The World Cannot Know

Chapter 63

Prince Sebastian

The world drifted in and out, shadows swimming over me. My body felt heavy, stitched together with fire and ice. Every breath was a battle. Somewhere nearby, I could hear the low murmur of voices—but they felt distant, almost unreal.

I forced my eyes open.

The ceiling was unfamiliar. High and arched with dark wooden beams. The air smelled of herbs and blood and burning oil. For a moment, I panicked—where was I? Had Gregory—?

A soft touch on my arm stopped the rising terror. I turned my head sluggishly.

It was the Queen. My mother. Sitting stiff-backed in a chair at my bedside, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her mouth drawn into a thin, grim line.

"You're awake," she said quietly, her voice so steady it barely sounded like her. But her eyes—her eyes were wide with relief. Relief...and something harder underneath.

"Matthew," I croaked out, my throat raw and dry as sand. "Where's Matthew?"

She flinched, almost imperceptibly, but I caught it. Her mouth tightened further.

"Rest, Sebastian," she said coolly. "You've lost a lot of blood."

"No," I rasped, trying to push myself up. Agony ripped through my leg, and I collapsed back with a strangled gasp. Stars burst behind my eyes. "I need...Matthew. Please."

I barely recognized my own voice, so desperate, so broken. But the fear clawed at me—what if something had happened? What if—

A healer bustled over, gently pressing me back against the mattress. "Easy, Your Highness. You'll tear the stitches."

I barely heard her. I was drowning again, the world tilting and spinning around me.

"Get him," I gasped out to no one in particular. "Get Matthew."

The Queen stood slowly. For a second, she just stared down at me—silent, weighing something behind those sharp, regal eyes. Then she turned sharply on her heel, her skirts whispering against the stone floor as she strode from the room.

I let my head fall back against the pillow, my heart pounding painfully in my chest. Every beat was a prayer.
Let him be safe. Let him come.

The darkness pulled at me again, but I fought it, clinging to the image of Matthew's face—the way he had looked at me with love even when the world had turned against us.

I wasn't going to lose him now.
Not when we had fought so hard to survive.

Matthew Wild

It had been two days since the bloodshed.
Two days since the crown was ripped from a dying king's fingers and the castle's fate had been sealed.
Two days since victory—if it could even be called that—settled over Kinsley like a heavy, aching fog.

The palace still bore the wounds of war. Charred stone. Shattered glass. Banners torn down and burned in the great halls. The corridors echoed with the groans of wounded soldiers and the hammering of carpenters desperate to patch the crumbling walls. The air itself smelled of ash, sweat, and something deeper—grief, too old and stubborn to be washed away by the rain that had started falling that morning.

And now, here we were.

Gathered in the fractured throne room around a scarred war table, making plans not for celebration, but for survival.

Marcus, Hector, Clive, and me—Matthew—leaned over the battered maps. Each of us spoke in low, urgent tones, voices rough from sleepless nights.

"We start with the gates," Marcus said, rapping his knuckles on the map. "North and west walls first. They're hanging by a prayer."