Page 64 of Keeping a Nymph’s Heart

She unleashed that power. Thorns conjured from nothing sprang forward, riddling their attackers with holes. The two attackers at her front crumpled to the ground while Ser Oleander’s grip on her slackened.

Meanwhile, Owain slumped to the ground, sliced and bloody, but untouched by a single one of her thorns.

Orla stumbled to her feet, the wounds to her calf all but forgotten when she got to Owain. His black armor was soaked in blood. A sheen of sweat coated his skin making him clammy. Holding him to her body, Orla willed him to start healing.

“Heal, Owain.” She rocked him back and forth as her clothes became soaked in blood as well.

“Heal, damn it!” Wet drops splashed onto Owain’s pale face. Orla hadn’t realized she was crying.

“Gods, please don’t die.” She was pleading to anyone who would hear. His heart was still beating, but it was faint. Orla shook him, trying to get him to remain conscious. His eyes met hers for a moment before losing focus.

Chapter Forty-Two

Help wasn’t coming. If anything, they were at risk on this side of the border. Who knew how many other attackers lay waiting for them. Orla stood, ignoring the now throbbing pain in her calf. She tried to raise Owain to his feet, but he was so much larger than her, she struggled to lift him. Her only option was to drag him.

Quickly, Orla tore off her dress, leaving her only in her cotton breast wrap and her trousers. She laid the dress on the ground before rolling Owain onto the bloody fabric. Then she pulled. He was still heavy, but the slick icy ground allowed her to drag him.

He had said they were close to the border. She could get them to safety. She had to. She couldn’t fail him too.

With all her strength, Orla pulled him. It felt like it took hours to reach the border, the sun was now rising above the Emmentalian side of the mountain. But once they arrived, Orla felt the strange hum of magic coming from Iridaceae. If it wasn’t for that hum, she wouldn’t have known that they had arrived. She expected the border to be distinct, but this part of the mountain looked no different than any other.

Panting and shaking from exertion, Orla made one last pull through the magical barrier. It was as Owain said, she felt both pushed and pulled, her entire mass compressed into a single point. Owain stirred at the discomfort of the crossing, but otherwise he hadn’t made a sound since she started moving him. She would have thought he was dead if it wasn’t for the faint rise and fall of his chest.

She crashed to the forest floor once she had pulled them through, shocked to find that somehow, they were no longer stuck in the frozen barrens of winter. The morning sun was turning the sky from indigo to light pinks and purples. The ground was covered in bright leaves. The air was cool, but nothing like the frigid air on the Emmentalian side of the mountain. If she had to guess, she would assume that it was autumn in Iridaceae.

Orla didn’t have time to take in the beauty around her though. She had to move.

Looking around, she saw the grove of redwoods Owain had mentioned to her earlier. She pulled him towards the grove, moving slower than before now that she didn’t have the icy ground to help her. There was a small fairy ring around one of the trees that Orla hid Owain behind.

He looked so weak. His wounds were bleeding, though less than before, and his color was going from pale to almost ashen. Kneeling, she kissed him on his clammy forehead. “You are not allowed to die.” She stroked his bloody cheek before setting off east.

Orla ran as if her life depended on it.

No.

Not her life, his.

She ran past the grove until she reached a clearing, but she kept running. One mile became two, but she didn’t see the way station Owain mentioned. She didn’t know if she had passed it or if he was mistaken. Her only option, she thought, was to keep going.

Surely, she would find someone who could help.

By mile three, she found it. It was a tiny wooden building on the edge of an old forest. Past the station, there was a paddock of several hippogryphs. A gentle-looking silkie stood near the door of the station, eyeing her with an immense amount of skepticism. She could only imagine what she must look like. Bursting through the forest panting, dirty, covered in blood, and only wearing pants and a breast binding. But she didn’t have time to care. Owain needed her.

It was not lost on Orla that he had been injured because he tried to help her. It had taken running through this strange forest to save him for Orla to realize just how much Owain had been helping her. Caring for her. Loving her.

He loved her. The thought slammed into her chest, nearly making her stumble.

He sacrificed himself for her. He was willing to die so she could get away.

She had been so preoccupied wondering if his affections had all been a ploy to manipulate her, but looking at everything he had done since he had gotten to know her, she could no longer deny her feelings. Owain had been showing her exactly how he felt about her for moons now. And it didn’t scare her the way she thought love would; it didn’t make her want to turn and run like her mother had done to her father. It made her want to fight to keep him just as hard as he had been fighting to keep her.

Breathless, Orla hurried towards the silkie. She reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out two gold coins.

“I need a hippogryph. Please. Your fastest one,” she said between breaths.

The silkie looked at her, perplexed, one tawny-colored eyebrow raising in confusion.

Again, Orla spoke, only this time she was interrupted by the male in front of her. He was stringing together a series of phrases that she couldn’t quite decipher. Her heart sank.