Chapter 25

Wren POV

I heard the crash before I understood what it was, glass hitting the floor somewhere down the hall, followed by a maid's voice pitching up sharp and scared.

"Someone help, it's Lady Rosalind.."

I was moving before I finished processing the words, feet carrying me faster than thought toward her chambers, old instinct kicking in before fear had a chance to catch up.

She was on the floor beside her bed, one hand clutching at her chest, lips gone a shade of grey I recognized from a dozen different textbooks two years too old to still be sitting in my head. Her breath came in short, wet pulls, each one costing her more than the last.

"Get Marta," I said to the maid hovering uselessly by the door. "Now. And bring cold water, a cloth, and the small tin from her bedside table, the one marked with the red string."

The girl didn't move.

"Now," I said, harder, and that finally got her legs working.

I got down on the floor beside Rosalind, tilting her slightly onto her side, loosening the collar of her nightdress with hands that weren't quite steady but knew exactly where to go anyway. Her pulse under my fingers came fast and thin, skittering instead of steady.

"Rosalind. Mom." I kept my voice low, even, the tone I used to use talking down panicked patients back before any of this. "You're okay. Stay with me."

Her eyes fluttered, unfocused, chasing something that wasn't in the room.

"Breathe with me," I said. "In. Slow. Come on."

She managed a shaky pull of air, then another, her hand finding mine and gripping hard enough to hurt.

Damian burst through the door a moment later, Calla closed behind him, both of them freezing in the doorway at the sight of their mother on the floor.

"What happened?" Damian's voice cracked out sharp, panicked.

"Heart," I said, not looking up. "Get the doctor. Faster than the maid's going to manage it."

"Is she…"

"Go, Damian."

He went. Calla stayed frozen in the doorway a second longer before finally moving toward the bed, though she stopped short of actually kneeling down beside us, hovering instead, wringing her hands in a way that did absolutely nothing useful.

"The tonic," I said to her. "The one from Dr. Hallis. Did you give her any today?"

"I…no, I didn't have a chance yet.."

"Good. Don't. Not until I know what's actually in it."

The maid returned with the tin, and I worked fast, measuring out a careful pinch of the dried herb inside, dissolving it into the water she also brought, coaxing a few sips into Rosalind's mouth between her shallow breaths. It wasn't much. It was what I had, and it was better than nothing while we waited on someone with actual training to arrive.

"That's it," I murmured, watching her breathing start to even out by degrees. "Slow and steady. You're doing fine."

Her eyes cracked open properly then, glassy, only half tracking. Her fingers tightened around mine.

"Isolde," she whispered.

I went still, the name landing somewhere I didn't have a place for yet.

"It's Wren," I said gently, thinking she simply got confused, the way people sometimes did coming out of something frightening. "You're okay, it's Wren."

"Isolde." Her voice thinned further, urgent despite how weak it sounded, her grip on my hand tightening again like she was trying to physically hold onto whatever memory she was drowning in. "I have to… they can't find you, sweetheart, you have to stay quiet…"

"Mom, it's me. It's Wren."

She didn't seem to hear me at all, eyes fixed somewhere past my shoulder, lost entirely in whatever room she'd fallen back into.

The door opened again, and I assumed it was Marta finally arriving, until I glanced up and found King Alaric standing there instead, drawn by the commotion echoing down the hall, his expression already tightening with concern at the scene on the floor.

"What's happening?" he asked, stepping in.

"Her heart," I said. "She's coming out of it, but she's not entirely lucid yet."

Rosalind's hand hadn't loosened on mine. If anything, her grip had gotten tighter.

"Isolde," she said again, louder this time, clearer, cutting straight through the room. "You have to hide, they'll take you, please…"

I felt Alaric go completely still behind me. Not the kind of still that comes from simple concern for a sick woman. Something sharper. I turned enough to catch his face, and whatever composure he usually kept locked in place had slipped clean off it, his eyes fixed on Rosalind with an intensity that had nothing to do with her collapsing on the floor.

"What did she just say?" His voice came out low, controlled in a way that sounded like it was costing him something to keep it that level.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "She's confused. She think I'm somebody else."

"That name." He crossed the room fast now, kneeling on Rosalind's other side, studying her face like he was searching for something specific in it. "Say it again. Please."

Rosalind's eyes had started to drift shut again, her strength fading as fast as the panic had risen, the name dissolving into an unintelligible murmur before she went quiet entirely, breathing evened out but consciousness slipping away from her fast.

Alaric stayed kneeling there a long moment, staring at her slack face like it might offer up more than she just had.

"Your Majesty." I kept my voice steady, though something about his reaction had unsettled me more than the medical crisis had. "You know that name?"

He didn't answer right away. When he finally looked up at me, something had shifted behind his eyes, a man doing quiet arithmetic he wasn't ready to say out loud yet.

"I need to speak with your mother," he said, "the moment she's well enough."

"About what?"

He didn't answer that either. Just rose to his feet as Marta finally arrived breathless in the doorway, and stepped back to give her room to work, his attention still fixed on Rosalind's still form like she just handed him the missing piece to something he'd been carrying around unfinished for a very long time.