27. 26
Moorthwyn loomed.
Gray spires rose jagged against a bruised sky, the castle’s silhouette cleaving through the mist like a blade. Its stones dripped with rain and shadow. The scent of iron—distant, but unmistakable—seeped into the carriage.
Mabel stirred, barely. Her vision blurred at the edges, colors bleeding into one another.
Her side throbbed beneath the sodden fabric of her wedding dress, each jolt of the horse jarring the wound deeper.
Now, only the rhythm of wheels and the occasional rattle of chains tethered her to the present.
They were nearly home. Home. She tried to ignore the low throb of dread in her chest.
Cavric rode ahead, flanked by soldiers in Moorthwyn steel. From the carriage’s small window, Mabel glimpsed the gates yawning open, an old stone mouth swallowing her whole. Banners bearing the raven hung limp with rain—her father’s sigil, not hers. Not anymore. Maybe Meryth had truly forsaken her.
The carriage rolled to a halt.
Outside, torches sputtered to life, casting long shadows on the slick stones. A footman opened the door. Mabel tried to move, to sit upright, but her limbs were slow to obey.
“Get her out,” came Cavric’s voice—flat, dismissive.
A soldier’s hand gripped her elbow. As they lifted her from the carriage, the world tilted, the castle spires spinning for a moment before settling into sharp relief. The scent of damp stone, old magic, and iron filled her lungs. Her knees buckled slightly as boots struck the courtyard.
Mabel didn’t cry out. She wouldn’t give him that. Instead, she lifted her chin and stared past her father’s shoulder, toward the keep’s highest window.
There—just for a breath—something shifted. A silhouette wavered in the glow, then vanished just as quickly.
Overhead, the sky cracked open with distant thunder, and through the heavy swirl of clouds came the telltale cry.
Whisper. The raven’s caws cut through the gloom, sharp as flint.
Mabel let her eyes drift upward through the haze and pain.
He was out there, circling above the carriage—unwavering, loyal. Just watching and waiting.
The courtyard swallowed her boots with a wet slap. Slush clung to the stones—remnants of winter refusing to die. Snow, half-melted and muddied, pooled in the seams of the cobbles. Rain mixed with ice trickled from the eaves above, each drop falling with a precise, ticking rhythm.
Two guards flanked her now, hands firm beneath her arms as they guided her forward.
Her legs trembled with each step, bones hollowed by blood loss and cold.
But Mabel held her silence. The warmth soaked into her side wasn’t comfort—it was the steady seeping of her wound, pulsing in time with the echo of her boots.
They passed beneath the archway into the shadow of the castle. The doors loomed tall, carved with ancient runes now softened by frost and moss. She remembered tracing those symbols with mittened fingers when she was small—before power twisted them into warnings.
Inside, the torches had been lit. The corridor breathed old heat and dust—iron, rust, and memory—stale but unyielding.
Rain drummed behind them as the doors groaned shut.
“Take her to the west wing,” Cavric ordered, his voice cutting through the quiet. “And tell Auor she’ll want to see what’s been dragged in from the snow.”
Mabel didn’t flinch. She lifted her chin and looked past him, toward the great stairs, where a navy carpet trailed. Above, the spiral corridors whispered of secrets and shadows—and at the very top, she saw her mother.
At a glance, Auor’s expression might’ve passed for fury—the set of her jaw carved from stone, her eyes sharp and cold as thunderheads. But beneath that carefully composed mask, worry thrummed like a second heartbeat—quiet, but unrelenting.
She was still in the gown she had worn at the wedding, the silk dulled and wrinkled, clinging to the memory she hadn’t managed to shed. She’d arrived only moments before them, the weight of Cavric’s command dragging her home in the aftermath of the ceremony’s collapse.
Now, standing here, the reason was painfully clear.
The guards moved. So did Mabel. Slowly, with every step leaving wet prints behind.
The west wing corridors unfurled before her like a memory long buried—cold stone veined with frost, torches hissing against damp air. The guards kept a steady pace, but Mabel lagged by half a step, the wound at her side biting sharper now, as if it, too, recognized the path.
Snowmelt clung to her. It puddled in her footprints, muddying the navy runner that lined the hall. Her shoulder brushed the wall for balance once—the stone was slick, as if the castle itself had begun to weep.
A guard cleared his throat. She ignored him. The ache in her body had dulled to something more spectral, almost weightless.
