time it would be her husband who killed her.