Floating near the ceiling, Bryn watched through the fog as Rangar helped her body to its feet. Her body moved strangely, as though it was drunk or gravely ill. The tether that connected her to it tugged slightly as her body took each shuffling step.
“I’ll take her to the queen,” Rangar said, urgency in his voice. “The rest of you should return to your rooms. Speak nothing of this.”
Prince Anter and his father left, but Queen Karin remained a moment longer, eyes wide as she took in Bryn’s nearly-comatose body. “Remarkable.”
And then Bryn felt the tether tug more as Rangar guided her body out of the room, and Queen Karin and Illiana and Elysander were left behind. Rangar guided her body into the dark hallway, lit only by a few thick pillar candles.
“All will be well, my love,” he reassured in her ear, but it was Bryn’s spirit floating above that heard it. In this strange between-body form, she could perceive more than just his words. Rangar was giving off a fiercely protective energy that radiated from his body like the cool blue light of a flame. His thoughts were a scramble flitting around his head: he was concerned for her, he was worried about too many people being involved in the possession hex, he was on alert for any servants who might pass by.
But most of all, she felt his love. It was like a glowing, rainbow-colored blanket of light wrapped around her, protective and all-encompassing, touching every part of her. Her spirit gasped to see something so beautiful.
“I promise you will survive this,” Rangar said to her body as he steered her down the wing that contained Queen Amelia’s bedroom. “I believe in fate enough for the both of us.”
Because they were already in the royal residence wing, fewer guards were posted here. Rangar was able to stick to the shadows and move silently enough not to alert the guards’ attention.
Queen Amelia’s room had been left open in keeping with Woll tradition; doors and windows of the ailing had to remain open to allow in healing blessings from the Saints. Rangar half-led, half-carried Bryn’s body into the dark bedroom.
Drifting along in that foggy darkness overhead, Bryn saw the queen lying on her four-poster bed. Queen Amelia looked even frailer in her slumber, like a single gust from the open window might turn her pale skin into dust. The queen’s aura was weak, too: a faint sea-green light creeping over her body like wooly worms, filled with holes and weak spots from her illness. Was this what a sick person’s aura looked like? Did Mage Marna, with her ability to see auras, always see the world like this?
And yet there was a second aura glowing around the old queen: a deep crimson red light pulsing out into the dark bedroom.
That crimson beam is Baron Marmose’s influence hex, she realized.
And then, while she was still marveling over the queen’s multi-hued, layered auras, she saw Rangar untie the silk blindfold from her body’s eyes.
Her body looked at Queen Amelia.
Throughout her spirit, Bryn felt a jolt like a strong wave had struck her.
As then, as though sucked into a whirlpool, Bryn’s spirit was yanked down by the tether through the dark fog and through the queen’s aura light—into the queen’s body.
She gasped, struggling for breath. Her body felt both too heavy and too light. Old, chronic pain sank into her bones. Her back ached. Her teeth didn’t fit together right in her jaw. She felt a rustle, then a sigh, and then something like a lock slid into place.
Bryn opened her eyes and looked up at the queen’s bedroom ceiling.
Her spirit was in a body again—but not her own.
Chapter 35
FOREIGN BODIES . . . a soft-minded king . . . a weak-bodied queen . . . an iron resolve
The rustle, the sigh, the lock.
Those were the first sensations Bryn experienced as Queen Amelia’s own spirit sank into a deeper place of stasis, while Bryn’s spirit moved into dominant control of the old woman’s body. Now, Bryn blinked into the dark room as her thoughts scrambled. The queen’s vision was poor, and the room looked blurry. Amelia’s body was so painfully frail that Bryn feared even sitting up might snap some bones. And yet there was a wiry kind of strength left in the Wollin queen. Even at her advanced age, her body was determined to keep going.
“Bryn? Bryn, is that you?” Rangar swept to the edge of the bed, resting a hand on Queen Amelia’s shoulder.
Bryn’s breath came unevenly as she tried to get used to the feeling of being in a body that wasn’t her own. Gazing down at her withered hands, panic started to set in.
This is wrong. This isn’t me!
She began to shake uncontrollably as her spirit wanted to pull itself out of Queen Amelia and finds its true home again. Her eyes started to roll back in her head.
“Bryn! Focus.” Rangar took the queen’s head and guided it to focus on his face. He stroked the queen’s paper-thin cheeks. “Focus on me.”
Bryn’s attention locked onto Rangar.Rangar. Seeing him steadied the quaking storm clouds rolling through her head. She reminded herself of where she was and what she was doing. Slowly, the shaking subsided.
“Rangar,” she rasped. The voice came out in Queen Amelia’s pitch.
