Page 66 of Keeping a Nymph’s Heart

Crawling into the bed, Orla checked again to make sure Owain was breathing. She kissed his forehead and then each cheek. As she curled up next to Owain, she whispered, “I love you so much. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner” before she drifted to sleep.

Chapter Forty-Three

Days passed, one quietly blending into the other as Orla tended to Owain. Several times a day, Orla would check Owain’s wounds and would make sure he was breathing while putting water to his lips, willing him to wake up. After making sure for the umpteenth time that he was, in fact, still breathing, Orla would go outside to collect various herbs to make a poultice for Owain. The plants in Iridaceae were so different from those in Emmental, but she was able to find a few yarrow plants that she hoped would help Owain heal. When she wasn’t tending to his wounds, she ate through some of the food stocked in the kitchen. Dried rabbit and a handful of fruits she wasn’t familiar with. If they stayed there much longer, she would have to go out and hunt, something she had never been adept at. She could forage, but she didn’t know which plants in Iridaceae were edible.

Slowly, Owain’s wounds started to knit back together. His color returned, ashen skin giving way to the warm golden tan she adored so much. But still, he slept. With nothing to do, Orla talked. She narrated her day and the things she would do, like bank the fire at night or steep tea. When inside, Orla would focus on doing things that she hoped would help Owain to wake up sooner. She made a broth of dried rabbit and vegetables that she tried to feed Owain every few hours. She vacillated between feeling desperate and on edge and feeling numb. In certain moments, when the fog of worry lifted, she recognized how beautiful this place was. The cabin and land would have been a dream if the circumstances had been different.

At times, she went out to the garden and cleared the debris and dead plants away. Thankful that she grabbed her pack before they were attacked, she started to plant some of her favorite flowers.

Orla didn’t venture far from the cabin often, only leaving to find more plants that she knew aided in healing. On the outskirts of the cabin, she found a bushel of chickweed that would mix well with the yarrow. When she felt really antsy, she would go to a nearby clearing with the book Owain had given her and would try to identify plants that only grew in Iridaceae. Her magic was temperamental here. Things that had become easier for her in Emmental were suddenly unpredictable. Once, while trying to increase the amount of chickweed available to her, she inadvertently put too much force behind the magic. The plant sprouted and grew to the size of a sunflower, knocking Orla down in the process.

But unlike before, she wasn’t afraid of her magic. She learned how to open up to her power and how to finesse it. When to access more power or less. She had started wearing the gold filigree ring Owain had gifted her again, which helped her control her magic even more. It was a work in progress, but she told Owain about it all the same.

On their sixth day at the cabin, Orla decided to venture a bit farther away. Owain was fast asleep. She was less afraid that Owain would die if she left, though she still constantly fretted over when—she wouldn’t let herself say if—he woke up. Tucking him in under the wool blanket, she kissed his forehead before leaving the room. She made sure the fire was banked before she left, and she wandered towards the river she had seen from the hippogryph’s back.

Up close, it was larger than any river she had ever seen. The plant life that grew around it was bright and vibrant. Flowers the size of dinner plates grew on the banks of the river’s edge. A riot of magenta, canary, and indigo overwhelmed her senses as she took in the scene. Orla had never seen so many different types of flowers in one place. She wanted to collect them for her garden, but they were so beautiful, it seemed a shame to disturb them, even if it was to relocate them to somewhere else.

The riverbed was the perfect place for Orla to spend the afternoon. She was feeling restless at the cabin with little to do but worry. Orla sat, flipping through her book on nymph specific flora while snacking on berries that she recognized from a nearby bush. The serenity she felt was unlike anything else. All the time she had been alone in Benin, it had never felt like this. There was a peacefulness to Iridaceae that she had never experienced in Emmental. The area around the cabin was quiet, but from what she had seen when they flew there, a large city was not too far away.

She could imagine herself spending lazy days by the river, just like this, improving her magic or growing some of these exotic new plants. She imagined Owain sitting beside her, drawing freely and being content. Neither having to worry about what or who they were back in Emmental.

This ignored the fact that they were considered traitors to their realm and that there was an edict by the king for them to face the king’s justice. But for those few hours along the river, Orla could pretend that all the things they left behind didn’t matter. Once the sun had started to set, Orla decided to make her way back to the tiny cabin.

Chapter Forty-Four

Light streamed in through an unfamiliar bedroom while pain lanced through Owain’s head. It took him several moments to be able to open his eyes fully and take in his surroundings. He was on a bed; of that he was sure. The soft mattress underneath him was a stark difference from the bedrolls and frozen earth that he last remembered sleeping on.

He bolted upright as memories cascaded into him making him wince. Or was that the pain that now suddenly radiated from his back and abdomen? He remembered him and Orla being attacked near the barrier and the terror that overwhelmed him at the thought that Orla had been harmed.

He had told her to run, had begged her to save herself. So why was he here, and where was Orla? Slowly, he made his way to his feet, realizing that he was stark naked. Looking around he recognized where he was. This was his mother’s cabin. Which means he made it across the barrier somehow.

Reaching into a drawer of the wardrobe, Owain pulled on a pair of old pants before making his way around the cabin. He didn’t know how he would have been able to get here on his own, but he didn’t hear or see Orla as he walked out into the small sitting room and kitchen.

Slowly, fear started to creep in. Had he made it here alone? He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for, but with how extensive his wounds had been, he knew it must have been a while.

Looking down, he saw that the large circular scars on his abdomen were now joined by large angry welts from where his newest wounds had been. Seeing the evidence of their attack brought it all back into sharp relief. The cold bite of steel against his flesh. The assumptions that he was going to die. But that if Orla lived, it would have all been worth it. Now, as he looked around the small room, he started to fear that somehow she didn’t make it. His life was not worth continuing without her.

Feeling himself starting to panic, he went to the washroom to splash cold water on his face. That would help him calm down so he could think clearly.

While in the washroom, he heard a rustling from the bedchamber. Owain looked into the room to see a frantic Orla tearing at the bed, pulling away pillows and blankets as if looking for something. Every ounce of his fear was alleviated in that moment. Orla was here. She was alive, and she was clearly looking for him.

“Looking for me?”

Chapter Forty-Five

Orla whirled around towards the washroom to see Owain standing in the doorway.

He wore loose gray trousers that hung low on his hips. Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes at the sight of him. Only now, seeing him up and moving, did she let herself feel the depths of the worry that she had been battling for the past week. She had feared that he would never wake. That she had missed out on her opportunity to be with the one person who had ever made her feel loved.

She rushed to him, throwing her arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest as she began to sob. He winced, but held her too, resting his cheek in her soft, coiled hair.

“Easy, the wounds are still healing.” At that she sobbed harder, rubbing her hands along his back and sides, needing to confirm that this was real.

“I thought you were going to die,” she let out between sobs. Owain tilted her head up to look at him, one hand remaining on the small of her back as he peered into her eyes.

“You saved me. I told you to leave, but you saved me.” His gaze was searching. “I thought I would never see you again. That my last act would be to help you get away. When I woke up to find the cabin empty and you nowhere in sight, I feared the worst, that somehow I had managed to live and you had been taken.”

“I couldn’t leave you, Owain.” She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “You were going to die, and I had to do something.”