The queen's wrist hung limp.
It was turned the wrong way.
She held the broken wrist a moment longer, not cruelly, just long enough that the queen understood the grip was being released by choice and not because she could do anything about it.
Then she let go.
The queen pulled her wrist back against her chest and straightened, and Sonder could see the effort that straightening cost her.
It didn't seem that the man-eaters could heal quickly. They were just tougher than most.
The queen looked at it and mastered the pain rather than letting herself feel it.
She barely had time to because Sonder hit her.
Not with the sword, not with the staff. Just with what she had: a concentrated burst of magic.
It caught the queen full in the chest and sent her back three steps before her heels caught the edge of a cracked dock board and she stumbled.
She didn't fall.
She hadn't been prepared for it, and wasn't quite shock but something close to it; the expression of someone who had not genuinely considered this outcome until it was already happening.
Sonder hit her again.
The queen dropped to one knee, and her good hand met the dock. Her head dipped forward, the fur along her shoulders and arms beginning to smoke faintly at the edges where the magic had touched.
Sonder watched her start to rise and didn't move.
Then she hit her again, a sustained burst this time rather than a single strike, and the queen went back and remained there, sliding along the dock until the railing at the edge caught her and held, the wood of it groaning with the impact.
Sonder lowered her hand.
The burst faded.
The smell of singed fur thickened, and thin curls of smoke rose.
The strength had left the queen, and she couldn't force herself upright.
Sonder waited again. There was no calculation in the waiting, or not much. The queen had been offered the chance to stay down, and she had refused, and Sonder found she didn't want to take that choice away from her.
Not just yet.
If the queen wanted to keep getting up, she could keep getting up. Sonder would simply keep being there when she did.
After it was clear that she couldn't, Sonder turned to the son.
He looked at her, and she looked back.
"Come," she commanded.
He looked at his parents once before moving.
He simply walked toward her, and she thought that said more about what he understood of the situation than anything else he could have done.
She released the king from his barriers.
He stood slowly, with the careful dignity of someone taking inventory of his injuries while pretending not to.
He didn't look at his wife on the dock. She thought he wanted to and had chosen not to, that looking would cost him something he wasn't willing to spend in front of her. He straightened to his full height, which was still considerable.
The queen rose on her own without being asked.
Sonder looked at the three of them.
Then she turned and walked off the dock and onto the island, and they followed, because no other choice remained.