My pulse pounds so violently it feels detached from me. It echoes in my ears, loud enough to drown out every sound. I don't know if it's fear or fury or the last memory I had in this place clawing its way up my spine.
Faces turn and go ashen.
Faces I know.
Faces that did nothing for me. Faces I chose to bury a long time ago.
"Guinevere?" someone breathes. It is Astrid, her green eyes wide as saucers as they run over my face, my body. Once. Twice. Thrice. "Gwen–"
I walk past without feeling. I don't look. Not at Lena who has a swollen belly and is standing by a boulder of a man I don't recognize. Not at my trembling mother. Not at my father who looks like he's seen a ghost. And not at Penelope, dressed in the fashion of the Vampyr Court with enough stature to befit a queen.
