The moment I led Grieda into the room, she dropped to her knees by Taelon’s side, and, seizing his hand, pressed it to her lips. He didn’t stir, but his chest rose and fell, each breath grating out of his chest in a fearful rasp.

I waited in the doorway, terrified to hear what she would say, and even more terrified not to. At last, I could bear it no longer.

“What am I to do?” I cried. “Oh, please tell me there is something I can do.”

Grieda did not stand up, or look at me, but she spoke in a very soft voice.

“Fetch more quilts and sheets. Then go out and fill a bucket with snow and ice and bring that here.”

“That won’t save him,” I sobbed into my hands. “I know none of that shall save him!”

“We shall do what we can,” Grieda snapped at me. “Would you do nothing, simply because it is not a cure?”

I fetched the quilts. I stripped my bed of my own blankets and sheets, then I went out and filled a bucket with whatever clean snow and ice remained.

Grieda piled the blankets on top of him. She packed snow between the folded sides of a clean rag and placed this upon his brow. Then she dug around in her basket and stuffed a handful of dried herbs into my hands.

“Boil these in water and make a tea,” she instructed me.

“What is it?”

“It’s red clover. Go on now.”

I filled a pot with water from the water bucket and hung it over the fire, throwing in the clover. The time the water took to boil was agonizingly slow and frighteningly fast. I wanted nothing more than to be back at his side but wanted nothing less than to see him lying there, looking a breath away from death.

When at last it was ready, I poured it into a cup and brought it to Grieda. She dipped a finger in to check the temperature, then told me to support Taelon’s head and shoulders while she fed it to him.

He made no objection to being moved, but when the cup was brought to his lips, he flung his head to the side and muttered something unintelligible. His tunic was damp with perspiration and clung to his fevered skin. I let his head rest against my shoulder and wrapped my arms fully around his chest. I could feel his heart beating fast and irregularly, like a drum beneath his ribs.

“You must drink this,” I told him as steadily as I could. “You must, or else you won’t get better.”

He would not drink it. When Grieda made me hold him down and tried to force it into his mouth, it merely spilled down his chin. He kept his lips clamped firmly shut.

“What shall we do?” I asked Grieda. “Oh, what shall we do?”

“We shall wait,” she said, “and take care of him in any other way we can. We’ll try again in a few minutes.”

We took turns. One of us would switch the cool rags on his brow, and the other would stoke the fire, or fetch more snow. Every few minutes we tried again to urge him to drink the tea, even putting in a spoonful of honey to make it more palatable. But every drop we managed to get in him he brought back up again.

By the time the afternoon rolled in, Taelon had into a distorted awakening. When I moved my hand to dab at his skin with a damp cloth, he gripped my wrist with a very sudden strength.

“Who are you?” he croaked.

I looked at Grieda with alarm fresh on my face.

“Fevers can do strange things to the mind,” she whispered.

“I—” I looked down at him, at his pale fingers grasping my hand. At his beautiful blue eyes, shot through with veins of red.

“I am someone who cares for you very much. So, you must get better.”

“There’s a bell.” His features contracted in an expression of agony. “A bell, inside my head, ringing. Why—” His fingers were hot iron. “Why is it so loud? It’s so loud. So loud.”

“Won’t you drink something?” I asked gently. “It may do you some good.”

“I will not.” He released my hand and brought both of his own up to his head.

“I have such a terrible pain, I fear if I try to drink, I will be sick.”

“But—”

“Don’t force him, Ingrith,” Grieda told me, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “Sleep now if you can. If you awaken and find that you can bear to drink, please say so.”

“Has he come for me?” The words wrenched out of his mouth. “I promise I won’t do it. It was the last time. But do not let him take me there again. Gods.”

“You’re safe with us,” Grieda promised, wiping her eyes.

“She should not have done it.” He began to weep. “She should not have done it. Now he’ll take her, and I’ll be alone again.”

“Don’t speak,” I shushed, embracing him close to me and stroking his cheek.

“You’re not alone, Taelon.”

Sleep brought no relief. He tossed and turned his head, murmuring words under his breath, sometimes crying out. Now and then he would rear up, as though to run away from whatever haunted him, and fresh blood would run over his lips.

I was shaking with fear and exhaustion when Grieda sent me to boil the tea again, and I found we were out of wood. I spent an unknown amount of time with the ax, chopping all the logs we had, and piling more wood on the coals in a dreary trance. It was there I noticed the bird, glaring out at me from his nest with two beady black eyes.

I thought Taelon would be ever so disappointed if he became better, only to find that our crow had died in my neglect. So, I broke apart a bit of bread and scattered it around the hearthstones.

