𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕆𝕗 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕃𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤 ¦ 𝔽𝕖𝕟𝕣𝕪𝕤 𝕄𝕠𝕠𝕟𝕓𝕖𝕒𝕞

𝙺𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙰𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐

"How are you feeling?"

Brielle didn't answer his question, she was too busy looking down at their hands, connecting them, she could only think of the other which had clasped her in such a similar way, with such adoration and love felt through every little touch. Connell took his hand from hers a second after, when she looked up to him she could have sworn she saw disappointment there, but as quickly as it was there the expression was gone. His eyes still held that same look, but he edged back slightly, waiting for her response

"I feel like I fell off a cliff"

"Fenrys's will kill me if he finds out I let you go to burnout while he was gone"

"I'm not your responsibility" she reminded him, it wasn't a secret to any of them that Fenrys always asked one of them to look out for her when he was away, but somehow this time it felt different.

"I care for you Brielle, how am I too if you push yourself to burnout while alone"

Her heart leapt into her throat, mouth falling open, 

"I wasn't alone, Teyra and Isaiah they-"

"Are both okay" Connell cut her words off before she could finish, a wave of relief flushed through her, if either one of them got hurt because of her... Brielle didn't even want to think of what it might do to her. Her stomach flipped and the heat hiding beneath her skin began to cool.

Connell got up from the chair he had dragged across the room, his shoulders were bunched, his dark hair falling over his shoulders when he turned his back to her, Brielle grunted softly  pushing down her hands under herself to sit up on the bed, back rested into the headboard.

"Why do I get the sense you're not telling me everything"

Connell tensed, with her Fae sight, Brielle could see how his body reacted to her words, he braced his hands against the wall of her wooden dresser at the other side of the room, she wanted to swing her legs from the bed and go to him, if only to get him to look at her and give her the answers she so desperately sought but her body was too stiff to yield to her commands. So she was bedbound and waiting for the Fae warrior to finally look back at her.

"Maeve wants to see you as soon as you're awake, said she had another task for you" a second passed before Connell turned around to look at her, sorrow dug deep in the eyes he shared with his brother.

Her chest hurt and the pressed returned, with her heart jackhammering in her chest, pulse drowning out all noise through her ears. The sound of the door shutting signalled Connell taking his leave, its the things that separates him from his brother in her eyes, When Connell left, Fenrys would stay and not just because she was bound to one and not the other. 

If the male had stayed a second more, he would have been able to see it all, 

the memories Brielle had tried so hard to diminish from her mind,

all the pain, and every touch that broken her soul piece by piece,

If he had stayed to look into her eyes he would have seen the young spirited Fae female she had been before all of this, before everything she had endured, the assault, pain, suffering, death, blood, being caged inside her own body by the oath that bound her very bones to the Queen she hated with everything she was. He could have seen it all, but instead he left.

And she was still here, in a continent she had brought so many people to over the past ten years since Terrasen fell, a land where so many of those people had fresh starts at living because of her, they lived free from the traps of Adarlan and yet here she was, A prisoner inside her own body. A tear slide down her cheek and Brielle sat alone clutching the sheets of her bed to her lips when she sobbed in realisation,