Chapter 33 Bronwen
Bronwen
“Now what?” Benedict stepped from the shadows, his hands trembling slightly as he handed August the blade.
August turned it over in his hands, his eyes narrowing before running his thumb slowly over the hilt. “We have to destroy it,” he said as though the decision had already rooted itself deep inside him.
August didn’t hesitate. He turned to me and held it out.
The blade was cold in my hands, the metal humming like it was alive.
I turned it slowly, the black jewel set into the hilt catching the low light, refracting it in a strange, sickly pattern.
The carvings were ancient, but I could feel the spellwork beneath each line as if it was just created.
It pulsed. Like a second heartbeat, thudding faintly in my palm.
“The jewel almost seems alive,” I muttered, unable to tear my eyes away. I knew we had read about it, but all of the information I had learned in the past few months meshed together.
Benedict answered. “There isn’t much about it in our records. But it’s said to control the dead. The wielder feeds it souls, and in return, the blade can raise an army from the grave.”
“Feeds it souls,” I repeated, my stomach twisting. The stone felt alive because it was alive in a sense. A world created to hold souls, but I wondered what inside it hungered for souls.
I looked up at August. He was watching me too closely, like he already knew what I was thinking.
“She spelled it,” I said slowly, “to hold his soul. And when someone sacrifices another soul to it, that’s when he moves—he leaves the blade and inhabits the body.” I glanced down at the stone again. “I think he is in there.”
August’s jaw tightened.
“If I take the magic from it,” I continued, “it will be useless. And there will be no way for him to take your body. This little world will be destroyed, and he will never be able to come back.”
August didn’t say anything, but his eyes shone brightly. We were finally at the end.
I wrapped my hand around the hilt. The moment my fingers closed over it, a jolt of energy raced through me. My knees nearly buckled. I steadied myself, exhaled slowly, and shut my eyes. The magic came like a tide.
Dark, hungry, violent.
Whispers poured into my mind—thousands of voices, all speaking at once, crawling over each other.
A scraping sound filled my ears, like claws dragging across stone.
Then something sharper surged through my hand.
A cold spike of pain drove up my arm, curling through my chest, coiling around my ribs. It found my lungs and squeezed.
I gasped—but no air came.
I dropped the blade as the world tilted and the floor rushed toward me. But I didn’t hit it. Arms caught me—strong, steady, smelling of cedar and smoke.
August.
I tried to open my eyes. Tried to speak. But there was no strength left. Only the sound of his voice, soft and low, murmuring something I couldn’t understand. His hand brushed the hair from my face.
Then there was nothing but darkness. But even there, I could still feel him holding on to me.
And I didn’t want to let go.
I was running. The ground beneath my feet was scorched black, cracked open like a wound.
The sky above churned red and gray, clouds moving like smoke.
Twisted trees clawed toward the heavens with skeletal branches.
Something screamed in the distance—a high, keening sound that made my blood turn to ice.
I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to run. That if I stopped, I wouldn’t make it out.
Shadows moved between the broken trees—monsters, grotesque and disfigured. One turned as I passed. Its face was half-melted, its eyes glowing with hunger. Beside it, people staggered like puppets with strings cut, their limbs stiff and jerking. Not quite dead, not quite alive.
One locked eyes with me—milky white, soulless. Its mouth opened, and in a voice that sounded both ancient and broken, it said, “It comes at a price. It always comes at a price.”
I stumbled back, heart racing, and turned to run again.
Through fog, through rot, through the broken remnants of a world that felt cursed.
Then I saw him.
Carrow.
He stood in the path ahead, but something was off. His posture uncertain, his face twisted in confusion—as if he had never seen me before. That’s when it hit me.
It wasn’t Carrow. Not the one who hunted me. Not the one who planned to take August’s body.
It was Malachi. The last soul Carrow had ripped from their body so he could make it his own.
Oh gods.
I was in the stone.
I turned, trying to escape before he could speak, but a hand grabbed my wrist—firm, cold. I spun around and slammed into a figure with brown hair, grayish skin, and ears that tapered into sharp points. His eyes were the color of ash, and they narrowed at me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, teeth bared.
And I knew. This—this was Carrow. Not the shell he wore. Not the polished image he used to control others. This was what he truly looked like.
