Saving the Immortal

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Stay

I woke to an empty bed, the fire burned down to embers, and felt a fresh wave of fear settle over me before I had even properly gathered my thoughts.

"My lady," a maid said, appearing at the door with a face pale enough that I understood immediately something was gravely wrong. "You must come quickly. His Majesty has ordered Lord Ruselon punished for the destruction in the garden. They have taken him to the courtyard."

I did not wait to properly dress.

I ran, exactly as I had the morning of his homecoming, though this time terror rather than joy carried my feet across those corridors, and I burst into the courtyard to find Ruselon kneeling before his father, his shirt already stripped away, a guard standing over him with a whip raised.

"Stop," I screamed, running forward before anyone could restrain me. "Stop this at once."

The guard hesitated, glancing toward the king for instruction.

"Your Majesty," I said, dropping to my knees before him without any thought for my own dignity, "I beg you to show him mercy. Whatever happened in that garden, his brothers provoked him beyond what any man should be expected to endure. Please—"

"He nearly killed his own brothers," the king said, his voice hard. "He injured guards who serve this crown. This cannot go unpunished, Princess, whatever sympathy you carry for him."

"Then punish me as well," I said, my voice breaking now with desperation. "I was there. I witnessed everything that provoked him. If he deserves punishment, so do I for failing to stop it sooner."

The king studied me a long moment, something shifting behind his stern expression.

"Enough," he said finally, waving the guard back. "Take him to his quarters. I will consider the matter settled, given the princess's intervention. But this cannot happen again, Ruselon. Do you understand me?"

Ruselon said nothing, his head bowed, and I helped him rise myself, guiding him back toward our chambers with an urgency that left no room for further argument.

Once inside, I sat him down and examined his back properly for the first time, and felt my breath catch at what I found there.

Deep, angry welts crossed his skin — not from the whip that had barely touched him before I intervened, but older wounds, scars I had never noticed before, the particular marks of a lifetime spent being punished for a nature he had never chosen for himself.

"Stay still," I said quietly, reaching for a cloth and warm water. "Let me help you."

"Ivy," he said, his voice low, carrying a warning I had not heard from him before, something rougher and considerably more dangerous beneath its usual composure. "You should stay away from me. Not now. Not while I am—" He stopped, his hands clenching against his knees. "I am not fully myself yet. I do not trust what remains of my control."

"I am not afraid of you," I said, moving closer regardless.

"You should be," he said, his voice dropping further, something almost feral bleeding into its edges. "You saw what I am capable of in that garden. Do not pretend you did not."

"I saw a man pushed past every limit anyone should reasonably endure," I said, kneeling beside him now, pressing the warm cloth gently against his back despite his warning. "I am not leaving, Ruselon. Whatever risk remains, I am willing to take it."

"Ivy—" His voice caught, something between warning and plea now.

"Stay still," I said again, gently, continuing my careful work.

I felt him trembling beneath my touch, his control clearly still fraying at its edges, and yet he did not pull away, did not push me back the way his warnings suggested he might. I worked slowly, carefully, cleaning away the blood from wounds both old and new, and as I did, something extraordinary began to happen beneath my hands.

The scars began to fade.

Not slowly, as an ordinary wound might heal, but swiftly, the angry welts smoothing away entirely, the old marks that had clearly lasted years finally dissolving into skin as unblemished as though they had never existed at all.

I stared at his back in wonder.

"Ruselon," I said softly. "Your scars—"

He turned his head slightly, and I saw something shift in his expression as he realized what I had witnessed.

"They were meant to last," he said quietly. "Every punishment my father or his court ever inflicted upon me was meant to leave its mark, meant to remind me permanently of every failure they believed I represented. And yet—" He looked at his own hands, turning them over slowly. "Nothing marks me for long. Whatever wound this body suffers, it heals completely, leaving no trace behind, no matter how deep the cut."

"That should be a mercy," I said.

"It should be," he agreed, something hollow entering his voice now. "And yet it never felt like one. My father intended those scars to remain, to teach me some lesson through their permanence. Instead, I simply forget nothing while my body remembers nothing at all. I carry every cruelty in memory alone, with no physical proof remaining to show anyone what was done to me."

I set down the cloth and moved around to face him properly, taking his face gently in my hands.

"Then let me remember for you," I said quietly. "Whatever your body forgets, I will not forget what they have done to you. I will not let this family pretend such cruelty never happened, simply because your skin refuses to hold the evidence."

Something broke open in his expression at that — not the fury I had witnessed in the garden, but something considerably softer, considerably more vulnerable.

"You stayed," he said quietly, wonderingly. "Even knowing what I am capable of. Even after everything you witnessed."

"I stayed," I confirmed. "And I intend to keep staying, Ruselon, whatever comes. You are not the monster your father insists you must become. I have seen enough of you now to know that with complete certainty."

He pulled me against him then, his arms wrapping around me with a desperate gentleness, and I held him back just as fiercely, understanding, finally, precisely how much this moment of simple, stubborn presence meant to a man who had spent his entire existence believing himself unworthy of it.