Estrella
My room!' Castor shouted through the mind-link. 'Now!'
I turned and sprinted out of the solarium without a second thought, leaving the party behind.
I hurtle down the halls of Solberg Castle, the veil of my wedding dress flapping behind me like a broken wing, without a thought in my mind but Anwen and the debilitating pain in my chest. He went after the assassin without me, and he got hurt. If he dies-
My bite burns like wildfire. My wolf screams. I cannot think like that.
I slide up to Castor's door and find it already slightly ajar. My heart hammers in my throat as I push it open.
Anwen squats beside Castor's couch, his hands, arms, and right side covered in blood. He looks up at me as I enter. There is no true pain in his blue eyes, only concern.
He's uninjured. Or at least, not terribly injured. I will evaluate the little aches later. As the taut anxiety releases in my shoulders, I take in the rest of the room.
Baz lies on the couch in front of Anwen, bleeding heavily from a gash across his chest. Castor, far less bloodstained, tosses logs into his fireplace with an abrupt sharpness I recognize as anger beyond words.
"Can you help him?" Anwen's voice is ragged, halfway broken.
I blink. This is why he called me. The coronation, the glowing.
Father.
Baz coughs up another gout of blood. The wound is bad enough to reach his lungs. There is no apothecary in the world who could fix this.
I race to his side and kneel next to Anwen, heedless of the blood. "I would rather try anything than allow someone to die before me, but for this, I owe you."
Baz chuckles, more wheeze than laugh. "Fuck that."
"Shut up," Anwen says through gritted teeth.
Another log lands on the fire behind me. Castor would only be this angry if they failed. But I cannot think about that either. I cast my mind back to Yana's words during my coronation. For the gift of healing to return is an auspicious sign of a powerful queen and a peaceful future. I take a deep breath, tasting blood, and will the glow into being.
Nothing comes. My chest squeezes. I should be more powerful now. I hold my hands over Baz's split chest and close my eyes.
A voice I know in my bones and have never heard before whispers the answer in the back of my mind. Prophecies, signs, power, none of those will save the life of my mate's best friend. All I can rely on now is belief.
And love.
The Goddess guides our footsteps, even in the darkest night. She does not abandon us. She does not lead us astray. Even when it seems like She has given us a mate that could never love us. I reach everything I am out to her.
Behind my closed eyelids, the glow begins. Emotions boil in my chest. Everything I've felt for Anwen, everything I felt leaning over Father's body, the shock and fear and rage of the last months. And the Goddess's hands are around mine, guiding my fingertips over the split in Baz's chest.
Something tugs at me-us, slows us. Like a knotted thread, or a leaf caught between teeth. He will not come together exactly right.
"Shit," Castor blurts.
I open my eyes. The golden sun of my hands nearly blinds me, but I can just make out what caused his reaction. Baz's side is bubbling.
Ice creeps through my veins, dimming the glow. I suck in in a deep breath. There, beneath all the blood, I can just make out a sickening, herbal scent.
"Wolfsbane," Anwen breathes.
I grit my teeth, shut my eyes once more, and focus on the look in his eyes when I walked in. He will be destroyed if Baz dies. I may not feel the same love for the man, at least not yet, but that love still exists. It still matters.
The glow fades. I have done all I can, and so has the Goddess. I open my eyes.
Anwen pulls Baz's blood-soaked tunic away to reveal closed skin, but only barely. A thick scab winds over the man's ribcage, already cracked and bleeding in a few places, blackened as if from the wolfsbane in others.
"Damn," Baz mumbles. "Helluva a girl you got."
His eyes close, and his breathing evens out. A little color even returns to his cheeks, as much as anyone has in Dun's Crossing. I am no apothecary, but he looks as though he's going to survive. I saved his life.
I burst into tears.
Anwen wraps his arms around me. "I'm so sorry. I don't know how exhausting that is, and-"
I shake my head furiously. "I killed him."
"What?"
"Father." My shoulders shake with sobs. "I knew the bond would make me stronger. Strong enough to-to-"
"Oh, love." Anwen kisses my cheeks.
I tear out of his arms. Everything is too loud, too much.
"Don't say that about yourself," Castor says roughly. "You couldn't have done anything. You didn't know."
"I should've!" I curl in on myself. I let Father die. There's no way to know that declaring Anwen and I right there, in the middle of the dance floor, wouldn't have changed anything.
Anwen kisses the top of my head and leaves my side. Quietly, I hear him say, "Let me handle this. Why don't you go tell Dowager Suniva and the others what happened?"
"She's my sister," Castor replies. "I should-"
"Protect your mother, who has a hit out on her," Anwen says firmly. "Please."
There's a pause. "She likes sweets when she's tired."
Castor's heavy footfalls promise he's left his room. Anwen rejoins me on the floor. I rock helplessly back and forth. If all I need is belief and love, perhaps the belief wasn't the trouble.
"Did I not love Father enough?" I gasp.
"You and I both know that couldn't be it," he says quietly. "Everything you've done since that arrow was for him."
"That's not love." Tears sheet down my face.
"Then what is?"
I shake my head. "I-I don't know. I don't know if I've ever known."
"I do." He takes my hand, a warm promise. "It's the pain that keeps you up at night, thinking about him. You'd only hurt that much if you loved him just as much."
"That's guilt." My lungs burn. Everything burns.
Anwen takes my face in his hands and forces me to look at him. "You want someone to be at fault for this? Someone other than Birsha and Floyd? Fine. Blame me. If us not coming out and declaring our bond right away is the problem, I decided on that. I forced you into it." He sucks in a deep breath. "If you're right, I killed your father."
My whole being recoils from that. This Anwen, my mate with the soft blue eyes and hard features, did not do that. Could not.
"And I killed mine." His voice is harsh. "I sided with Kieran, who killed him. So blame me for all of it. I already feel guilty enough."
"Absolutely not." I sniffle, but the next sob lodges in my chest, not quite big enough to shed. "You chose to do the right thing. You shouldn't feel guilty about something you had no idea would produce the outcome it did."
Anwen raises an eyebrow, and I realize what I'm saying. But real guilt and shame burn in his eyes. This has been eating him for a long while now.
"You cannot be blamed," I say quietly.
"For what?" His smile is wry. "I did a lot of it."
"For your father or mine." I fill my lungs with bloodstained air and try to believe the words I'm saying. "And perhaps... perhaps neither can I."
"Perhaps." Anwen takes my hands and kisses the backs of them. "As for the rest, I've been meaning to say this, but... I'm sorry. For that first day. I was too caught up in my own shit to recognize the blessing the Goddess gave me." He smiles softly. "I should've told everyone right away. Not even for your father, though that would be a benefit. I just don't ever want you to think I'm not proud to be with you." He swallows. "To be yours."
The room is warm and close. My gown clings to me, and I want nothing more to be out of it. No, I want one thing more. I want my mate to believe me.
I lean in to kiss him, intent on making my point however I must.
Someone knocks on the door. Anwen pulls back with a groan.
"Neither of us are exactly presentable." I smile as much as I can.
"I'll see who it is. I could've been hunting." He shoves to his feet, crosses the room, and opens the door. After a moment of quiet conversation, he returns with Nessa in tow.
"Oh, your wedding dress," she gasps when she sees me.
I look down at myself. The gown is soaked in Baz's blood and my tears. I didn't even remember I was wearing the damned thing.
"You said you had news," Anwen says impatiently.
"Oh, yes!" She shakes her head as if to clear it. "Father must have some way to communicate with Dorian that I don't know about because he just fled the castle."