Page 7 of Ties of Starlight (Tethered Hearts #2)
I donea wasn't sure how long it had taken for her wretched sobs to stop, but at some point Nyrunn had listened and left. So when she looked up, the tent was empty.
Her skirts were billowed out on the ground beside her as she knelt beside the bed, half hidden by it. She took a few shaky, shuddering breaths as she reached up and used her long sleeve to wipe the tears away. Her half-human side meant she cried far more easily and far longer than the other elves. Maybe her disgusting displays of reckless, unrestrained human emotion would repulse Nyrunn enough he would have no desire to treat this night like a real wedding night.
Just the thought had her stomach turning. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. This had never happened before.
She glanced up at the tent exit. Technically, neither of them were supposed to leave until morning, but that was tradition, not a requirement for the magic. Besides, he'd already left. Why couldn't she ?
Why couldn't she just leave, period?
Why not run away?
Everything was ruined. Why not run away and start over?
And it was all Nyrunn's fault. It would serve him right for ruining her life.
Another weak, broken sob clawed up her throat. Her hand clenched into the fabric over her heart, the lilies on it glowing, binding her to the wrong elf.
She was so close. She'd been so close to finally getting it perfect and having a final, happy ending.
But now she had this instead.
She could sense him in the near distance. Right. Idonea closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and focusing on the bond. Nyrunn was far enough away she couldn’t make out what he was feeling. Good.
Idonea carefully pushed it away and focused on walling herself off. Being able to feel each other’s emotions was supposed to help bring two strangers closer together and make their relationship stronger so the rituals would be stronger, but there was no actual proof that the strength of their bond had anything to do with how strong the Star Elves’ magic became after the comet. While the bond was integral to the magic, it only needed to exist to carry them through the linked chain of rituals. Walling it off in the past hadn’t hurt the rituals.
Idonea didn’t need to be subjected to Nyrunn’s emotions in order to do her duty to her people. She breathed easier when she finished, despite the fact that walling herself off took a fair amount of energy.
Nyrunn would no longer be able to sense her emotions. He could feel her on his end, but nothing more than that. Her wall also meant anything that came from Nyrunn would be dulled, small things bouncing right back off the wall and turning large, overwhelming tidal waves of emotion into distant whispers.
Once that was taken care of, she used the bed to pull herself to her feet and made her way over to the small vanity that had her things packed and set beside it. She dug through the bag and pulled out her journal and writing equipment before staggering into the chair. She directed the starlight hovering in the corner to come closer as she flipped the book open and began to write.
Today was my wedding day, the wedding of the Cometa Couple. I thought I had finally gotten ahead of everything, that this time I would do it perfectly and nothing would go wrong. I was wrong.
I'm not married to the love of my life. I'm married to the king who hates me.
In all my years, I've never hated anyone like I hate him. Especially now. The nephew of Captain Bror. I didn’t know it was possible to hate someone more than I hated Bror. If their relation alone wasn't enough reason to hate him, he's always harassed me, trying to get under my skin, mocking me just like his uncle for my human blood. But now he’s condemned me to misery by trapping me as his wife. As if this could ever make me his wife.
I'll never be his. This will just be a mistake. Another stumbling block. I'll figure out what I did wrong, and next time I'll fix it. The cycle won't break until then.
Idonea reached up and brushed her fingertips over her starry necklace. She continued writing.
I'll get through this life.
I'll get it right in the next one.
Idonea was still writing when she heard footsteps. The faint hum of Nyrunn’s existence crept closer. She didn't even have time to make sure the ink was dry before she shut the journal, hiding her words as someone came into the tent.
She turned to see it was Nyrunn. No one else would dare enter.
In all her lives, Idonea had never done this before. Every time she'd done this, it was Olaug. Whether they had the same names or not, it was his soul, and Idonea always knew the one her soul was bound to.
She glanced at Nyrunn's wrist, the starry lines branding him like no other king had ever been before. Now she was bound to him, but this was a bond death could and would separate. What she had with Nyrunn was a mere shadow of her bond with Olaug.
Nyrunn was carrying a tray as he stepped back into the tent, his expression impassive and guarded. He paused, staring at her far longer than necessary.
Why? Even if he wanted to make her miserable, why make himself miserable as well?
He cleared his throat as the tent flap shut behind him. He lifted the tray slightly. “I'm starving. I take it you probably are too since neither of us have had the chance to eat since this morning.”
