Page 167 of Broken Veil
“I’m fine!” She threw off the covers and unwrapped the scarf from around her neck. “I feel fine. I’m not injured. My legs are still a little weak because of the goddess-collar thing, but I’m only going to get used to it if I get up and walk around.”
Laura looked at Eamer. The maid looked at the queen.
Queen Eamer wore a pinched expression. “Carys.”
“Aunt Eamer.”
“You came to Briton expecting to attend a coronation in your uncle’s company,” she started. “And instead, you spent months navigating treacherous court politics.”
“Which I was happy to do. After all?—”
“Then you fought in abattleagainst my own niece.”
“The point was that we avoided a war and made peace with your niece, which I hope?—”
“Then you disappeared from your uncle’s house and went on a quest with only a dragon, a wolf, a fae, and a few humans to help you.”
Laura piped up. “We got help from some gods and druids too.”
Eamer ignored her. “Weeksin the Brightlands, fighting battles against the Morrígan. No word to your uncle—who only heard rumors about your whereabouts from various dragons—and then we find out you sacrificed months of your life to heal the same goddess who was trying to kill you.”
Carys opened her mouth, then closed it.
Eamer leaned closer. “I don’t care if you carry the collar of the Dagda himself around your neck—you can give your body and your spirit time to rest.”
Laura pursed her lips, and her eyebrows went up. She shook her head vigorously behind Eamer’s back.
“Yes, Aunt,” Carys said quietly.
Eamer nodded firmly, then strode out of the room, pointing at Carys’s maid. “She doesn’t leave this room.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Carys wrapped the scarf back around her neck, took the warm broth the maid handed her, and pulled the blanket up.
“It’s so hard when people love you,” Laura said.
“Shut up.”
She sleptin a warm chamber at the castle with Duncan holding her every night, and every day she felt a little more like herself.
Carys leaned against his chest one night. She’d been unable to sleep, and Duncan had woken up too. He pulled her closer and stroked her hair.
“Your eyes still bothering you?”
She pulled the eye patch more securely over her right eye. “I’m getting used to it.”
“The minute you really get used to it, it’ll be gone,” Duncan said. “That’s usually the way of it, right?”
“Right.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Why are you sad, lass? You did it. You saved the Brightlands and the Shadowlands too. You kept another war from happening.”
Carys blinked away tears. “It’s really hard to explain.”
Duncan was silent for a long time. “I’m here when you want to try.”
“I feel… this hollow in my mind. There’s this space where Seren was. And even though it was just for a little bit, when she was with me, I felt…”
