A Touch of Death

Chapter 19

The next thing Aoife knew was pain. She ached all over, and it felt like there were weights attached to her eyelids. An unfamiliar middle-aged woman with a kind, round face slowly came into focus in front of her bleary eyes. Aoife tried to speak, but it came out as a whimper.

"Oh— oh, my!" the woman stuttered, rushing towards the door of the room. "She's awake! Master, she's awake!"

"What?! Ten minutes, I swear, I leave for ten minutes—"

Before she could even process what was happening, the door to the room swung wide open, and in walked a very frantic looking man with a long white braid swinging behind his back. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, wide with shock as he barreled into the room. He rushed straight to her side and held tight to the hand that was on top of her blankets, as if she might slip away from him without notice.

Tarran.

Tarran was alive.

And, Aoife noticed, he looked very angry.

"You are the biggest idiot to ever grace the face of this green earth!" Tarran snapped, tears in his eyes, looking for all the world like he wanted to murder her and hug her at the same time.

"How?" she asked, already feeling tears running down her cheeks.

"How are you the biggest idiot? Oh, I have several words about that—"

"How are you alive?!" she cried, squeezing his hand a little tighter, looking him over frantically for signs of injury.

"Well, I definitely died," he admitted, taking a seat at the edge of her bed. "However, someone decided they wanted to battle the Reaper for me."

"You could be grateful!" Aoife said, utterly failing at finding a tone that sounded anything close to frustrated. She sniffled as a heaving sob welled up in her throat, fresh tears immediately beginning to fall.

"Oh, again with the waterworks," Tarran said, but there was a slight blush to his cheeks as he picked up her hand and kissed her palm. "I am grateful. But you are never to scare me like that again, you asinine bleeding heart...."

He was insulting her, but his tone betrayed him, and Aoife couldn't help but smile. She noticed then that her wrists were bandaged, and that they ached when she moved them.

"Those will heal, but slowly," Tarran explained. "You may not have an iron sensitivity on an ordinary day, but the best guess I have is that your skin reacted with the metal when magic flared up in your hands, and it burned you."

"More scars," she mumbled, eyes passing over the bandages with a strange sort of dismay.

"More evidence of all you have survived."

The door opened then, and a familiar face came through. "Sorry to interrupt," Camilla said, looking at Tarran with a catlike grin.

"Camilla!" Aoife said joyfully, clapping her hands together.

Wait... the Queen!

"Where is the Queen now?!" Aoife asked, eyes wide as she surged forward, sitting up straight.

"Calm yourself. You're still healing," Tarran said, gently pushing her shoulders back against the pillows.

"I imagine she's licking her wounds," Camilla said thoughtfully. "She'll be in a sorry state after being asleep for so long, even with the crown to aid her. Not to mention that word is spreading that Elina's granddaughter has been found."

"Why does that matter?" Aoife asked with a groan as she reached out for Tarran's hand. She just wanted to focus on the fact that he was alive.

"Most of the Fae are old enough to remember Elina. They know she was supposed to be the Queen— she had the power and the disposition, and Lily simply did not. People see the spitting image of their beloved Princess at the Quilland palace and hear that she's wielding the same power... They'll talk."