Emma's POV
Ellie comes the next morning while Ethan is handling his household accounts somewhere down the hall.
She sits on the edge of the window bed, where I'm still propped up against the pillows, and she tells me everything.
How I'd hit the courtyard stone and didn't move, and the sound Ethan made—not a word, she said, just something that came out of him involuntarily. How he'd carried me here himself, refusing the stretcher. How he'd sent for every healer in the palace at the same time, paying whatever they asked without looking at the cost. How he'd stood over Ellie's shoulder while she worked her healing magic until his hands shook—not from weakness, from the sustained effort of holding still when everything in him wanted to do something more.
"I told him I needed space to work,
