Page 117 of Golden Queen
"Bastards," Aben spat as he stepped to my side again and got a better look at the damage that had been done to my arm.
Io's jaw was tight, his face grim as he worked. Even Britaxia looked a bit green around the edges as she stared at me from the edge of the roof—her arms crossed over her chest, tapping one foot against the tiles.
"I'm sorry, Sera. Just a bit more," Io said. His brow was scrunched as though the pain I felt was his fault, like it hurt him nearly as much as it hurt me.
"That one's done," he said, settling my arm down at my side and pulling his coat around my chest and torso on that side so that he could open the other side without baring my skin to Aben.
I raised my arm, looking in wonder at the place where it had been opened to the bone only moments before. But then Io pulled the coat away from my other arm and I sucked in a startled breath that turned to a ragged cry of anguish.
"Io, the one over her heart is healed," Aben said forebodingly.
Io stilled and looked down. I followed his gaze to the silvery white scar on my chest just above the edge of the coat. It looked so much like the one that I had made over Io's heart that it momentarily stunned me.
"What?" I asked in response to the dark expressions on their faces. Io had already moved back to healing my arm and I gritted my teeth against the pain, though strangely this one hurt less than the other.
"That's a binding wound—soul reaving," Io added to clarify. "They wouldn't have healed you if they didn't finish it," he said, making an attempt to cover the worry that was tensing his shoulders.
"I thinkIactually healed that myself," I admitted. "And I don't feel bound to anyone," I added.
"What do you mean you healed it yourself?" Io asked.
I looked to Aben and Britaxia before I slid my gaze back to Io. I was oddly reluctant to admit any of it, as though the re-telling would only cement the events into reality.
I ended up telling it all, though—aside from the darkest parts, the things they had done between my legs and what they had claimed they would do if they found his child in me. There was no need to share that bit of trauma with anyone, and the shame of it still ached fiercely in my chest.
Instead, I explained the moments when I had been bound and helpless. The things Aegis had said about me—or as much as I could remember. The fact that I was meant to be bound to the Prince, Refaedon.
That bit made Io's jaw go tight, and I saw the muscle working there as though he was struggling to control his anger.
I explained that they had been unable to maintain control over me for very long, and that it surprised them each time I managed to break free of the necromancer's compulsion.
I told them that Aegis had been the one who placed the mellitrium cuffs on my wrists when I was a child, admitting that Markus must have been aligned with Penjan for most of my life.
Io healed me while I spoke, his eyes narrowing as he considered each detail.
He laid my feet across his lap as he worked on them, and I couldn't help but feel my heart contract at the familiarity of his touch on my skin. It felt like home to be close to him again, perhaps the only real sense of home I had ever had. I wasn't sure I would ever shed the pervasive feeling of loss when I considered him.
Most of the broken bones in my feet had apparently knitted themselves back together during my magical outburst, so they took far less time to heal than the rest.
When he was finished, he helped me to sit up, and then he took a moment to attempt to remove the mellitrium cuffs from my wrists. The expression of consternation that crossed his features told me that evenhismagic was not up to the task of breaking whatever spell kept them in place. "There's magic here that I don't recognize," he said. "This will take a master, I think."
"It's okay," I said. "I wouldn't know what to do with magic anyway. Maybe I would accidentally melt myself down into a puddle of goo."
Io and Aben laughed, and I thought I even caught a look of mirth from the stoic Britaxia.
Io moved around behind me, searching the back of my head for signs of injury.
I already felt a lot better. The arms had been the worst of it but the slight pressure of his fingers on my skull made me wince and told me I must have hit my head at some point even though I couldn't remember having done so.
"How do you feel?" he said, after he had taken care of the head injury and helped me slide my arms through the sleeves of his coat.
"Much better," I said, releasing a breath.
He continued searching though, running a hand down the side of my neck, assessing. It sent shivers down my sides. He was only searching for injury, but the touch felt like so much more to me. It was as though I had been starved of it, and the light pressure of his fingers quenched a hunger I had not known I had.
My chest and guts twisted sharply. That now familiar heartache over the situation I was in replaced the physical pain quicker than I would have believed possible. It seemed to flow back into all the places freed up by the healing, so that my body ached in an entirely different way. The pain of my broken heart returned in full force.
"So how did you manage to heal yourself?" Britaxia asked, curiosity obviously winning out against the anger she generally aimed in my direction. "You never actually said."
