The Archer

Part 4

Ero woke the next morning slowly, groggy, feeling his muscles heavier and more relaxed than they'd ever been in his life. It was as if someone had combed through his every knotted nerve, and he'd slept for a decade. When he opened his eyes, he blinked, unsure of where he even was. His hands slid around in the bedsheets, searching for Aslin's body, finding nothing.

He turned onto his side, still skimming for her, when he saw her seated in a chair next to the bed, an open book poised in front of her. If he didn't know better he'd say she was holding back a smirk.

"What time is it?" he groaned, wishing the room had a porthole. It felt very, very late.

"Your men will understand," Aslin said mildly, placing the book on her knee as he struggled to sit up.

He tried to review what had happened last night. How had they left things? Were they reconciled now? He couldn't go another day with silence between them. His heart cried out even now to pull her from the chair and bring her back into the circle of his arms.

But instead he shifted to the opposite side of the bed from where Aslin sat, standing with another groan. Dazed, he searched for his clothes, which he had hastily stripped off last night before so ruthlessly taking her. Once he was dressed he tried to summon the will to leave, but his body just sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

He struggled to gather his thoughts and decide what to say to make it right. He needed to make it right. All his anger was gone. He was simply tired of being away from her.

A long moment passed between them in which neither of them said anything at all.

He heard her book close, and her weight shift in the chair. "I don't want to fight anymore, Ero," she said softly, and his eyes closed in gratitude, feeling relief like a balm over his scorched heart.

"Fighting with you makes me ill to my stomach . . . literally," she added with a dry scoff. He bit his lip, imagining the small smile that would be on her face.

"We'll be there soon," she said quietly. "I'm going to need your help to get through this."

He breathed, trying to steady himself before answering. She needed him.

"I don't want to fight either," he said, his voice wavering just slightly. "Of course you have my help. I'm the one who dragged you across the sea . . . literally," he added, for good measure. "Did you think I was just going to abandon you?"

"I don't know what to think," she admitted. "I have so many questions."

He twisted to face her. "Ask me," he said earnestly, and she looked at him fully with those two magnificent, aquamarine pools.

By all the gods, he would do anything to keep her. Anything.

"We are going to the Royal City?" came her first question.

"Yes." How much did she know, he wondered, about what awaited them there?

"And will I be . . . questioned? As before?"

His eyes widened and he stood, alarmed.

"What? Heila, no. Why would you think that?" He walked over, sitting again on the bed, but now facing her, needing to be closer.

She said nothing, her expression serious, and his heart thumped wildly. How could she have thought that he would ever let what happened to her happen again?

"You'll be there as my guest," he clarified. "Not as a prisoner of war."

"Then . . ." she hesitated, looking down. "Then I'll have a place to stay?"