The Rose and the Sinbound

Chapter 9: Run

The world should've stopped.

But it didn't.

The music resumed—fractured and fevered, as if trying to stitch itself back together with trembling hands. Glamour rushed to repair what had been broken, like a body panicking over a wound. Shards of glass floated midair, slotting themselves into chandeliers that flickered as if they, too, were holding their breath. The ballroom smoothed itself back into beauty, but it was a lie—a gloss over carnage. I stood amid it, breath ragged, blood golden on my brow, mask cracked like the shell of something newly born.

And then—he touched me.

Hands gripped my sides, firm and unrelenting, pinning my arms to my ribs like I was something to be claimed.

"Rhosyn," Orion breathed my name, molten eyes wild, glowing like a sun on the verge of imploding. No pupils—just liquid gold swirling in his sockets, as if fire lived behind his gaze. My skin prickled. I'd seen that look before.

Possession.

"Why are you so on edge, my High Lord?" I asked, voice smooth as silk wrapped over thorns. I adjusted my expression behind my cracked mask, trying to sheath the trembling that had begun somewhere in my bones.

He didn't answer with words—just stared. Then his thumb dragged through the blood on my temple. I flinched as he brought it to my mouth.

"Taste it," he hissed, pressing it to my lips. "Taste what happens when you make mistakes."

The blood, my blood, tasted like sunlight left too long in iron. Sweet and bitter. Familiar and sickening.

"I was summoned," I said, barely above a whisper.

"Summoned," he spat, as though the word itself were poison. "By who? One of the royals? I'll see their heads on silver plates. I told your father to keep you far away from the Immortal Court. These halls are full of wolves."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't have led one here," I murmured. "Betrothed."

His jaw clenched. I watched the shimmer of glamour ripple across his skin—dew on sunlight, too perfect to be real. But he wasn't perfect. He was power sculpted into flesh, and power never loved anything. It only consumed.

"You're mine, Rhosyn," he growled. "Bride to the Day Court's heir. You wear my colors, and still you run with the wild. Do you know what they'll do to Spring if you keep defying me? The Unseelie will flood your forests. The Mundane will be slaughtered and enslaved. And you—" he paused, fingers brushing the tip of my ear, too gentle to be anything but a threat—"you'll be the symbol they gut in the square."

He released me slowly, only to fix my hair like nothing had happened. Pulled a strand behind my ear, adjusted a curl that had escaped the twist. His touch lingered too long.

"Head back to your father," he said, smoothing my shoulder. "I can't bear the thought of you watching other males behave like beasts." Then his voice twisted into a growl. "Especially that one. That mundane touched what's mine."

His grip returned—sharper this time. His fingers clamped down on the point of my ear, a small snap of pain that made my knees weaken. I shoved him back.

"Elio," I said sharply, turning to his brother. "Do you allow this?"

Elio didn't answer. He stood beside Orion like a shadow dipped in gold leaf. His mask—flakes of hammered metal—covered half his face. The other half bore no emotion. Still, his eyes lingered on mine longer than his brother's. There was pity there. But pity was just another kind of silence.

I stepped back.

Every eye in the ballroom was on us. Fae with butterfly wings and bark-skin. Goblins glimmering with frost. Naiads coiled in watery veils. Their stares pinned me down like needles in velvet. 

Anxiety pulsed through me, my elegance retreating and leaving my emotions bared, where I stepped away from Orion I stepped now closer, hoping he could shield me from these eyes ripping into me.

Choosing the lesser of the unpleasant feelings made me feel like I myself was getting pulled into a deep abyss, Orion grin shown, victorious, he knew my faults, he practically watched me grow from a youngling into a adult.

"Good girl" he crooned and grabbed my chin, he leaned down and placed a kiss on the corner of my lip as I pulled my head away from him, this vial feelings, pulling twisting, duty's raging up, the court summons, could Orion save my father. my home?

The comforting, or rather self sacrificing thought pulled at me, in a way that made me want to breakdown or runaway, just a impulsive thought. I just wanted to run, so I shoved Orion away, his face twisted in my revolt.

I needed air. I needed—

To run.

I turned and fled, my dress tearing at the seams, silk and thorn embroidery dragging like seaweed around my ankles. My legs carried me past lords and ladies, past whispers and pointed fingers. I ran past laughter that didn't belong to joy and music that no longer tried to be beautiful.

I just needed to breathe.

And then—

the floor fell away.

A mirror. A spiral. A shattering of dimensions.

I fell.

The world spun in mirrored shards—images of myself refracted in every reflection: Rhosyn as a wolf, as a girl, as a queen, as ash. Faces that could've been mine. Versions of me I'd never become. Time melted. Meaning unraveled.

And then—

Impact.

A slam. A gasp. A field of flowers.

I choked on air, scraping against glass petals. Iridescent blooms glistened like oil-slick snow, sharp enough to bleed from. The forest rose around me in hues of pearl and stormlight, bark like quartz, sky like fractured crystal. I lay in a ring of glass lilies, each petal reflecting my broken face back to me.

And then a voice.

"Run," it hissed.

I turned toward it, coughing, blood flecking my sleeve. A woman approached—if she was a woman at all.

She had spiraled horns and fur that shifted between soft pink and ivory. Her ears stretched long and feathered at the tips. Her fingers glimmered like candle smoke, and her eyes held stars.

"I am a Seerer," she said, her voice like many voices, old and young layered together. "Blessed by the Ethrealls."

I pushed myself up, hands trembling.

"What do you want?" I rasped.

"Not want, child. Need."

Her gaze pierced through me, like she saw every version of myself that had fallen through the mirror spiral.

"They summoned you to be silent. But you are not. They want you lovely. But you are change."

The Seerer held out her hand, and as I took it, the ground pulsed beneath us.

And I knew—

This was only the beginning.