Sleep found me before I could think too hard about why I felt safer there than anywhere else.
When I woke hours later, I sat up, limbs stiff with exhaustion. I moved to the door, more out of instinct than intent, and froze when I heard voices just outside.
A man I didn’t recognize: “I don’t think we’ll be ready in time.”
Rowan: “We have to be. She doesn’t have much longer. I know them—they’re lying to stave off any panic.”
A pause.
“Then we’ll be ready.”
I stumbled back from the door as if I’d touched flame.
My pulse skipped a beat, rumbling in my chest. I practically dove back into bed just as the door opened.
Rowan entered calm and collected, the mask firmly in place again. “You’re up.”
“Barely.” I forced a yawn. “Still tired.”
He sat at the edge of the bed and brushed a snowy strand of hair from my cheek. “But better?”
I nodded. “A little.”
I studied his face, searching for signs—cracks in the mask. But he was unreadable now, smooth as glass.
“I think I want to go back to my room,” I mumbled.
He didn’t argue. He just nodded and extended a hand to help me up.
He didn’t ask what I had overheard.
And I didn’t tell him.
But the words echoed in my mind long after the silence had returned.
She doesn’t have much longer.
And deep inside me, something fragile that had been built began to crumble.
Chapter 49
“Gods answer to the natural world—for they are created and bound by its energy.
Mortals carry that same energy within them, though disconnected.”
- The Old Book
It had been a week of stillness.
My hair had turned stark white.
I hadn’t left my bed once. My bones ached from inactivity, yet the thought of standing felt like lifting a mountain. Each breath rasped from my lungs as if it cost me something.
Every morning, Rowan brought me breakfast.
He barely spoke. He didn’t need to. His silence was steady, like the breeze on a summer day. He set the tray down gently each time, sometimes brushing my hand, sometimes just sitting with me for a few minutes before leaving again. He was always watching me as if he were waiting for something—something he didn’t want to happen but couldn’t stop.
Today, I could barely eat more than a few bites. The toast tasted of ash. Even water felt too heavy to swallow.
