Before she descended into the dark, Gwen returned to the master bedchamber one final time.
The room was darker now, the fires in the hearths having burned down to small, glowing embers that cast long, distorted shadows across the leather dais. Kaelen was unconscious, his massive chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged thuds, his brow covered in a thick sheen of grey sweat. Lucien was still awake, though his eyelids were heavy, his pupils narrowed into tiny pinpricks of light as he maintained the invisible silver-violet shield around her mind with the last fragments of his will.
Gwen walked softly to the side of the bed, her boots making no sound against the fur rugs. She looked down at the two men who had burned an empire to keep her breathing, the two kings who had given up their thrones, their magic, and their health to build a sanctuary for her child.
