Bride of Kalathan

14: Theoland

He was lying on a long couch in front of a sunny window in one of the parlours when the Queen brought her to see him. She put her hand up to her hair as she stood in the doorway, looking down to smooth her dress and make sure she looked all right. She had been travelling for two long days and although she had had some time to change her clothes she was concerned that she looked travel-worn. She didn't know how to explain to herself why it mattered. She was not, she told herself, here to impress him. She was here to help him recover, to lift his spirits if she could. She was here to let him know that she forgave him, if removing that burden would help. But she could not help it – although he had hurt her and disappointed her, he was still the only man she had ever kissed, the man she had dreamed for a while of marrying. He was still, even in his weakness, her king.

His eyes were closed as he lay there, his face thinner than she remembered, a soft blanket pulled up over him. The queen nudged her forward and then left the room, and Nuria stepped up to the couch, her heart pounding in her chest. She had forgotten to ask Verdana if he knew she was coming, but it was too late now. She was standing next to him, looking down at him as he dozed, at his furrowed brow, at the shiny new pink scars on one side of his face, at his chest moving up and down under the blanket. One arm was still attached to a splint, two fingers of his hand bandaged together. She stood for a while, just watching him, until he opened his eyes.

It took him a while to focus on her. She was not even sure if she was smiling, as she waited for him to recognise her.

"Nuria?" He frowned, as if he was unsure of what he was seeing.

"Yes," she said, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. He shifted on the couch, pulling himself up a little on the pillows behind his head with his good arm. She could see that it hurt him. She stepped forward and sat on the gilded, upholstered chair beside the couch.

"How can you be here?" he asked, looking around at the empty room.

"Your mother wrote to me. She told me about the accident."

He was quiet for a while. "I am very glad to see you," he said. "I did not think I would ever see you again."

"Neither did I."

"I am sorry, Nuria," he said, his eyes filling suddenly with tears. "I was awful, I know, to send you away like that. I will never forgive myself."

"Don't worry about that now," she said, feeling a lump in her throat as she fought back her own tears. He must have been brought very low, to be crying now in front of her. He would never, ever have done that before. "I understand why you had to do it, and I forgive you for your anger."

"You understand? About ... your friend?"

"I will never like it, but I understand."

He leant back on the pillows. "I wish things had been different, Nuria," he said. "I have had time, lying here, to regret so many things."

"You have suffered," she said, her eyes dropping to his injured arm. "Your mother told me that you almost died."

"It was like a nightmare," he said, quietly. "I lay in the mud all night with a cracked back and who knows how many other broken bones, and was jolted in a cart for hours after that. And that pain was nothing compared to what came afterwards, when I was back here at the palace. They told me I might die, and I wanted to. I didn't know what pain was, before this. Or fear, really, until I decided I did want to live and had to face a future as a cripple."

"I am so sorry, Theoland," she said.

"I was drinking," he whispered. "When it happened. The damned arak again, after I told you I had stopped. I was so drunk that night I could barely see. It was my own stupid fault."

She had not expected that.

"I will never touch it again," he said. "Never. You were right, Nuria. I have a conscience, and I need to listen to it. You can't imagine how many times I went over and over what you said to me in the courtyard that day we first met."

"Are you in pain now?" she asked.

"Always," he whispered, reaching out for her hand. "It hasn't ever stopped. But if you are here I can bear it."

"Then I will stay and help you bear it," she said, smiling. "Until you are feeling better."

He sat up slowly then, moving carefully as he did so. She watched his face, seeing the pain, seeing the strength it took just to accomplish that one small action. "There," he said, trying to move a pillow behind him. "Now you can sit here, next to me."

She stood up and helped to move the pillow and arrange the blanket, glad when he was finally comfortable, and then sat on the couch beside him. "I could read to you," she said, looking around her and feeling suddenly awkward. "I will have to find some books."

"You don't need to find any books," he said.

She looked down, then up again at him as he smiled at her. It was such a different smile to the confident grins he had given her before, different too to that last day when he had charmed her and kissed her, when she had asked him if he loved her. This was a grateful smile from a humbler man, a smile that told her that she was appreciated, that he was happy just to be with her. She felt honoured, that her presence had made him happy

"Thank you, Nuria," he said. "You have seen the worst of me and you still came. I am ... amazed. I do not deserve to have you here."

"I might have seen the worst, Theoland," she said. "But I think, somehow, that I have not seen the best yet. And I am not perfect either, remember?"

"I am certainly not at my best," he said, shifting painfully against the pillows. "And I might never be again."

"I think you will," she said. "I think you will heal, and you will stand up again to rule Kalathan. It is your destiny."

"And what is your destiny, Nuria?" he asked.

"I don't know yet. But I think it will become clear soon."

He lifted his arm and carefully, as if he was trying not to hurt his back, and placed it around her shoulders. Nuria shifted closer and leant her head against him. She closed her eyes, feeling peace about it all for the first time since that horrible day when he had found out about Shandar. It was a heavy burden to bear, to be the king of a country such as Kalathan. It was a great honour and a privilege, but it was not a destiny that was easy to fulfil. He was only a man, doing the best he could, failing often but not giving up. Perhaps her destiny was to come alongside him and share his work. She had a feeling that the next weeks would tell her that. This accident had humbled him, and softened him somehow, and if that was the case, she might be able to trust him not to make her afraid again.