The floor rushed up to meet me. Or maybe I was falling toward it. I couldn’t quite tell anymore. Everything was confused, sounds and sights bleeding into meaningless chaos.
The last thing I saw was Wen’s face above me, her eyes wide and terrified and wet with tears, her mouth moving in words I could no longer hear.
Then darkness swallowed me whole, and I thought of cookies, and promises, and the woman I’d sworn to come home to.
I really hoped I wasn’t about to break that promise.
18
— • —
Wen
“MAL!”
I screamed his name and ran, my feet slipping on the throne room floor. I went down hard on my knees beside him, the impact jarring through my bones but I didn’t care. There was so much red. On his side where the wound gaped open, still seeping. On his face, splattered across his cheek and jaw. Pooling beneath him in an ever-widening circle that shouldn’t be possible, there shouldn’t be that much coming from one person.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
“HEALERS!” My voice cracked on the word. “Someone get the healers NOW!”
People were running. Shouting. Footsteps thundering on stone. I barely heard any of it. All I could see was Mal, the colordraining from his skin like water from a broken vessel. His chest barely rising and falling. My hands pressed against his side, trying desperately to keep everything inside where it belonged, but it kept seeping through my fingers, warm and wrong and terrifying.
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered, leaning close to his ear. “Don’t you dare leave me. We have a son. We have plans. You promised me forever and I’m holding you to it, you stubborn, reckless, idiotic...” My voice broke completely. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”
His eyes stayed closed. He didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Just that terrible shallow breathing that sounded like it was taking too much effort, like each inhale might be his last.
This was not how our story ended. I refused. Absolutely not. He didn’t get to die dramatically on a throne room floor like some tragic hero in the novels I wrote. That was not allowed. I hadn’t spent years falling in love with this arrogant, overprotective, infuriating man just to lose him to a megalomaniac with a god complex.
Healers burst in, robes flying behind them as they ran. They dropped to their knees beside us, hands moving over Mal’s body with practiced efficiency.
“Your Majesty, we need space,” one of them said gently, trying to pull me back.
I fought them for a second, my hands still pressed against Mal’s wound, unwilling to let go. Then logic kicked in past the panic. They needed room to work. I was in the way. Being stubborn right now would only hurt him more.
I forced myself to let go and stumble backward, my hands covered in his blood, shaking so hard I could barely stand.
My eyes swept the throne room, taking in the chaos for the first time. Other guards from the mission were being tended to by more medical staff. All of them hurt, some worse than others. Sitting up or lying down, bandages and magic and concerned faces everywhere I looked. I counted again quickly, desperately. Eight guards had come back through the portal.
Mal had taken ten.
Two were missing, probably dead. Two were still in that forest, their bodies abandoned in enemy territory because we hadn’t had time to bring them home.
Oh god. Two men with families. With lives. With futures that just ended in a clearing because a mad king couldn’t accept his own mortality. I shoved the grief down hard, locked it away in a box I’d open later. I wasn’t able to deal with that now. Later. I’d mourn them later, give them the tears they deserved. Right now Mal needed me functional, not sobbing on the floor about things I couldn’t change.
The medical team created a stretcher out of pure energy, the platform glowing faintly blue. They lifted Mal onto it gently, supporting his head and injured torso. His head lolled to one side, completely limp.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
They didn’t argue.
We moved through the castle toward the infirmary, me following so close I was practically stepping on their heels. Servants pressed themselves against walls as we passed, eyes wide with shock. Guards bowed but their expressions were grim. Their king was being carried through the halls unconscious and covered in red.
The whole castle would know within minutes. Gossip traveled faster than magic in this place.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, past the terror, I was grateful Killian was with Sorcha. He didn’t need to see this. Didn’t need to see his father like this. He was only four. Four-year-olds shouldn’t have to see their parents broken.
No. Not broken. Mal was NOT broken. He was just... temporarily very damaged. He’d be fine. He had to be fine.
