Chapter 38 Bronwen
Bronwen
I rested my hand on the growing curve of my belly. Everyone talked around me, mostly ignoring me until they asked small questions as if it were the most normal thing in the world for me to be here with Carrow inhabiting the body of the man I loved most.
The routine was set now. During the day, I was locked in that same cold, damp room Carrow had thrown me into all those months ago.
But as soon as the moon rose, the servants would come.
They would bathe me in silence, dress me like a doll in the gown that had been chosen for that night, then lead me to dinner.
Lavina, Simon, and Benedict would already be waiting, seated as though nothing had changed. They barely acknowledged my presence unless it suited them. I wasn’t a prisoner. I was a spectacle. A living display of Carrow’s control.
After dinner, we descended to the great room, where laughter and music filled the air. Vampires danced and drank and played their games beneath the flickering candlelight. I sat beside Carrow—beside August’s body—and tried to survive the night.
Lavina took to draping herself across him whenever she could, fawning like a dutiful daughter, performing loyalty while reveling in the fact that her brother was gone. I watched her hands touch him, heard her laugh too loudly at his jokes, and imagined killing her each night.
Some evenings, I let my mind wander, let myself pretend it was still August beside me. That his hand on mine meant something. That the heat in his gaze was for me—not for what I carried.
But it never lasted long.
When the sun threatened the edge of the sky, the illusion shattered completely.
Carrow would lead me back to his chambers like I was his prize.
He would bite a new place each time—never enough to kill me, but enough to bring me close.
He would touch me in ways I wished I could erase from my memory.
I would squeeze my eyes shut and scream silently for Adar, praying for a miracle.
It was silly to believe that there was a small piece of me tethered to my brother, but it was the only hope I held on to.
I still wore the gloves. At that point, I thought my skin might have fused to them and they’d never come off. No one left me alone with so much as a fork. But I was too tired, too heavy, too hollow to do much damage even if they had.
Some nights, I wondered if I would even survive the birth.
Carrow said nothing of what would happen after. But I knew. I could feel it in his gaze, in the way he watched me now—not as a person, but as a vessel. I would give him what he wanted, and then he would decide what I was worth.
Maybe he would keep me—to breed more children. More vessels. Maybe he would let Lavina drain me for sport. Maybe he’d smile as he ordered someone else to carve me open.
I didn’t know which fate was worse.
But nothing compared to the agony of seeing August’s face twisted in cruelty. Of hearing his voice speak words that didn’t belong to him. Of watching his hands—the hands that once held me so gently—become instruments of pain.
It had started to warp the memories I had of him, no matter how hard I fought to keep his presence alive.
“Eat, darling,” Carrow said smoothly beside me, the words slicing through the fog I hadn’t realized I’d sunk into. “You’ll need your strength.”
I blinked, fingers tightening on the edge of the tablecloth. The low hum of conversation around the table continued, but his words pressed into my skull like a hand against the back of my neck.
He didn’t look at me when he said it, just raised his glass lazily and took a sip, the corner of his mouth twitching into something that might’ve been a smile—if it hadn’t been so razor-edged.
My stomach turned. The food on my plate looked foreign. Cold. I hadn’t touched it.
Carrow finally turned his head toward me, those too-familiar eyes glinting with something sharp. “You wouldn’t want to pass out halfway through. That wouldn’t be very entertaining.”
Across the table, Lavina laughed like he’d told a joke, and someone clinked their glass.
But I couldn’t hear them anymore.
All I could hear was my heart pounding and the child shifting restlessly beneath my skin—as if it knew, too.
I forced myself to lift each bite to my lips, not because I had any appetite, but because the tiny life inside me demanded it.
Every swallow was a silent promise—it was all for the baby now, every ounce of strength I had left.
* * *
When I woke again, I was back in the cell.
At least, I thought I was awake. The stone beneath me was real enough, cold against my skin, but everything else felt… different. Too quiet. Too still. My body felt like it was floating just above the floor, tethered only by breath.
Then I saw them.
A forge blazed ahead, heat rippling through the haze like a desert mirage. Shadows danced across the far wall, tall and strange. Figures moved within the firelight.
A swordsmith poured molten metal into a mold, his movements efficient, practiced.
He couldn’t have looked older than twenty-five—if he were aging at all.
His skin bore a faint golden glow, and his features were sharp in the way only the immortals could be—cheekbones that could cut glass, a narrow jaw dusted with ash, and slightly pointed ears that poked through soot-darkened curls.
He was fae.
He wore a leather apron stained with centuries of work, and his arms, though lean, moved with a strength that seemed effortless.
Even his stillness carried weight—like he belonged to the forge more than he ever had to the forests or palaces of his kind.
This was a craftsman, not a warrior, but his creations would outlive kings.
