Rowens Pov:
She was gone.
Not from the castle—but from the room.
The moment the magic shifted, it hit me like a blade to the ribs. One moment I was seated by the hearth, a goblet of wine in my hand, trying not to stare at her sleeping form like some cursed creature obsessed with the sun—and the next, the goblet slipped from my fingers. Crimson spilled across the stone like blood, soaking into the ancient threads of the rug.
She was awake. Awake… and wandering.
I should have known.
I didn't know what I expected—truly. That she'd stay in bed? That she'd wake with softness, fragile and still, calling for help? That grief would break her so completely she wouldn't move?
No.
She was not a delicate thing. She was born of embers and battlefields. I had seen the war behind her eyes even in sleep. Rosiline Elaria Thorne was a queen molded by fire and sorrow—and queens do not lie quietly while the world reassembles itself without them.
Still, the panic came—hot and unwelcome.
Blackbriar Keep was no place for the unguarded. The castle was alive in ways most didn't understand. It breathed. It remembered. Magic clung to the walls like ivy and rot—beautiful but dangerous, ancient and wild. There were rooms I'd sealed centuries ago. Corridors twisted by grief, mirrors that whispered in the dark, halls where the dead still wept.
And she could be anywhere.
I swept through the east wing first, the oldest part of the castle, where shadow whispered the loudest. My boots echoed along the stone, fast and hard. I took the steps two at a time. The sconces flickered around me in greeting. The shadows stirred, drawn to my anxiety, eager to serve, to hunt.
But I didn't need them.
I could feel her.
It was more than intuition—more than magic. A tether had formed between us, invisible and undeniable. A thread of sorrow and defiance winding through the keep like a trail of moonlight. She was grief, wrapped in the skin of something divine. And she was mine.
I found her just as she turned the corner.
She hadn't run. She hadn't hidden.
She stood tall, draped in the remnants of her wedding gown like it was armor instead of ruin. Her chin was lifted, her posture rigid with exhaustion and pride. Blood darkened the edges of the fabric, dried now but still a brutal reminder. Her hair, wild and tangled, fell like silver flame across her shoulders.
Her eyes met mine—and I felt the world shift.
Silver. Sharp. Watching.
She was not broken. She was mourning.
"You're awake," I said, my voice lower than I intended. It barely made it through the quiet between us, but it carried everything I felt—relief, reverence, and something dangerously close to longing.
"You took me," she answered, and the fire in her voice made my throat tighten.
"Yes."
No excuses. No lies. I would not insult her with softness wrapped in falsehood.
She didn't scream. Didn't flee. She stood there like a statue carved by war itself.
"You said you needed a bride."
I nodded once.
Her breath caught. Then: "I'll do it."
The words hit harder than I anticipated.
A sharp inhale. My hand twitched at my side, a silent instinct to reach for her. But I didn't move.
"Are you sure?" I asked, because I had to. Because I couldn't let her agree without understanding what it meant.
"No," she said. "But I don't have anywhere else to go."
It wasn't a surrender. It wasn't resignation. It was survival. And it tasted bitter on my tongue.
There was no victory in her acquiescence.
Only the quiet realization that we were both remnants of broken kingdoms.
"I'll walk you back to your room," I said softly, voice stripped bare of command.
She nodded, and we walked.
The corridor stretched long ahead of us, carved from black stone and bathed in muted gold light. I kept my hands at my sides, deliberately loose, resisting the pull to reach for her—to steady her, to offer warmth. I didn't dare brush against her. Not yet. Not when her grief still clung to her like a second skin.
But her presence burned beside me like a slow ember. Roses and ash.
She didn't speak. Neither did I.
When we reached her chamber door, I stopped and turned to her. My voice was quiet, almost hesitant.
"There are clothes in the wardrobe," I said, nodding toward the oak armoire near the hearth. "Anything that fits is yours."
She glanced toward it, eyes unreadable.
"There's a bath through the door beside the fire. The water's enchanted. It doesn't cool."
I saw her lips part, just slightly. As if she might thank me.
But she stopped herself.
She only nodded.
"I'll give you some time," I added. "To be alone. Or not. That choice is yours."
I began to turn, each step away from her feeling heavier than the last.
"Rowan?"
Her voice stopped me in the doorway. I turned back, and for a breath, we stood in something too sacred to name.
"Thank you," she said, "for not locking the doors."
I swallowed.
My hand tightened at my side. My magic stirred.
"I don't lock things I want to keep," I said, quieter than I meant to. "I give them the choice to stay."
And then I left her.
Not because I wanted to.
But because I had to.
For now.