Chapter 35 Bronwen
Bronwen
ONE MONTH LATER
The market was alive with sound. Merchants shouted in a language I only half-understood, selling fruits the color of fire, silk scarves that rippled like water in the wind, and spices that burned my nose even as they enticed me.
The sun beat down overhead, a harsh and brilliant contrast to the cold we’d left behind in Joveryn.
Here, everything was dust and gold and heat.
Sweat clung to my back beneath the loose cotton dress I wore, and my dark waves were pulled up in a messy knot to keep my neck cool.
Adar and I moved slowly between the stalls, pretending to be unhurried.
Blending in. We’d been doing that for weeks now—moving from one place to the next, never staying long, always looking over our shoulders.
Seranthia, tucked between the sea and stretches of shimmering desert, had so far proven safe. But I never felt truly safe.
Adar bartered with a vendor in a shaded stall. I stood beside him with a basket of fruit resting against my hip, the sun glinting off the gold ring still tied to the string around my neck.
It had been a month. A month since August compelled me to leave.
To never stop running.
And that’s exactly what we’d been doing.
We’d slip into some sun-bleached, dusty little town far from Joveryn, and Adar would try to tell me we were safe now.
But somewhere deep in my bones was something screaming that I couldn’t stop.
That the second I let myself believe in safety, something would find us.
August thought he was protecting me, and maybe he was. Maybe if I’d stayed, I would be dead by now. But the knowledge didn’t make the betrayal hurt less.
He didn’t ask. He took the choice from me like he said he’d never do.
And yet, even now—sweating under this foreign sun, dressed in stolen clothes, surrounded by strangers—I missed him. I missed the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered. I missed his temper, his hands, his voice in the dark.
But missing him didn’t change anything. The Blood Moon was coming soon, and I could feel the magic in my arm buzzing with warning.
Had he already found a way to stop Carrow and was searching for me to bring me home? I doubted it.
I was just praying for a miracle. A way for him to stop Carrow so he could come to me and I could punch him in the face. And then kiss him.
I hated him for sending me away, and I hated myself more for still loving him.
And that I never told him.
Adar called my name, jolting me out of my thoughts. He was waving me over to another stall, where a woman with silver-streaked hair offered woven shawls dyed in shades of crimson and cobalt. I pasted on a smile and walked toward him, heart aching with every step.
I stepped up to the booth and smiled at the young girl standing behind the table with her mother. “I love the shades of green you have.”
“They just came in from Joveryn,” the young girl said shyly.
“Yes, I am so glad our northern neighbor is having fairer weather now. We missed trading with them these last few months,” the mother said as she rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“How much for this one?” I asked, my fingers brushing over the deep emerald green fabric, feeling the cool, smooth weave beneath my touch.
Her eyes flicked from the cloth to my face, appraising. “Two coins.”
“You should charge more,” I said, tilting my head as I held the fabric up to the light.
She smiled, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes deepening. “A discount for you. It matches your eyes so well it’s like it was meant for you.”
I let out a small laugh, tucking a stray curl behind my ear, and reached into the pouch at my hip to pay her. She pressed the fabric into my hands with a warm nod.
“Thank you,” I said, folding the fabric carefully and tucking it under my arm as we stepped away from the booth. The air shifted, hotter now that we were leaving the shade, and the market’s noise softened into the background hum of distant voices and clinking coins.
“You okay?” Adar asked as we reached the edge of the market, his gaze flicking sideways to study me. “You looked… somewhere else.”
I adjusted the basket on my hip and let my eyes wander over the sandy street ahead. “Just tired,” I murmured, forcing my tone light, though my fingers tightened around the fabric as if it could anchor me.
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his brows pinched slightly. But he didn’t push. We kept walking.
A group of children ran past us, laughing.
For a second, I almost smiled. Then I caught sight of a man watching me from the other side of the street—too still, too focused.
My stomach dropped. But then he turned, revealing a weathered face and a toothy grin as he called out to someone in the distance.