The blade hissed in its mold. Behind him, another artisan carved the hilt with precision, and the chanting of the two witches began to weave into the very air, their eyes fixed on a black stone resting at the center of the table as if drawing its power.
My gaze followed the black stone as the air seemed to thicken; the sword rose from the mold as if unseen hands bore its weight. I could only watch as each component drifted together—the hilt meeting the blade, the fit seamless, as though the weapon had always existed in this form.
The women’s chanting grew louder, more urgent. The stone bled shadow now, spreading into the blade as if feeding it. As if binding itself to the steel.
Realization struck me.
The Blade of Aros.
A weapon forged to command armies of the dead, stealing one soul at a time until none remained. I felt the weight of witnessing its creation, my chest tight with dread. What was I doing here?
“Come, Carrow,” the swordsmith said as the witches’ chanting tapered off, the last syllables echoing in the charged air. The newly-forged blade drifted until it settled itself on the table.
I turned my head slowly, the heat of the forge prickling my skin, realizing I was witnessing a memory like the countless ones I had of August.
“Carrow!” the swordsmith barked, impatience sharpening his tone.
My gaze swept the room again, heart lurching hard as the truth hit me like a fist—I hadn’t merely been pulled into a memory. I was inside it. Inside him.
I was Carrow.
I was seeing through his eyes.
I looked down at the soot-covered hands, the rough fabric clinging to a younger, leaner body, the forge smoke in my lungs—it was all his. And he had been here. At the blade’s beginning.
After Carrow took August’s body, the nightmares had stopped—but the mark August left remained. I used to hope it might protect me, ward Carrow off from claiming me. But it hadn’t. Not truly.
This was something else. Something deeper.
I could feel myself inside him—Carrow. His thoughts didn’t block mine, and my instincts guided his body. I could move, I could breathe, but it was as if my spirit had been draped in his skin. This memory hadn’t been summoned. It had been given.
I stood, legs moving before I fully commanded them, and stepped toward them
“This has to work,” the fae who carved the designs muttered desperately, more to himself than anyone else.
“It will,” the swordsmith answered. “It will raise armies from the dead. We will take Alentara from the creatures and finally be able to live in peace.”
“It is done,” the older witch murmured. “The ancestors have spoken. Our magic always comes at a price. To keep its strength to create armies, souls must be sacrificed.”
The lead witch turned toward me—toward him—her eyes narrowing with a subtle disdain, as if she were barely tolerating his presence. There was no warmth in her gaze—only calculation, and the faintest sneer that said she saw right through him. Like he was lesser. Temporary. Useful, but beneath her.
“Give this to your master.”
My—his—hands trembled as they reached for it. When our fingers closed around the hilt, the world went white.
When it came back, I wasn’t in the forge anymore.
I was still in Carrow’s body—but now I stood at the edge of a forest, hidden in the shadows of towering trees.
From the cover of the tree line, I looked down onto an open battlefield, the earth below a canvas of carnage.
The pale, swirling sky cast a dull sheen over the blood-slicked terrain. The air reeked of ash and rot.
Bodies lay strewn across the ground, a grotesque quilt of death.
Most of them were fae—fallen warriors in fractured armor, their weapons still clutched in lifeless hands as if refusing to surrender even in death.
Among them lay a scattering of creatures, but only a few; the rest prowled over the fallen, feasting without hesitation.
They were nightmares pulled from the oldest, darkest pages of ancient tomes.
Winged beasts with bone-covered faces crouched on crooked perches, screeching with hunger.
Serpentine horrors, their hides slick with gore, glided through the carnage on rows of hooked claws, black eyes glittering like polished stones.
Wolves that walked upright tore at the remains, their massive jaws snapping and their muzzles dripping crimson, howling in twisted victory.
“It’s time.”
I turned slowly to see a fae I hadn’t realized was standing back with me.
His rust-colored hair was braided down his back, streaked with soot and blood.
His skin, sun-warmed and golden, gleamed beneath plates of silver-dulled armor etched with ancient sigils.
Even from a distance, there was power in the way he stood—still, calm, as though all this death were nothing new to him.
In his hand, he held a blade. The blade.
This was Aros.
He lifted his gaze, scanning the torn landscape with a grim expression—no triumph, no fear. Just understanding. Then, with both hands, he plunged the blade into the blood-soaked earth.
The ground pulsed.
And the dead rose.
All around him, corpses jerked to life—not mindlessly, not like puppets, but with purpose. The dead fae and creatures alike. They turned, not toward Aros, but toward the creatures that had slaughtered them.
The monsters shrieked as the risen dead launched their assault. Some beasts were cleaved down instantly, others turned and fled. The air filled with the clash of steel, the howl of magic, the roar of vengeance.
I watched as the battlefield shifted, the chaos twisting into something far more dangerous.
This was absolute control.