POV: Nova
The Crown's light hit the curse, and the curse fought back.
Nova had never felt anything like it. Not pain exactly, more like something inside her chest being pulled in two directions at once, the Crown blazing outward while the curse clawed inward, both of them enormous, both of them convinced they were stronger, and she was the rope in the middle.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't move.
The thread connecting her to her brothers went white-hot and stayed there, and through it she felt them Orion first, a sharp flinch like something stabbing, then Finn, a sick wave of wrongness, then Ash, the youngest, the smallest, the one who had just carried a vial across a ballroom floor in his mouth to protect her Ash, who made a sound she had never heard from him before.
Not a wolf sound.
A boy sounds. Small and frightened and confused, the way he'd sounded at fifteen years old in a burning kingdom calling for their mother.
No.
The Crown roared.
