“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
Christ almighty. I couldn’t fucking live without her. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t. “Never apologize to me. Never again.”
She gave no response. She had the look of being in a dream. Or of passing into another world.
I looked up. I hadn’t prayed in decades. But now I did, after a fashion. “Don’t you fucking take her from me,” I warned God, as I held her close. “Don’t you fucking dare, you bastard.”
I embraced her, keeping her safe and close, trying to protect her from a fate bigger than us both. The life that was ripped away from us flashed before my eyes. Our home. Our children. Our love and peace and hope.
A hand on my shoulder shocked me out of my grief, and I looked up to see the royal doctor in his medical robe. “Let me tend to her, sir. Move aside.”
All the warriors in the land couldn’t have made me leave her. Not a fucking chance. “I can’t let her go,” I said, as my tears fell onto her beautiful cheeks. “I can’t watch her die.”
“Let him help her, and hopefully neither of us will have to,” said another voice, this one firm but shaky with emotion. Turning, still clutching Sara to my chest, I found myself looking into the stunned face of King Rowan himself.
Sara
I awoke in a spacious bedroom, in a featherbed surrounded by vases of Lenten roses. At first, I thought I was in heaven, but as I slowly came into consciousness, I realized I was still very much alive.
Thankfully and miraculously alive. The first face I saw was that of my one true love. Bors sat at my bedside, with his head slightly lowered and two fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose in worry.
I was cautious not to move a muscle, lest he realize I was awake, while I savored a few quiet seconds to study him there in the morning light. He looked tired and haggard, like he had been sitting at my bedside for days.
“Hello, my love,” I said finally, and reached out for his hand.
His expression changed instantly, and as he looked up at me his worry melted away. “You’re awake.”
“What happened?” I whispered. My voice was hoarse and my throat was dry. I instinctively placed my hand on my stomach, where I was met with a thick wrapping of cotton bandages.
Bors didn’t answer me, but instead hurried to the big door on the far side of the room and called for the doctor, who appeared at once.
He was an elderly gentleman, with a long white beard and kind eyes, and a soft smile that calmed me. He took my pulse and placed a cool, soft hand to my forehead. Once he had checked my bandages and assured himself I was well, he stepped aside to let Bors resume his seat beside me again.
He poured me a glass of cool water and held it to my lips. “You almost died,” he said, setting down the glass for me. “Thank God we were in the palace. The doctors were able to get to you right away. They said that if we had been anywhere else, you…” He stammered, and his eyes filled up with tears.
“Shhhh,” I said, and clutched his hand. “I’m sorry I frightened you. Look, I’m better now, you can stop worrying.”
With his thumb and forefinger, he swept his tears away and nodded, smiling. It made me love him all the more, seeing this softness beneath his gruff exterior. Knowing that I was the woman capable of drawing it out of him made me feel like the queen herself.
The queen.
As if I had been thrown into a frigid lake, it all rushed back to me—Queen Beatrice, her guards, the horrible events of my imprisonment. My pulse quickened and I gripped the edge of the embroidered coverlet that was spread across the bed.
Now it was Bors’ turn to soothe me, as he saw me looking with panicked eyes, side to side across the room.
“The queen is in chains, awaiting trial, though I don’t think she’s in any doubt about her fate. She’s in the same dungeon where she tried to keep you, with King’s men guarding the door day and night. It’s all over.”
It was hard for me to sigh with relief, given the pain in my stomach, but at the very least the stress started to lessen in my shoulders. “I’m safe?” I asked, just to be doubly sure.
“You are,” Bors said seriously. “I fucking swear it.”
A soft knock from the door interrupted us. “Come in,” I said with as much strength as I could muster.
The door swung open, and Bors rose immediately, though he did not let go of my hand. “Your Grace,” he said, lowering his head.
There, standing in a patch of sunshine from the open window, stood a man who had to be King Rowan. His hair, though graying now, had clearly been the same color as mine in his youth, and his clothing was the finest I’d ever seen.
His magnificent gold grown emblazoned with emeralds the color of my eyes sat straight and steady on top of his head. His face was the face of a man who led his people from the front, handsome, strong, and weather-worn.
I felt embarrassed by being in such disarray in such lofty company, and tried to smooth my hair in order to look a tiny bit more presentable, but the King raised his hands, kneeling beside my bed. “Please, don’t trouble yourself, my dear. How are you? How is your pain?”
I stared at him in astonishment. My dear. This term of such affection from the most powerful man in the land left me speechless.
“She seems better,” Bors said for me, smiling a little at my embarrassment before he leaned down to my ear. “He’s just your father, you know,” he said sweetly, with a friendly and warm glance at the king. “I’ve spent a lot of time with him. He’s a whole lot like you.”
“I am so very sorry for all you have suffered,” the King said. His eyes, shaped like mine, but bronze where mine were green, grew misty with tears as he ran his hand pinched the bridge of his nose in sorrow. “My beautiful daughter. I made so many terrible choices that led to your kidnapping. I was blind to the truth of those around me. And you suffered for my arrogance. Please,” he said lowering his head, as if in shame. “Please forgive me.”
There was not an ounce of bitterness in my heart for all that had happened. “There’s nothing to forgive, father,” I said. “I’m grateful for the life I have had, and I’m grateful to be here with you now.”
“Thank you, my dear,” he said, looking up. “I am so grateful as well.”
Though I meant what I had said to my father, I said in part because I felt so embarrassed by the king weeping over such a simple, insignificant girl. It was all so incredibly overwhelming. In a matter of days, my life had been turned upside down in every which way. I had fallen in love, I had seen the death of the man I had thought was my father, I’d almost met my own end, and now here I was, in the company of King Rowan, surrounded by such riches and extravagance that I felt unworthy to even look upon it all, never mind touch or enjoy it.
All I had known was gone, replaced by a world in which I felt I did not belong. I felt like I was standing on the shore while the sand was swept out from under my feet. I held onto Bors’ hand and locked eyes with him. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, but somehow, he knew it all without my uttering a word.
He pressed my fingers to his lips, never looking away from me. In his eyes, I saw light and fire, love and adoration: all the things I had never imagined I would have—all the things I now knew I could never live without. He took time with the kiss and said finally, “I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be with you always.”