Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Dar slowed without realizing it, his gaze fixed on Elara at his side.
“How do you feel?” he asked and she chuckled softly, the sound still sounding like a miracle to him.
She tilted her head at him as her laughter faded. “Are you ever going to stop asking me that?”
He did not answer because the truth sat too close to the surface. He wasn’t sure he ever would.
She squeezed his hand, hoping to reassure him. “I feel good, strong. Helma has declared me healed, thoroughly and with great authority, I might add.”
Dar released a breath he hadn’t fully released in days. He wanted to believe it completely, wanted to let the word healed settle into his bones the way it once would have. Yet part of him still watched her too closely, listened for a falter in her step, a catch in her breath. Hunters learned the cost of assuming danger had passed, and he would stay ever watchful.
“She also told you to rest,” he reminded her.
“And I did,” Elara said, her smile growing. “I promise. Though she does have a strange idea of rest that involves far too much broth.”
His mouth curved despite himself.
Walking beside her now—alive, warm, teasing him—felt unreal. There were moments when he still half-expected the world to tear her from him again. When he reached for her hand, it was not habit that guided him but need.
Elara felt it too.
She could sense his relief braided tightly with fear, love sharpened by the memory of loss so close it still echoed. She had known death—felt it brushing her skin, pulling her under—and waking to his voice had changed her in ways she was only beginning to understand.
The garden soothed her. The land answered her presence without demand, without urgency. For the first time, she did not feel like a visitor to her own skin.
Yet ahead lay questions she could not outrun.
Her grandfather’s home waited for them, stone walls holding truths about her blood, her past, and the path now opening beneath her feet. She was no longer only Elara of Scotara—herb-scribe, wife of a Hunter. She was something more. Something older.
And while she did not fear it, she did not yet know how to carry it.
Dar glanced toward the manor, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. Driochmor had saved her life, but Scotara still waited. A king still ruled. Promises still demanded keeping.
No matter how beautiful this place was, they could not remain.
They walked on in companionable silence for a few moments before Elara spoke again, her tone softer now. “I know your worry.”
He glanced at her. “Do you?”
“I saw it,” she said simply. “In a vision.”
His steps slowed. “What did you see?”
She didn’t stop walking. “You and I standing before the king. He was not pleased.” She met Dar’s gaze then. “But I did not feel danger. No blades. No blood. Just anger. And words.”
Relief hit him hard enough that he hadn’t been prepared for it. His grip on her hand tightened briefly before he forced himself to ease it.
“That is good to know,” he said quietly. “Very good.”
She smiled faintly. “I would love to remain here for a time,” she admitted. “To get to know my grandfather more. To learn about Driochmor, about my people.” Her gaze drifted toward the manor ahead. “But I know we cannot.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “There are matters waiting for us.”
He studied her for a moment longer. “Your visions, they are stronger here?”
“They are,” she said. “Clearer. I don’t fight them as much.” She tipped her head toward the manor. “My grandfather is helping me understand them. How to listen without being overwhelmed.”
Dar nodded, thoughtful. Driochmor was changing her, not weakening her, but sharpening something that had always been there. And though part of him feared what that might mean in the wider world, another part knew this strength was not meant to be denied.
“I meant to tell,” she said eagerness in her tone, “do you recall the two times I thought I saw a dark figure at the edge of the forest at Dea’s cottage?”
Dar nodded. “Aye, need it concern us?”
She smiled. “Nay, it was my grandfather. He hoped I would feel he was not a threat and that I might go to him.”
“That’s a relief, though I would not have allowed him to take you from me.”
“And I would not have left you, at least the second time I saw him—” She paused abruptly. “Perhaps not the first time as well.”
“I am glad to hear that, for I would have hunted you down and brought you back to me.”
He had told her often since she escaped death how much he loved her, but she also enjoyed hearing him say it without directly saying it as he once did before the words came easily to him. It touched her heart.
She slowed her steps as they drew closer to manor, her fingers tightened around Dar’s hand. “There is one thing that troubles me.”