Chapter 781: The Severance Decree (2)
The sound tore through the chamber with such force that Tharionson surged to his feet, then immediately checked himself when she recoiled from him as if his movement had brought the unseen thing closer. She scrambled backward against the couch, clutching at the robe, her breath breaking into ragged gasps.
"No," she cried, her voice cracking. "No, no, no, don’t open it. Don’t let him look through. Please, don’t let him look through."
"Mother, there is nothing here," Tharionson said, turning fully, scanning the room with every trained instinct he possessed. His Myst stirred beneath his skin, ready, searching, but he sensed nothing. No intruder. No spell. No disturbance strong enough to answer her terror.
"Look at me. Mother, look at me. You’re in your chamber. You’re safe."
The word safe seemed to make it worse.
Seralyne’s scream broke into frantic sobbing, and she pressed her hands over her ears while shaking her head violently.
"He sees, he sees, he sees," she gasped. "The glass remembers. The blood remembers. The decree was not dead. It was not dead."
Tharionson moved toward her before he could stop himself. "Mother!"
She flinched so violently that pain crossed his face, and he froze mid-step. The door opened behind him a heartbeat later, and the healers rushed in with the guards just beyond the threshold. Elowen entered first, her expression tense but controlled, one hand already glowing with pale green Myst. The other two healers moved with practiced speed, one circling toward the side table while the other began forming a stabilizing array between his palms.
"My lord, step back," Elowen said, not harshly, but firmly enough that it cut through the chaos.
Tharionson’s first instinct was to refuse. Everything in him rebelled against stepping away while his mother trembled in the corner like something was devouring her from within. But another part of him, the part that had survived command by knowing when emotion would only make a battlefield worse, forced his feet backward. He moved aside, hands clenched, his eyes never leaving Seralyne.
The healers reached her carefully, speaking in low, layered tones meant to guide rather than startle. Elowen cast first, spreading a soft veil of calming Myst over the queen’s shoulders without touching her directly. Seralyne jerked at the first contact of magic, and for one terrible moment, it seemed the spell would fail entirely.