The Sapphire Broach

Chapter 21 (rough draft)

Kenric coughed and felt pain shoot across his side. He groaned and felt someone touch his forehead. Then he blinked and saw Ivy smiling before him.

"Good morning, Kenric. How do you feel today?"

"Like I've been shot and dragged across the kingdom by a cumbrous woman." He felt sluggish and his words seemed blurred together.

Her face fell, and he knew he must have said something he shouldn't have, though he wasn't entirely sure what he had just said.

"Ivy." He tried to sit up, but the pain intensified. Spasms of pain coursed through his body.

"Lie back." She put her hands on his shoulders to keep him down. "You have been shot and dragged across the kingdom, so sit back and rest."

He watched her fret over him. Her brow crinkled and her crystal-blue eyes squinted when she tucked his blankets back around him. He could see in her tired expression that she had worried greatly over him the past however many days. The farmer and his wife had said she had been so covered in his blood that they thought for sure she was gravely injured. Someone must have cleaned her dress, for she wore it and he could see no sign of blood upon it. They also said she had fainted with exhaustion.

"Forgive me, Ivy."

She looked at him with wide eyes. "Whatever for?"

"For worrying you. For making you care for me. For being uncouth—something I'm sure I have been far too often."

She gazed at him with a look that somehow made him feel warm all the way to his toes.

"You are forgiven, Kenric, but please do not ever try to die on me again."

"I do not plan to."

***

Ivy spent most of her time inside that day tending to Kenric. He slept most of the morning, but awoke often enough to eat and talk. Color returned to his face, and he even smiled occasionally—something he had rarely done since she met him.

Bonnie went outside to work with Carl and Tommy. She said she needed fresh air, but Ivy knew she was really giving them time to be alone after all they had been through.

Around noon Kenric stirred again. "Ivy?"

"I'm right here."

He blinked up at her and smiled, then winced when he tried to sit up.

"Would you stop trying to get up?"

He grunted.

Ivy grabbed the extra pillows sitting atop the bed and helped prop them behind him so he was slightly elevated. "There. See? It hurts less when you let me help you."

"Forgive me," he said. "I am not used to that notion. Typically it hurts more when I let you help."

A smile played at the corners of his lips again, so she took his words as a playful jest, instead of an accusation—though it was probably meant as both.

Then her thoughts turned serious. Kenric had been hurt because of her, and Bonnie and Carl faced the loss of their farm and possibly even going to prison because she hadn't returned to the throne. Her actions—or lack thereof—had caused people pain and suffering and would continue to while she let Rymond remain in power.