The Day I Married the Fire God, Three Brothers Regretted It novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Fire Back
Helia's POV
He lay in our bed for a night and a day with the gold seam dark and his breath barely moving.
The northern healers came and went with their hands folded.
My father stood at the foot of the bed with his old face closed.
"The crown took what it took," he said. "A core can't be put back by anyone but the one who still holds a piece of it."
"I hold a piece of it."
"You do."
"Then tell me how."
He told me.
It was very simple, and he looked as if he hated himself for how simple it was.
I sent everyone out.
I locked the door and took off my robe, and lay down along Phlegon's side with my palm flat over the dark seam.
His skin was cold.
I had never felt him cold.
I closed my eyes and found the warm place under my ribs, the quiet crescent that had been his all my life and mine for a week.
It was still there.
The crown had missed it, and he had paid for that.
I did not take it out.
I opened it like a window, and let some of it go through my hand.
It ran down my arm in a slow gold line.
His chest hitched under my palm.
The seam flickered, and caught, and lit.
I felt the loop close between us, his half to mine and mine to his, running in a circle until I could not have said which of us was warm.
"Helia."
His voice was a cracked whisper.
"I'm here."
"You gave it back."
"I gave you some." I laid my forehead on his collarbone, and the tears I had held for two days came all at once. "I kept some. You don't get to say what's yours. It's ours."
His arm moved over my back, heavy and slow.
"You're naked."
"Yes."
"I'm trying to be dignified."
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