Not a threat. Not this time.
Adar stepped closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “We’re safe here,” he said under his breath. “You can relax.”
I nodded, trying my best to give him a reassuring smile as I wrapped my new scarf around my head. “It doesn’t help that our eyes aren’t easily forgettable, though. If someone did want to come after us and mentioned twins with glowing green eyes, they would have people pointing in our direction.”
Adar tilted his head in thought.
The street opened up to a sun-bleached cliff edge with a low stone wall built along it. Beyond, the ocean shimmered under the relentless heat. Adar leaned back against the wall, arms braced on either side, his gaze flicking between me and the view.
He shot me a sidelong look, a faint crease forming between his brows. “I hope you’re not always going to be this jumpy,” he teased, though there was a flicker of worry beneath his words.
I set the basket on the ledge. “He compelled me to never stop running, Adar. My mind is constantly screaming run, run, run. When I’m lying down at night, I feel like I’m going to be sick because I’m not doing what he told me to do.
That compulsion doesn’t go away.” I arched a brow at him.
“And unfortunately for you, he included your name in his command—so congrats, you’re stuck running for the rest of your life, too. ”
Adar huffed a laugh under his breath. “Yeah, well, at least I make running look good,” he shot back, his tone dripping with smugness.
I rolled my eyes and turned my head away from him with a sharp exhale, choosing to stare out at the horizon instead. The silence that followed stretched between us, filled only by the distant crash of waves.
A warm breeze swept over us, carrying the smell of fresh-baked pastries—sweet, buttery, and so rich it nearly made my knees give out. The craving hit me so hard my mouth flooded instantly, and the rest of the world seemed to blur for a moment.
“Will you go find where that is coming from and get me some?” I asked, the words sharper than I meant, still prickling from our argument.
I crossed my arms and glared at the horizon, then forced myself to soften my expression and tilt my head toward him with an exaggerated pair of puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”
He pushed off the wall with a nod, the corner of his mouth twitching like he found my sudden change in tactics amusing. “Sure.”
I looked out at the ocean, my stomach turning at the memory of it. The boat ride here had been a nightmare—every lurch and roll sent me clutching Adar’s arm like my life depended on it.
Because it had.
One hard wave would’ve tossed me overboard, and I knew I wouldn’t have lasted long in the water.
When I’d gone to Adar the day August compelled me to leave, it was as if he’d been waiting for me, prepared.
Like he’d known this was how it would end.
I didn’t tell Adar just how close I had gotten to August, but I felt like he knew.
He never said as much, though. I think he could see I was already barely holding it together without him adding his opinion.
We’d stopped by Jonah’s on the way out so Adar could hand over his title of “Father” and complete control of the coven to him.
Another thing that felt a little too smooth, like they’d already talked it through.
It gnawed at me that Adar had done that.
Passing on the title of Father wasn’t something you could just take back.
It was a permanent surrender of everything our family had built.
Even if, by some miracle, we made it back to Joveryn, there would be no reclaiming it.
And the way he’d handed it over so decisively told me he didn’t believe we ever would.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Please tell me they had grape—” The rest snagged in my throat as my gaze locked on a pair of dark, unblinking eyes.
Benedict stood a few paces away, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the sun-bleached ground.
His black hair was wind-tossed, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and the set of his mouth was tight, unreadable.
“Benedict?” His name came out broken.
A thousand thoughts crashed through me, all of them slamming back to August. Had he sent Benedict? And if so, why wasn’t he here himself? Was he hurt? Safe? I was angry at him for what he’d done, but if this meant I could go back to him, none of that mattered.
“I’m sorry, Bronwen,” Benedict said, and there was something final in his tone that made my skin prickle.
“What?” The word was barely out before he was behind me, a cloth pressing hard over my mouth and nose. A sharp, sweet scent flooded my senses. I clawed at his arm, feeling magic hum beneath his skin, but my strength bled away before I could pull.