Chapter 43 Bronwen #2
She grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around my legs without a word, her movements efficient even as her eyes flicked nervously toward the wound in my chest.
Sebastian didn’t hesitate.
He crouched in front of me and pushed his hand straight into the wound.
I bit down on a scream as his shadows surged forward, wrapping around the pain and dulling it just enough to keep me from blacking out.
Even with the shadows holding it back, the sensation was brutal—pressure and heat and the unmistakable feeling of fingers moving inside my chest where they absolutely did not belong.
Sebastian’s face remained perfectly still as he worked, his focus razor sharp. I felt him searching. Then his fingers closed around the reason for my pain.
The door slammed open and Adar burst into the room, already reaching for his weapon as his eyes locked on the scene in front of him.
“What did he do?”
Sebastian withdrew his hand. Blood slicked his fingers as he pulled them free, a jagged shard of dark wood held between his fingers.
The relief was immediate.
I sucked in a deep breath as my body began to knit itself back together, flesh pulling tight around the wound while the ache slowly receded to a dull, throbbing burn.
“Carrow is in his body too,” I said, already pushing myself to my feet.
The blanket slid away as I moved across the room. I grabbed a shirt from the chair and pulled it over my head, then stepped into a pair of pants with quick, efficient motions.
“I have to find him,” I said, turning to Sebastian. “Where is he?”
Sebastian’s gaze unfocused slightly as his shadows stretched outward across the castle and beyond. When his attention snapped back to the room, he stared with wide eyes.
“He’s running west.”
“Stop him!” I yelled.
Sebastian’s gaze flicked away again. For a moment he said nothing, his focus locked somewhere far beyond the walls of the castle.
Then his jaw clenched.
“I—” He stopped, frustration flashing across his face. “I can’t. He’s slipping through.”
Violet’s voice came from behind him, barely more than a whisper. “Queen Mother.”
I went completely still.
For one sharp, suspended heartbeat, the room seemed to freeze around the words.
Then the rage came.
“No,” I said flatly. “She is not getting him.”
I grabbed Sebastian’s arm.
“Take me to him.”
The moment his eyes closed, his body seized.
His shoulders jerked violently, and the strength left him all at once. He dropped hard, his knees slamming into the stone floor just like I saw happen to him when the Sovereigns attacked.
“No!” I screamed.
I spun toward the door, but Adar stepped directly into my path, blocking it with his body before I could reach the corridor beyond.
“It’s a trap,” he said. “You can’t go after him.”
“I will not lose him again.”
Adar didn’t move.
I shoved past him anyway and ran.
There was only one reason Queen Mother would block Sebastian’s shadows.
Carrow was running straight toward her lands.
I didn’t fully understand why.
But it didn’t matter.
Getting to him came first.
I could fix him.
I had to.
I ran deeper into the woods. Past the Starlight Lagoon. Past creatures that shifted in the dark with teeth and hunger and curiosity sharp enough to kill me if I slowed.
I didn’t.
Not even when my bare feet split open on jagged rocks, blood marking the path behind me.
“August!” I screamed, my voice tearing through the trees.
For a moment there was nothing but the rustling of leaves and the distant sounds of night creatures moving through the underbrush.
Then—
“Winnie!”
The sound cut through the forest.
Distant.
But close enough.
I pushed harder, lungs burning as I forced my body forward. Branches tore at my arms as the land twisted beneath my feet, sloping sharply toward the western border.
Then I saw him.
“August!” I yelled again.
He stopped. Turned.
The moment he saw me, his face crumpled like the sight of me physically hurt him.
“He’s in me,” he whispered. His hands shook before he lifted one and struck his own head once, then again, like he was trying to drive Carrow out by force.
I took a slow step toward him. “We will get him out.”
“No,” he rasped as he matched my step, keeping distance between us. “He will hurt you.”
His voice broke.
“I will hurt you.”
“We will get him out,” I repeated, stepping closer.
For a heartbeat, his eyes softened and he nodded.
Relief surged through me too quickly, too recklessly.
He took a step toward me.
Then he laughed.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered, reaching for him.
He ran again and I chased him immediately.
The barrier came into view through the trees.
It shimmered faintly in the dark like a thin sheet of glass stretched between the trunks, humming with magic that prickled along my skin the closer we got.
And he wasn’t alone anymore.
Sebastian and Violet stood near the edge of the boundary, their silhouettes sharp against the glow of the barrier. Beyond them, on the other side of the invisible line, a group of figures waited in the shadows of Queen Mother’s lands.
My stomach dropped.
“Sebastian!” I screamed as August closed the last stretch of distance.
Shadows erupted from the ground, rising in violent arcs as Sebastian tried to grab him, but the moment they reached August, they vanished. The darkness peeled away like it had struck something it couldn’t touch.
Then Violet collapsed on the ground.
But nothing else mattered to me as soon as August crossed the barrier. Light rippled outward in a sharp pulse, sealing behind him before I could reach the edge. I slammed to a stop just short of it, the invisible wall humming so loudly now I could feel it vibrating through my bones.
“What are you doing!” I screamed.
August didn’t answer.
He only smiled.
The sound of a voice finally dragged my gaze away from him. “Hello, Bronwen.”
Queen Mother.
Seeing her in person should have been shocking enough.
For centuries she had been more myth than woman—a distant ruler whose reach shaped the realms without anyone ever truly seeing her.
But that wasn’t what rooted me to the ground.
It was her eyes.
They were my eyes.
And in that moment—
everything finally made sense.