Duty-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book II ]

31

"There you are." Aun stepped back. The bandages she had unraveled from around Kaori's body were hardly soiled now. She tilted her head, looking past Kaori's shoulder into the mirror. Both of them, prince and healer, studied his naked torso and arm. "How do you feel?"

Kaori drew a slow, cautious breath. He had been able to breathe easily these past few days. He could stand on his own for almost as long as he wanted, and he could move what was left of his arm without pain.

He felt sound, but he did not feel whole. It was the first time he had seen his body in this way, the way another person might see it, since the battle. Glancing up at Aun's face in the mirror, he caught her looking at him. Their eyes met, and she offered him a gentle smile. "Kaori?"

"You are the only one in the world aside from own family who calls me only by my name," he said. His gaze caught on her marked cheek as he looked away.

"Would you rather I call you Your Grace?"

"Your Grace is for the sovereigns," Kaori said. "Your Highness for a prince. But—" he hesitated— "no. Don't."

Aun turned her face away, placing the bandages in a basket sitting on the sideboard. "You did not answer my question."

"Question?"

"How do you feel?"

Kaori watched her begin to tidy things. Then, he looked back at the man in his mirror, a man he was slowly coming to know. "I don't have any pain."

"Good." Her reflection paused in the act of stoppering a bottle, then turned to look at him expectantly. "That is half an answer."

"What else do you want?"

"Kaori, how do you feel?" She approached him, bottle in hand. "It's done: the healing of your body is done. But that is not all that must heal from an injury as grave as yours."

His feelings. She was asking about his feelings. He avoided her gaze, focusing on the jagged scar on the right side of his chest. The flesh had been torn away, the ribs beneath them cracked. Bones and muscle and skin had been knit back together under Aun's supervision, but there was still a depression in his skin, gnarled and pink and shiny, stretching from his collarbone down to his navel. At its broadest, the scar was a hand span wide. And his arm...Taken all of a piece, his new body was obscene.

When Aun spoke again, her voice was a cool, detached whisper. "I apologize, Your Highness; I'm prying. I think my work here is done; have you need of anything else before I go?"

He turned toward her. His instinct was to reach out to her with his right arm, to touch her shoulder as she turned away, but of course the gesture was in his mind alone. "Aun."

She looked back up at him, her lips parted as if she would speak, but she said nothing.

"I feel...lost. I feel different. I am not the man I was."

"It will take time for you to adjust. Now that you are sound in body, you can focus on the rest."

But there was more; there was so much more. Until these past two days, Kaori's invalidity had defined him. For weeks, he had thought of nothing but the pain, the struggle of healing, and the challenges of supporting his illegitimate brother's claim to the throne. Then, improvements in his condition had come in quick succession; moving had become easier, his wounds had finally closed and stopped weeping, and now he was sound.

It was all due to Aun's healing powers. Now, he had no further need of her, and she would go away.

Aun placed her hand over his, smiling at him, and he recognized that patient, professional smile. In it was a mixture of encouragement and brisk efficiency; she had done what she could, and he had expressed no further need for her. "Well, I suppose I shall see if Matei requires me any longer in the capitol, and if not, I shall return to Hanpe."

As she stepped back out of his grasp and turned away to place the bottle in the basket, the world shifted, and for the first time in many weeks, things settled into place with perfect clarity. Kaori knew in that instant that his one chance to be whole again was slipping away. "Aun—"

Surprised, Aun faced him again with a frown. "Kaori, what's wrong?"

Kaori reached out his hand, and she stepped toward him. Responding naturally to his gesture, she placed her hand in his, and he bent over her hand and kissed it. He remained in his bow, resting his forehead gently against her knuckles. "You saved my life."

Aun gave a startled laugh. She placed her other hand on Kaori's shoulder. "Kaori, stand up. You're being strange all of a sudden."

"You did not leave me. You were there every moment—even when I was sharp. Even when I was cruel."

"You were in pain." He looked up in time to catch the hesitation on her face. "I...I knew you did not mean it."

"How could you know?"

She smiled at Kaori, placing her hand on his cheek. "You have kind eyes, Kaori, and you have a gentle heart. I have spent my life around men who are wounded and sick. I know how to tell the difference between cruelty and pain."

Her gentle touch on his cheek was the only truth, the only reliable thing in the world. Self-assured enough to touch the face of a prince, Aun met his gaze, and he looked into her eyes, feeling lost...feeling found.

Aun was the only person in the world who saw Kaori for who he was. She had seen him, and she had touched him, although in his own eyes he was a monster; she had endured his bitterness, never shrinking, and had been with him through the darkest hours of his recovery. She understood that he had changed not just in body, but in mind.

She knew him.

"A gentle heart," he echoed, half-disbelieving. Again, his eyes lingered on her marke. He hesitated. He knew the truth that weighed in his heart, but would he dare to speak it now, to a woman he was forbidden to have? But she was waiting, and he knew he must speak his mind, wherever she might go. "Well, Aun, be it gentle or no, it is yours."

A comely blush flooded Aun's freckled face. "Kaori?" Her fingers slipped away from his cheek, but he still held her hand, and she curled her fingers around his.

"Go if you wish; but take it with you. It is far safer with you than it has ever been before."

"What are you saying?" she whispered.

Kaori smiled. The danger in his affections was a problem for another day; today, when she had brought sunlight to his life and clarity to his mind, he would be an honest man. "Come, Aun. You are the wisest woman I have ever known. I'm saying...I love you."

So I've been told that Duty-Bound should be a romance.

Am I doing it right? ;) Kaori and Aun are the ones you want to see smooching, right? Right? Hehehe...

Your next update comes on Tuesday, and we'll be hopping back into Mhera's head!