The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,11

out, forcing my voice past the scream I’d squelched, but that remained trapped somewhere around my heart. “You want Me to be happy? Look at Me. I’m a wreck. I can’t even sit up.”

“You’ll get stronger,” he replied stubbornly.

“How do you know?” I shot back, then nodded at the look on his face. “See? You don’t.”

He set his jaw. “I know you’re doing a hell of a lot better than you were at this time yesterday.”

Yesterday … when I was dead. The scream trapped in my chest shattered into a sob, and I gasped for breath. What a weak and sniveling mess I was.

“Lia…” Con tried to pull me into his arms, but I pushed him away.

“How long was I dead?” I demanded. “A few minutes?” Like someone drowned who seemed dead, but was revived. No, Con was frowning, searching for words to soothe me. “Longer, then. Hours?”

“Lia…”

“Just tell Me, Con,” I grated out.

He shook his head, then set his jaw. “Nearly a full day and night. You passed away about four hours before midnight and came back to life when we hit Calanthe’s waters the next evening, right as the sun was going down.”

So long. “You weren’t there, though, when I died.” I’d been alone, wishing for him. I remembered that, the sorrow and regret.

“No.” His face contorted with emotion, and he put his arms around me. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. Sorry for so much that—”

“I don’t need comforting,” I snapped, pushing him away. “I need answers. How do you know what time I died if you weren’t there?”

He sat up, releasing me and curling into himself, elbows on drawn-up knees, face in his hands. “I know what time you died because I felt it. The marriage bond, or whatever, went poof! Vesno lost his shit and I knew you were gone.” His voice thick and grating, he lifted his head to glare at me, seeming unaware of the tears leaking over the pitted skin of his cheeks. “It was the worst fucking thing I’ve ever gone through—including holding my father when he died—so don’t you dare tell me not to want to hold you, to want to be glad for a few damn minutes that you’re here and alive, even if you are snarling and spiteful.”

I stared at him, taken aback by the passion of his speech—and realizing the truth of what he’d said. The marriage bond indeed had shattered, and I was no longer the woman he’d married. I was … something else. He stared back, defying me to argue with him, eyes molten gold, new lines around them, carved there by grief and despair. I needed to get ahold of myself, regain some poise and control.

“I’m sorry you went through that.” I sagged, lifting my hands to my own face—remembered, and dropped the amputated one to my lap. The orchid on my wrist above the bandage stirred, less colorful and robust than usual. “I didn’t know you’d feel it when I—” No, not going to be able to say it that time. I took a breath, marveling at the way my lungs expanded, my heart pounded. If I reached for it, there was a memory of when my breath had been still, unmoving. I’d found myself pulled back into my own body, but it had become an alien thing to me, a lifeless slab of meat, inert with the dank chill of death. I shivered, thrusting that memory away. Maybe I didn’t want to remember everything after all.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Con said when I failed to finish that sentence. “I once thought having to watch my father die was the hardest thing I could do. But feeling you die and not being with you was much worse.”

I met his eyes, the rawness in them a mirror to my own. “I felt so alone, you know, at the end.”

He nodded, as if he knew that. “You remember now?”

“That part.” I touched the orchid’s petals, so velvety soft. “The wizards had been trying to find the secret of transferring the orchid, so they’d decided to get Me to the brink of death, hoping the orchid would release. They had Me on this table, with gutters for My blood, so they could catch it in these … urns, and…”

“I saw it,” Con said quietly when I faltered.

Ah. That’s where I’d died and that’s where he’d found me. “When I got near death, they put My blood back in me, adding magic to it, and