His Lordship did not wait for me to be away before falling upon the offering, greedy and eager with no thought of what was happening, and as I watched him, I wished for a moment that I could have his ignorance. His innocence. That I would know none of the worries of the world. To live my life for myself and myself only. To only care for myself. To fear only for myself.

That, I thought as I re-entered Taelon’s room, would be more bearable. Far more bearable than worrying about someone else. Because my fate is in my hands, and his is not.

The night fell fast and dark. Grieda lit candles, and it was through their light alone that we could see. The moon lay dead in the sky, hidden by an expanse of cloud that did not part.

“My father,” I started some unnamed hour when Taelon was sleeping, and I sat by his side. “He told me that illness is a punishment when you have done something terribly wrong in your life, but—” I inched my hands forward to grip his wrist, my fingers searching for the beat and trip of his pulse. It fluttered against my skin. Still there. Still there. “But I can’t possibly imagine what he might have done to deserve such torture as this.”

“What your father told you is nonsense,” Grieda said, and she brushed a cloth along the exposed skin of Taelon’s collar bones where sweat glistened in the flickering light. “If this were true, there would be justice in the world. The Radkkans would all fall down dead. Treasonous Kings would die upon their thrones, and murderers and rapists would not live to see their hair turn grey. Illness, Ingrith; dying, surviving; it’s all a matter of chance and luck. That is all. Your past misdeeds have nothing to do with it. The gods fell long ago. The only great power left in this world is fate. It doesn’t blink at a singular person’s misdeeds.”

“But then why—why does he suffer so?” He was still as the dead, but I could see the movement of his eyes underneath their lids, rolling from left to right, then back again. I traced my fingers over his arm, rolling up his sleeve to mop away the perspiration clinging to him, and felt my stomach plummet. I had to squint to see them in the candlelight, but they were there. Thin, white scars encircled both of his wrists like many, many bracelets.

I raised my head and met Grieda’s eyes questioningly.

“He’s had them as long as I’ve known him.”

“What—What are they?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded broken and helpless. “He never talks of his childhood in Ragnagh. He says he cannot remember. Whatever they’re from; whoever gave them to him . . . he’s driven it out of his mind. I let it be, and hope it is true. He’s happier without it.”

I brushed my thumb over one of the circlets, imagining I could wipe it away like I could the blood and sweat.

He flinched beneath me, like the memory of some old pain was driven deep enough he felt it even in his delirium.

“Whatever this is . . .” Grieda reached across his body and surprised me by taking my hand in a fierce, warm grip. “Whatever monster it is that hunts him, it is not one that a priest can banish. ‘Tis a creature that he must vanquish himself if he is to be rid of it.”

She gazed down at the sleeping man that separated us with a look of such tender care that I felt suddenly as though we knew each other. Really, honestly knew each other.

“We may only do the little that we can. His survival is his own.”

For two more days and two more nights, we waited by his side. We did not sleep; we did not eat. Once I found I had nodded off, and when I awoke in a panic, I thought for a terrible moment that Taelon’s pulse had gone, but then it was there, and I cried with relief and guilt, tears which mingled on the sheets with his sweat and his blood.

As long as I stayed awake, I thought, he couldn’t leave. He would stay alive.

“Rest your head a moment, child,” Grieda told me several times. “I shall wake you if there is a change.”

I refused. To fall asleep would be to become oblivious, and I would be punished for indulging in it. He would be punished.

On the evening of the fourth day, Grieda fell asleep against the wall. I decided I wouldn’t wake her. Since the time we had spent together, she had aged five years through the lines on her face alone. Her hair seemed drab, with more grey than brown, and her cheekbones were sharp through her skin.

I stood up from my stool for the first time in hours and my weak, stiff muscles protested the sudden movement. Ignoring them, I shuffled to the window and gazed out of it.

There was no blue left to be seen. The clouds had knitted closely together to form a fierce expanse of red and orange; vivid and striking against the steel grey of the ocean.

“The sky is afire.” Taelon’s voice was quiet and rough from lack of use. His eyes were clouded and troubled as they gazed blearily out of the window.

“The sun is setting,” I corrected him gently.

“It is burning,” he whispered. “So cold, it burns.” And his eyes closed. I saw a single glistening in the corner of his eye.

“Are you in pain?” I hurried to sit down on my stool again. He didn't answer. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.

That night the fever reared again, worse than before, and this time he did not have the strength to fight it.

“Drink this!” Grieda told him, and her voice was high and frightened. “Please! Ingrith, force his mouth open!” I obeyed her, no longer tired. Fear had given me a surge of energy, and I thought I could have lifted a mountain if I needed to.

I supported his head, neck, and shoulders against my chest, and tried to pry open his lips while Grieda tipped the cup of tea into his mouth. He struggled, stubbornly refusing to swallow.

