Ann drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes she felt heat, sometimes cold, sometimes nothing at all.
She could hear voices around her but they sounded blurred, and she couldn't tell which were real and which ones only lived in her head.
"Don't you dare slip," Maeve growled. "Not you, not the pups. You're too damn stubborn to quit now. So hold on. Keep breathing. Survive. We need you. Adam needs you. The kingdom needs you."
Ann tried to answer, but her lips barely moved. Her body stayed heavy, as if she were nailed to the bed.
Healers hovered close to her at all times, their hands never still. Midwives lingered at the edges, their faces drawn as they monitored the babies. They feared the impact of the wound on both her and the unborn babies, and their eyes flicked constantly towards her belly. Every hour they argued in hushed tones. If the strain broke her, what should they do? If the curse lingered, how would they protect the babies? Was that even possible? If the pregnancy itself turned against her how could they handle that? This was unknown territory and they had nothing but theories to go on.
Maeve's voice snapped furiously in Ann's head, as she willed her to push through.
"We have triplets, Ann. Not one, not two. Three. That's why your ribs ache, that's why your back screamed before this ever started. We keep them. All of them. Got it?"
In her unconscious state, she tried her best to force her breathing steady. She couldn't answer them, but she heard Maeve and clung to her words, desperate to fight whatever remained inside of her.
In the corridor outside, Brad stood guard. His shirt was torn and his arms streaked with dried blood, but his stance didn't shift. He blocked anyone who tried to push too close.
A noble shoved past a servant, his voice rising.
"If the Queen can't rise, she can't rule. We need…"
Brad's fist cut him off, connecting squarely with his nose and the noble crumpled instantly with a high pitched shriek, he hit the floor, teeth cracking on stone. He scrambled up, arms and legs flailing as he sputtered blood.
"You'll answer for…"
Brad drove him back into the wall, his forearm crushing his throat.
"I answer to her. Not you."
The noble clawed at his arm, face turning red as Brad slammed him once, hard enough to rattle the doorframe.
Soldiers nearby froze and omegas gawked in shock but the refugees that saw muttered their approval under their breath.
Coral darted forward, catching Brad's shoulder.
"Brad! Enough!"
He didn't move and the noble wheezed, his lips beginning to turn blue and his eyes bulging.
"Brad." Coral shoved harder. "You'll kill him, and he's not worth the blood on your hands."
Brad's lip curled as a low growl rumbled in his chest. He shoved off at last, letting the noble crumple to the floor in a heap.
"If you ever question her authority again," Brad said, his voice like stone, "I'll finish it."
Coral hauled him back as the noble crawled away, spitting blood and teeth. Soldiers smirked openly and a refugee barked a laugh. No one stepped in to help the noble.
In the courtyard, work went on without Ann. The ground was still broken from the night's battle, stone cracked and gates split, the yard streaked with blood. But under the orders that Adam gave before they left to make the final preparations before the march, and Ann's earlier decrees, the magick users took command of the repairs and wards.
Thalia directed them from the center, her hands smudged with chalk and ash. Her voice carried across the yard, clipped but certain. "Double the lines. Salt the cracks. Iron next, now."
Blacksmiths and carpenters laid iron bars into the foundations. Refugees hauled stones and water buckets. Soldiers raised timber into scaffolds so the magick users could reach higher stretches of wall. Coral broke from Brad long enough to shoulder iron rods where they were needed most.
Eva ran messages between the healers and the ward lines, dragging crates, keeping supplies moving. Her clothes were streaked with dirt, her hands marked with chalk from where she had scrawled quick measurements. She wasn't a fighter, but she knew Ann's decrees by heart, and she made sure each was followed.
Thalia etched circles into the courtyard floor. The magick users pressed their palms to the marks, and wardlight flared, locking into place. The glow spread outward across the courtyard, running toward the walls where it held steady. Every strike of the hammers as they worked on repairs rang through the palace, steady and unbroken.
The nobles stood back, whispering behind their hands. They said the kingdom couldn't hold with its queen bedridden, that the wards would fail, and that the people would scatter. They never lifted a hand to help.
Refugees heard them and so did the Lycans who hadn't gone south with Adam. Their snarls echoed furiously across the yard and one Lycan spat on the ground at the nobles' feet.
"You'd leave her to die, but you'll still eat at her table?"
Another soldier yelled at them openly as they flinched away in horror.
"Get out of the fucking way or get to work."
The nobles bristled but backed off, their muttering drowned out under the hammering of iron and the rising growl of wolves. They retreated to the hall, their words already carrying less weight than the people they scorned carried in repairing the defences.
A soldier heaved a beam into place and kept speaking through the strain. His voice carried over the yard.
"She stood for us. She bled for us. Now we stand strong for her and for the life she carries, the future she fights to keep. We'll hold the palace until our Alpha Queen returns."
The words struck a chord with each person who heard them, and they picked it up themselves. Voices rose unsteadily at first, then steadier, and louder still, until the sound carried as one.
"For the Alpha Queen!"
The vow turned into a chant, voices rolling together, as it carried up the walls and into the night until even the nobles at the hall's edge fell silent under it.
At the edge of the yard, Coral met Eva's eyes. Thalia caught it too. None of them spoke, but the faint smiles that passed between them said enough.
And inside, Ann stirred.
Fever still ripped across her skin like a raging inferno but she opened her eyes for a moment and saw glowing lines across the sky through the window. It wasn't fire though…it was the wards echoing their life in her dreams.
"That's them," Maeve said. "Your wards. Your stubborn little projects. They're holding because you forced them through when every gray-haired bastard told you no. You hear me? This isn't crumbling. It's standing taller because of you."
Ann tried to lift her hand, but it felt so heavy that she couldn't lift it. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of a midwife's face, drawn and pale. Then darkness closed in once more.
By nightfall, the palace looked different. Iron shone in the cracks of the gates, light traced the outer walls, anchored by the hard work of Thalia and her team. Circles of wardlight pulsed in the courtyard, overlapping so no breach could slip through without burning clearly.
Thalia stood among the exhausted magick users, her arms streaked with soot and her chest filled with pride at the complex spellwork and warding they had achieved today. It hadn't been done since the Daemon Wars and this time, no lives had been lost in the process of warding.
Coral wiped sweat from her brow, and Eva leaned against the wall, her hands covered in ink from marking supplies. Brad stood watch at the gates again, blood still drying on his knuckles, but no noble dared meet his eye.
When the wards locked in full, the sound cracked loud enough to shake the ground and the air shimmered with magickal heat. The people cheered as soldiers slammed fists to their chests and refugees lifted their heads for the first time since the breach.
To them, the wards weren't just a simple defence of physical things that they could see, now, they represented their Alpha Queen, as proof that she still guarded them even in silence.
Ann drifted again. This time the dream was quieter. She felt Maeve curl around her like a shadow, teeth bared outward and her body braced as a wall.
"Rest," Maeve muttered. "I'll keep watch. The pups are mine as much as yours. No curse takes them while I've got teeth to bite. So breathe, Ann. Breathe and rest and wake when you're ready."
For the first time since she fell, Ann let go and slept.