Idonea took a deep breath. She needed to keep herself together in order to get through this. She couldn't keep falling apart and letting anything and everything fall out of her mouth. “I suppose I am hungry.”
She couldn't let her guard down for even a second.
He nodded and moved toward the bed, the only space really large enough for them to both sit and eat. Idonea wasn't thrilled with the seating, but she hadn't been lying. She was hungry.
He sat on the edge, setting the tray in the middle and only taking up as much space as necessary. Idonea slowly approached, forced to sit fully on the bed or else her skirts would send her off the edge. He lifted the lid, presenting two plates and glasses, the same dinner that was being served outside the tent to the whole court. It was also the same meal that was always served at the wedding of the Cometa Couple, taken from the first meal Agnarr and Gytha shared, according to the legend. Venison. Agnarr wasn't just a warrior but a hunter as well.
At least according to the stories.
Idonea knew she wasn't Gytha. She hadn't been part of the first Cometa Couple, but she had been selected as Gytha's chosen sometime after the Star Elves had started continuing the ritual. The farthest back Idonea had traced herself was the sixth couple being her first life. Ever since then, Idonea had always been Gytha's chosen.
So that was how she knew exactly how this meal was supposed to look and how she knew the little dark purple cake wasn't part of it. It was never part of the meal. It wasn't tradition.
“What is that?” Idonea asked, narrowing her eyes at the out of place dessert like it was the reason she was now married to the wrong elf and was going to have to try again in another life before she could be free.
At this point, she was so clueless as to her mistake in this life, it could be.
Nyrunn looked up, raising an eyebrow. “You know what an Asterberry Cake is.”
He started cutting into his food while she kept glaring at the offending dessert. “Of course I know what it is. What is it doing here? It's not part of the Cometa Couple's wedding meal. It's not supposed to be here.”
Nyrunn finished his bite before looking up. “I told the kitchen to add it. And it's not part of the traditional meal, no, but the Constella could give me no real reason not to add it as it has nothing to do with the magic.”
Was this another symptom of whatever had gone so horribly wrong now that she was married to the wrong man?
When she still made no move to eat, staring at the cake as though it might gain the ability to speak and answer her, Nyrunn huffed. “Will you just eat?”
She was drawing more suspicion and she couldn't afford that, so she set to eating, ignoring the dessert and focusing on the traditional aspects of the meal. Even though it was tempting her with its blue sparkling glaze and asterberries artfully placed on top.
Once she started eating, her hunger flared up, and it was easier to focus on that than on the elf sitting beside her who wasn't supposed to be.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nyrunn finish before her and move to dig into his little cake. Her eye twitched, but she focused instead on forcing the venison down her throat. For a meal she knew she would be required to eat every life she lived, it had never gotten any better. She hated venison.
But she was hungry enough to get through it. It was tradition.
Finally, she finished and took a long drink of water, trying to chase the taste away.
Nyrunn was slowly eating the cake, watching her more than actually eating. She sat up straight, distancing herself from the tray and leaving the cake where it was untouched.
He narrowed his eyes and said, “You're not serious.”
“What?”
“I know your objection isn't that you hate Asterberry Cake. You just forced yourself to eat your least favorite meal because it's tradition and now you won't even take a single bite of your favorite dessert because of it?”
She narrowed her eyes at him and lied through her teeth because there was no earthly reason he should know that. “I don't know what you're talking about. Venison is perfectly acceptable, and I don't like asterberries in the first place, much less cake with them in it.”
“If you have no problem with venison, you ought to tell your expression when you eat it, because you don't look happy,” Nyrunn said. “And really? You hide behind the desk during the middle of your shift in the library during peak asterberry season so you can take your time and enjoy them without being rushed because you hate them? Or the Head Librarian makes sure you get one of these cakes on your birthday every year because he knows how much you despise it?”
Well, Idonea's lie had been predicated on her assumption he didn't know any of that or else she wouldn't have wasted her time.
Also, he knew that?
She wasn't sure how long she was blankly staring at him, trying to figure out when, how, and why he had gathered and retained that information before he shifted back. Something pulsed on the other side of the wall. “So you might as well eat it or else it goes to waste.”
To be fair, she was already married to the wrong man. She could hardly mess this up further. She silently dove into the little dessert, working hard to keep a smile from spreading over her face the second it hit her tongue. Asterberries were absolutely her favorite.
Although the way Nyrunn was watching her made it easy not to smile or let anything slip that would confirm his assumptions.
Finally, she took the last delightful bite and inclined her head toward the tray that was now full of dirty dishes. “There, are you happy now?”