The room was blisteringly hot. The day had been warmer than the previous ones, and Grieda had insisted that we keep the fire ablaze. Sweat dripped down my cheek, and I brought up a hand to wipe it away. My sleeve came away drenched.

He grew steadily worse as the hours went on. I could feel the heat churning beneath his skin as though some terrible physical thing lurked there. His face was sickly pale and grey. Every breath he took was shallow and labored, and his entire body shook in a constant tremble.

We gave up, finally, on trying to force the medicine into him, and instead just grasped his hands with our own and held on as though they were his life. Perhaps if we held on, he would stay alive. Perhaps if we did not let go, neither would he.

Grieda rested her head against their clasped fingers, and I knew she was terrified; as terrified as I was. Sick with the feeling.

“Please, don’t go,” she whispered to him as she cried. “Please, stay. Sweet, sweet boy. Don’t leave me.”

I was watching as James was bound and dragged away to face his death. I was holding Asetha helplessly in my arms as she died. I was extending a useless hand as Nahara fell from the bow of the ship. On some faraway beach that used to be home, I whispered, ‘I love you,’ to my mother before I left forever.

I was losing all of them at once again, and so much more. I was filled with such an agony, I knew I would go mad if it persisted. If only he stays alive, I can bear it. I can bear it all, but I cannot allow him to be taken from me. That is one thing I cannot bear.

I was cold, so horribly cold, and my head pounded a penetrative, painful beat that echoed the sadness aching inside my bones.

I’m cursed. It must be a curse. Why must everyone I care for leave me behind? These hands—I looked down at my shaking fingers holding tight to Taelon’s pale ones. These wretched hands. Why were they given to me if they have no use? If when they could finally and truly help someone, they are useless?

“I’m sorry,” I cried, touching my head down upon his arm, clenching his damp sleeve between my fingers. “I’m sorry that I cannot help you; that I am so powerless and can do so little.” Tears blurred my vision until I couldn’t see, and I closed my eyes.

“All I can do is hold your hand.” The tears washed down my cheeks and onto my lips. They were salty on my tongue, but also sweet. “For what it is worth, I shall hold it, until the end, whatever end it may be. As little as it is, I promise you this.”

It started only as a subtle thing, so faint and delicate I didn’t dare believe it, but then just before the break of dawn, Grieda touched her hand to his head and told me that it was true.

The fever had broken.

He recovered slowly over the course of several days. Sometimes we feared the fever might take its hold again, but it didn’t. On the second of three days, he let us feed him the tea, finally, and when he slept, it was deep and peaceful.

Grieda ordered me to take a rest, telling me he was out of immediate danger now and that my useless hovering would not heal him.

That her tongue was sharp again was what convinced me to obey. A gentle Grieda was a frightened Grieda. A prickly one was confident and assured.

I sat near the hearth with His Lordship, and we ate bread together. I ate a whole loaf myself and crumbled a fifth of another one for the bird.

I never remembered falling asleep, but I must have, for I woke up the next morning, breadcrumbs in my hair, a quilt draped over my body, and Grieda in the kitchen stewing one of her chickens in a pot of water, and what was left of the mushrooms in the pantry.

We fed Taelon the broth. He took very little at first. More than a few sips and he would be unable to keep it down. But each day we managed to give him more until at last Grieda was satisfied that starvation no longer remained on the list of threats to his life.

We bathed him with warm clothes—I carefully avoided touching the marks on his wrists—and then we helped him dress in a new tunic, and I combed through his dark hair, gently untangling the knots.

He hardly spoke, only saying ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ and ‘Thank you.’ I felt that he was thinking, for his silence was not one of resentment or fever, but more of a thoughtful quiet to help bear the storm inside.

He recognized me; I knew that much at least. Each time he opened his eyes, and I was the first thing to be seen, I would glimpse the recognition in them, and this brought such great joy to me. More than I might ever have expected or known to be possible.

Still, it wasn’t until a full week and a half later that I fully accepted that he was alive. Not only that he was alive, but that he wouldn’t die. He was out of danger. It was the afternoon that Grieda left, having said that she couldn’t leave her shop alone and unattended any longer, and that Taelon was perfectly alright, so I had no need for her now.

I was chopping up a few thawed carrots to throw into a pot along with some potatoes and the last chicken.

Taelon, though still a bit weak, was in near perfect health again, and leaned against the hearthstones as he amused himself by tempting His Lordship with a lump of bread. Every time the bird was close enough to peck at it, he moved it a little further away, and the crow would have to hop toward it again.