She knew what stood at the end of this corridor—her old chamber. Cavric hadn’t changed it, of course. Not out of kindness—but because it was a cage perfectly fitted to the girl he thought he’d broken. The door loomed ahead, carved with curling ivy and a brass handle dulled by the years.
One of the guards stepped forward to open it. The hinges groaned.
Inside, firelight flickered against pale tapestries. The bed had been made. A shawl draped across the chair. A basin of water steamed gently by the hearth. Someone had prepared it. But her once lively decorations of holly and pine were now wilting away along with her.
Mabel crossed the threshold. Whisper cawed overhead, muffled now through the window’s frost-streaked panes.
The guards didn’t speak. With a curt nod and a rough shove, they deposited her inside the chamber like a sack of grain, letting the door swing shut behind them without so much as a glance.
And just like that, the magic shackles disappeared. They dissolved with a whisper, a rush of warmth flooding Mabel’s wrists as the spell lifted. She flexed her fingers slowly, skin turned raw beneath the ridged steel.
She didn’t move.
For a long moment, the only sound was the hearth crackling and the soft hiss of snow melting on the windowpanes. Her body ached in waves, but it was the stillness that pressed hardest.
She could feel the shape of the room—every shift in light, every echo of memory embedded in the stone. This was the room where she had learned lullabies. Where she’d wept into feather pillows after dreams of running. Where she’d once escaped to when her father’s rage became too loud.
The door opened.
Auor stepped through, robes trailing across the threshold. Her face was pale and drawn, regal still, but stripped of warmth. Her mouth a line. Her spine like iron.
But her eyes—
They betrayed her.
Cold as her expression was, they shimmered faintly in the firelight, glassy with pain.
She didn’t rush forward. Didn’t let her voice crack. Instead, she stood tall and said, low and level, “You look like death.” Her hands trembled at her sides.
The door clicked shut behind Auor, but neither woman moved.
Silence pressed in, thick as the snow on the castle roof, ancient as the stone beneath their feet.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting shifting gold across the floor between them.
Mabel stood motionless, one hand braced on the chair back, breath shallow.
Her eyes found her mother’s—searching but guarded.
Auor took one cautious step forward.
Then another.
Still, Mabel didn’t speak. The pain in her side had sharpened, red-hot beneath the surface, but she refused to show it. Not yet. Not even to her.
Auor reached for her gently—tentative, barely touching—and Mabel faltered. Her knees buckled under her, and a gasp broke from her lips as lightning laced through her ribs.
The sound shattered them both.
“Mabel—” Auor caught her daughter under the arms, steadying her, her composure cracking like ice. The chill in her voice faltered, and something warmer, more fragile, surfaced beneath.
Mabel sagged into her grip, eyelids fluttering.
For a moment, they remained there—mother and daughter—no words, only breath, shared pain, and the ache of all that had not been said.
Auor slipped one arm around Mabel’s waist and began guiding her toward the adjoining washroom. Her touch was steady but gentle, her pace matched to Mabel’s faltering steps.
The chamber was lit by low golden lamplight, and the air was thick with steam. A shallow copper basin sat in the center, water warmed and waiting. Lavender hung faint in the mist—an echo of the past.
Auor’s voice was quiet. “Sit.”
Mabel obeyed, limbs trembling as she sank onto the wooden stool beside the basin. Her dress clung to her skin, heavy with blood and melted snow. Her fingers curled into the fabric, unsure where to start.
But Auor moved slowly, delicately, as if undoing threadbare magic.
She unfastened the clasps at Mabel’s shoulder, peeled the ruined silk back layer by layer, revealing bruised ribs, scraped collarbones, and the deep gash that still oozed beneath her arm.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t scold. She only said, “I’ll be careful. ”
Mabel nodded once, jaw tight. Her skin was mottled from the cold, a ghostly blue traced with blotches of red and patches of soot.
As Auor helped her to her feet and supported her into the basin, the steam enveloped her in a rush.
The moment the water touched her skin, Mabel sucked in a sharp breath, muscles seizing.
Heat licked at her frozen limbs, coaxing blood back to the surface, and fire met fire where the water touched her wound.
She cried out—not loudly, but with a crack in her voice that hadn’t been there before.
Auor froze. Her hands hovered at Mabel’s back, her composure slipping. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Mabel shook her head through gritted teeth. “It’s fine. Just—don’t stop.”
So Auor didn’t. She reached for the cloth, dipped it into the water, and began to work, slow and steady, as if tending a holy relic.