Page 93 of The Crown's Awakening
They began guiding him toward the bridge that led deeper into the island city. Colsar resisted weakly for a moment, forcing the words through his throat once more in a hoarse insistence that barely rose above the wind.
“She needs to know.”
The captain of the patrol had arrived behind the others by then. His attention lingered briefly on the barrier where the undead continued their useless assault before returning to the wounded figure standing just inside the wards.
“He crossed the barrier,” one of the younger guards said quietly.
The observation shifted the mood of the group at once. The captain studied Colsar more carefully now, measuringsomething in his mind while the winter wind stirred the banners above the gate towers.
No outsider had ever crossed Alarna’s wards by force.
“Take him to the palace,” the captain said after a moment. “We’ll keep him below until the physicians determine whether the corruption can be contained.”
The word dungeon formed slowly through the haze clouding Colsar’s thoughts.
If they locked him away before Asharin learned he had come, she might never know how close he had been.
They began leading him across the narrow bridge toward the island city. Colsar forced his head up as they walked, the movement slow and heavy as exhaustion pressed more insistently against him. The city unfolded gradually before him as they passed through the outer gate, pale towers rising above terraces that overlooked the frozen water while warm lamplight shone from windows along the harbor. The quiet order of the streets felt distant after the months he had spent crossing wastelands filled with the dead.
He barely registered any of it clearly.
His attention remained fixed on the palace rising above the inner district, its white towers visible even through the drifting snow.
Asharin was somewhere within those walls.
The guards brought him through the palace gates and into a courtyard where several more soldiers waited to meet them. Voices passed quickly between the men as the captain explained what had happened along the ward line. Colsar heard fragmentsof the exchange through the dull fog pressing against his mind. He had come through the barrier. He had been bitten. He needed to be taken below before the corruption spread.
Inside the palace the corridors stretched outward beneath high arches while lamplight reflected softly across the polished floors. Servants stepped quickly aside as the small escort moved through the hall, their quiet movements blending into a blur as Colsar struggled to remain upright.
Then sound reached him from deeper within the palace, many voices speaking together in the low murmur of a court in session, the noise drifting down the corridor ahead.
One of the guards swore under his breath. “We cannot take him below through the central hall.”
“Too late,” another muttered.
Their grip tightened on his arms as they pulled him forward, dragging him toward the hall that led to the throne room.
Wings
COLSAR
The doors stood closed.
Great panels of ivory wood rose above Colsar as the guards dragged him down the corridor, their hands locked beneath his arms while his boots scraped helplessly across the polished floor. Fever blurred the edges of the world, bending light into pale halos and stretching sound into strange echoes, yet the murmur drifting from beyond those doors carried through the haze with cruel clarity.
The throne room.
Asharin might be inside.
The guards spoke in urgent tones about the bites along his ribs, about sickness spreading through his blood, about taking him below the palace before the poison had time to infect anyone else. Their words barely reached him. None of it mattered beside the single thought pounding through what remained of his strength.
If they took him below before she saw him, she would never know he had come.
Colsar twisted violently, wrenching one arm free from the guard gripping him. The motion tore open wounds that had barely begun to close, pain spreading through his side, yet the sudden movement carried him forward. A shout rose behind him as he lurched toward the towering doors.
They remained closed. The panels rose before him like the final barrier placed between him and the promise that had carried him across mountains and frozen valleys.
He gathered what little strength remained in his body and drove himself forward.