Everything felt so normal, that I finally had no choice but to acknowledge that it was. Suddenly violently dizzy, I stumbled outside to take deep, calming breaths of the fresh air. All the snow had melted, and though still damp, the ground was nearly dry. I sat down close to the edge of the cliff and leaned my head against the side of the large, rough cliff tree to watch the horizon as I struggled to make understanding of how I felt.

Gratitude was the overriding emotion. Such deep, profound gratitude as I had never experienced before. It filled my entire being with a sweet ache that was almost overwhelming. The others . . . I couldn’t even begin to discern them.

I did not look up when I heard footsteps. I didn’t need to, to know who it was. I could sense his presence. I could recognize his shadow.

The acceptance of this set my heartbeat bouncing at an irregular pace, and I kept my eyes fixed in any direction but his as he sat down beside me; for I knew that if I met his eyes, I would find him looking at me, with something that was no longer veiled with other things. I also knew that no matter how I tried, I would not be able to hide the same mysterious emotion from him in my own eyes.

“Ingrith,” he said softly. There was so much in that name. So many beginnings. So many could-be ends.

He was holding a book and set it down on the ground beside him.

“Isn’t the ocean beautiful?” I blurted. “I loved it when I was a child, then I hated it. I thought I might still hate it, only now I think I love it again. How strange.”

“Ingrith,” he tried again.

“It holds the bodies of so many of those that I care about, and it would take mine the moment I give it the chance, but I can’t hate it for that. I haven’t any idea why.”

“Ingrith.” Taelon stopped me by touching my arm. I stiffened and turned my head away.

“You look away from me,” he realized. “You are frightened.”

“Not of you.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “It is not you that I am afraid of; it is only myself.”

“Then you know,” he said. “You know what I want to say. I thought you might. But still, I must tell you. Won’t you let me tell you?”

“Must you?” My heart thumped inside my chest. “If I know, and you know, can’t that be enough?”

“No.” His voice was determined. “You only know it from the lips of others. I wish for you to know it from mine. Then, and only then, shall it be enough. Ingrith.” I felt his fingers brush against my cheek. “Ingrith, look at me, and let me speak to you.”

I gave in to his plea and allowed my head to turn.

His skin had regained its color, and though still pale, was not drab and grey, but brilliant and smooth. His eyes, as blue as the waters of the ocean, were bright and clear, and his hair glittered black in the setting sun.

“I know—” his voice was gentle, “—that there is another man in your heart, Ingrith, and it is not my wish for you either to forget or give up his place for another. In saying what I shall to you, it is not for hoping I shall be the only one who you care for, only that you might let me have a piece, just a piece of your heart that can be mine.”

He took my hands in his, and they burned again, though with a different fire, a different fever.

“I don’t know when it began, but one day I woke up and realized that the first person I thought of every morning was you. In the evenings, this first face I yearned for was yours. When you were unhappy, all I could think of was how to make you glad again, and when you were smiling, I felt as though I could never be more joyful. My heart—” He took one of my hands and placed it on his chest, where I could feel the quickened flutter beneath his skin. “It beats faster every time you look at me. At times, it scares me, how much I love you. Over the past year I have come—” He took a breath. “I’ve come to see what incredible strength you have. Even before I loved you for it, I respected it, and you for holding it. To me, Ingrith, you are the most beautiful thing I know.”

The sound of my blood and my pulse singing together in my ears was like the ocean, and the world around me tilted. There was something terrible and beautiful stinging my heart.

“I believe . . .” Taelon looked down at my hands, still held in his own. “I believe I can make you happy, and I also believe that you know this, or else it would be I you are afraid of and not yourself, however,” he looked up at me, and his eyes were sure and genuine, “until the time comes when you are willing to know this, I will not pressure you. Nothing shall change. I shall be your friend, just as I have, for as long as you wish for me to be. And when you are ready, if ever you are ready, you shall have both a friend and a man, as one, who shall love you as deeply and for as long as you shall allow him.”

Taelon reached down and picked up the book he had brought with him, and put it on my lap, then lifted my hands to his lips and kissed them.

When he left me, I took the book into my hands. It was a heavy, beautiful thing, and surely one of the only books on the island. Perhaps one of the only real ones I’d ever seen. It fell open once I held it, to a page of beautiful writing that drew my attention immediately.

The story was a familiar one. A tale of an exiled knight who found his way by misfortune to an unknown island. Down on his luck, he rested in a patch of clover, and when he awoke, he found one with four leaves growing right near his head and picked it. Later he found and kissed a beautiful, sleeping maiden, who fell in love with him and brought him back to her land to be a king.

A small, flat pressed plant fell out from between the pages of the book and into my lap. A clover. Only . . . with four leaves instead of three.

“Oh,” I whispered. For once, the tears that came to my eyes were not ones of sadness.