Something flickered briefly in his eyes, but even after spending so long living again and again with full blooded Star Elves, she struggled to read them. Sometimes she wished she was a Sun Elf—at least they weren’t as reserved.
“What have you done?”
Idonea stilled.
Nyrunn gestured to his arm. “When I was gone, I was still feeling… everything. Then… it just stopped. Or… I could still sense you, but not what you were feeling, if that makes any sense.”
Oh.
“It’s a technique. The Constella teaches it to all the couples, how to control what goes through the bond so it’s not overwhelming. I put up a wall so you should no longer feel my emotions and I don’t feel yours as strongly.” Idonea shrugged. “I figured it’ll be better that way.”
Nyrunn nodded. “Of course. That was a good call. Things… things got out of hand before.”
Idonea raised her hand between them. “We don’t need to revisit it.”
Nyrunn nodded and gathered the tray, returning to the tent entrance, poking his head out and calling for a servant to take it. Idonea pushed herself off the bed and positioned herself in front of her things, crossing her arms.
There was really nothing else left, but if he thought—
When he turned back to face her, he saw her standing in front of her things and said, “Should I—”
“Just face the other way, and I'll let you know when you can turn around.” Idonea hoped her stern tone would overcome her panicked, racing heart.
She'd never done this with someone else. She knew how it was supposed to go with her and Olaug—how it always went with the two of them—but this was uncharted territory for her. What would he expect from her? Surely he couldn't truly want to be her husband. She was half-human and he was royal. The idea surely repulsed him as much as it had his father and uncle.
Nyrunn did turn around, so Idonea took that as a good sign he was repulsed by her.
His uncle’s voice echoed in her head sometimes. The way he’d sneered over the word “beautiful” when he’d passed her, hair falling from her braid in a tangled mess, covered in dust and sweat from scrubbing floors. The way his laugh echoed off the walls when he would call her a mongrel in front of his friends.
She pushed Bror’s voice away and made quick work of getting out of the dress, which wasn't easy. However, like most things involved in the ceremony, the style of dress was the same as all the other times before, so she was able to get herself out without any assistance. She let the starry skirts fall to the floor and she dug out a nightgown, not the one she'd originally planned on, but one that was going to make both of them feel better with how modest and shapeless it was. She tucked her necklace under the collar.
Once she had the last button done up to her chin, she said, “You can turn around now, Your Majesty.”
He did so slowly, a glare in his eyes. “I'm your husband. You can call me by my name.”
She'd rather do anything and everything she could to put more distance between them. So she ignored him as she glanced around the tent while starting to finish taking down her hair. There was only one bed, so she was going to have to find a spot on the floor.
After he washed the paint off his face, he let out a sigh and just shed his stiff outerwear, tossing it to the ground beside her dress, and before she could blink, he was in front of her. “Here, let me.”
Before she could ask what he could be talking about, he was pulling her hands out of her hair and moving to pull out pins and unfurl braids and twists, freeing her long hair.
Her breath caught in her throat as he shifted closer, much taller than her, and there was nothing for her to look at but him. His touch was surprisingly gentle as he removed the pins and braids. He spoke in a low murmur, “And don't even think about it, Idonea. I'll sleep on the floor.”
Oh. That was… kind of him. Or maybe he was just as horrified by the idea of her, he would do anything to ensure it didn’t happen.
“I—Fine,” Idonea whispered as the last of her hair came free and he shifted back just enough that he could drape it over her shoulders, fingers twisting the ends and not pulling back. She lifted her chin so she could look him in the eyes. “I assumed you would want to be as far from me as possible. I wouldn't want my half-human qualities to offend you by subjecting you to being near me, Your Majesty.”
He immediately dropped her hair and stepped back. Something hot flared, crashing against her wall. He turned away from her, grabbed a blanket off the foot of the bed, and set about making a space for himself on the floor. Idonea took the slight victory it was and moved to the bed, crawling beneath the covers as Nyrunn pulled his blanket over him, turned his back to her, and with a wave of his hand, extinguished the starlight.
In the darkness, she heard the sounds of music and voices of the court celebrating the wedding nearby.
And the king of Adastra was sleeping on the ground by the entrance of the tent.
So even if she did decide to run away now that this life was another in a long line of failures, she wouldn't be able to without alerting him.
Besides, it was too late. The Star Elves needed the ritual to be completed this time. She'd at least finish for them and their magic before she decided what to do with this life.
Being King Nyrunn's wife wasn't going to be it.