And I had just stepped into his world.
His grip tightened like a vice as I thrashed in his grasp, his cold fingers digging into my skin. Panic rose sharp and fast in my chest.
“What are the two of you trying to do?” he hissed, voice guttural and laced with something inhuman.
I shoved at his chest, but it was like trying to move stone. “Let me go! Let me go!” I screamed.
“Let me go!” I screamed as my vision darkened. I gasped as the air rushed to my lungs. My eyes flew open, my heart still racing, breath shallow. I was no longer in the cursed place, no longer in Carrow’s twisted world.
I was in our room. In our bed.
August’s arms were wrapped tightly around me, grounding me. One of his hands was threaded gently through my hair, the other pressed protectively to my waist.
“Winnie,” he murmured. “You’re okay. It’s me. I’ve got you.”
“What happened? Where is the blade?”
“Benedict locked it away.”
“Did it work? Did we stop him?”
He hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the moment I tried to push myself upright, a jarring, unnatural sensation shot through my left hand. I froze.
Black veins curled and twisted up my hand and forearm, pulsing beneath the surface of my skin like something alive. They were raised—protruding—and the skin around them felt tight, wrong.
I stared at it, heart sinking, throat dry. “August… what is this?”
His face was tight with worry, but he didn’t hesitate. “It’s the magic from the stone. It fought back when you tried to take it. The room went dark and it seemed to swallow your soul before letting you back out.”
I looked down at my hand again. “So I failed,” I whispered. The words tasted like ash.
“No,” he said immediately, but the tension in his jaw betrayed him. “You didn’t fail. You tried. You fought it harder than anyone else ever could have. But… it didn’t let go.”
I shook my head slowly. The chill that had crept over me since waking tightened in my chest. “I couldn’t destroy it.”
August leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. “You survived it. That means something. We’ll figure out the rest.” He kissed my cheek. “We still have time.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true. But I wanted to believe him. Gods, I needed to believe him.
* * *
Days bled together.
More searching. More sleepless nights hunched over old tomes and scrolls, chasing threads that unraveled as quickly as we touched them. The dark veins in my arm remained—constant, aching, a reminder of what I’d failed to do.
August had gone to speak with Varric—the mad one who mumbled things that made no sense. He said he’d go alone. Said I needed rest.
But when he came back, hours later, I could tell.
He stood as he always did, tall, composed, jaw set in that unyielding way. But his eyes had given up pretending. They were heavy, holding the weight of whatever he’d heard. I didn’t ask what Varric said. I just sat beside him and laced my fingers through his.
That night, the castle was quieter than usual. No servants bustling past our door. No echoing footsteps in the halls.
He lit a fire, the low orange glow flickering against his pale skin, and I curled near it, pulling my knees in. A moment later, he settled behind me, his legs stretched out, pulling me between them like I might break apart if he didn’t hold me together.
“You should sleep,” he murmured against my hair.
“I can’t,” I whispered back.
His lips brushed my shoulder, and when I turned toward him, he was looking at me like I was something sacred. His hand traced the curve of my jaw, down to my collarbone.
“You’re still trembling,” he said softly.
“You’re still pretending you’re okay.”
His mouth found mine—soft at first, familiar. Then deeper, like each breath fed something hungrier between us. His hands slid beneath my shift. “You’ve ruined me, Winnie,” he breathed against my neck.
I ran my hands through his hair. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He lifted me into his lap, our foreheads touching, breaths mingling. “Tell me what you need,” he rasped.
“You. Just you.”
He laid me back on the rug before the fire. His hands undressed me with unhurried reverence, his mouth following. When he finally pushed into me, our gasps tangled. He moved slowly, brushing hair from my face, watching me like he was memorizing each moment.
“You are my reason,” he said, voice breaking.
“Don’t stop,” I begged.
“Never.”
And he didn’t.
We moved together like we’d always been meant to, a rhythm that felt older than us both. My name on his lips, his on mine. When it was over, we stayed tangled on the rug, skin damp, hearts pounding as one. We didn’t say the words. We didn’t have to.
It was in the way his hand kept tracing the line of my spine.
In the way I gripped his wrist, unwilling to let him go.
In the way we held each other long after the embers cooled, as if letting go might break the fragile world we’d built in that moment.