Would Rose ever return to me if I let her Ma die? Ever forgive me?
Questions I’ll never know the answer to. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
One way or another, that moment on the beach was a goodbye.
If you're the king, you should do something. Your people are dying… It’s time to wake up and help them.
There’s only one way to save my kingdom. My people. To make amends for all my wrongs.
There’s a vase on my desk that holds a single, wilting moonflower. I touch a petal and it floats softly into my hand.
Will you heal the land? As your father did?
My parents’ faces glow in the orb beside the vase. My father’s eyes are intense, sorrowful.
The time will come when you must prove you are king,he told me long ago. I barely heard him through the haze of pain, but I can hear him now.I know you, my son. You will do the right thing.
“Soon,” I tell him and my mother.Soon, I will join you.
I take a deep breath, and leave my study. Prowling through the castle, I give thewhispstheir final commands before releasing them into the world. In every room, the windows and doors swing open and as I pass by, the vines swarm in. It is time.
I come to a halt in the ballroom at the foot of the stairs, where Rose stood when she first breached my walls and entered my palace. This will be my final resting place. The vines will creep in and consume every last stone. One day, there will be nothing left but a wilderness.
I sink down onto the bottom step, allowing myself one last memory of Rose. The way she felt in my arms. Her intoxicating scent. Her smooth skin. The look in her beautiful eyes when she stood at the top of this very staircase and gazed down at me.
The pain is so sharp, so acute, that whatever happens next will be a blessed relief.
I take a deep breath and exhale it slowly. As I do so, I extend my magic—my power and birthright—out beyond the castle bounds. I release the boundary magic, the barrier between myself and the world, the spell I wove when I awoke alone in a castle haunted by my parents’ ghosts.
My kingdom is hurting—I can feel it now. The ache intensifies in my body, sparks of fire in my fingertips swiftly spreading. My groan creaks out of me. The rash spreads swiftly, a scarlet tide crawling over my body. The curse burns like a thousand flames licking at my skin, and yet the pain is nothing compared to the agony in my heart.
I am dying as I have lived—all alone. It’s better this way. At least Rose is gone, so she won’t have to witness this, my final sacrifice. It is my hope that she will live a long, happy life with the healer, and remember me when the moonflowers blossom and glow.
Beneath the angry scarlet rash, my flesh crackles and turns ash gray. My fingers and toes harden first, my limbs follow suit. I can do nothing but sit here as my body turns into stone. The final stage of the Red Death. With excruciating slowness, the rot creeps towards my heart.
How long has it been since Rose left? An hour? A day? A week?
An eternity.
I send a silent plea to Ulf to hurry things up. To put me out of my misery. I don’t know how much more of this I can stand, and yet I have no choice.
I am suffering the same fate my father did. It seems fitting. I would smile at the irony but I can no longer move my face.
I can only hope my sacrifice isn’t in vain.
The king can heal the land.
For too long, I neglected my responsibilities. My endless shame and grief kept me in the shadows, hiding from the people I was born to protect and lead. Now it’s too late. I will never have the chance to rule over a happy kingdom as my father did, but for once in my life, in this very moment, I can be the king he wanted me to be. The king he believed I could be.
The king Rose believes I am.
Soon.
* * *
Rose
A breeze caresses my cheek, waking me. Rogue. I stayed up all night by Ma’s bedside, bathing her fevered brow, willing the stone-gray scales to retreat from her skin. Leelah made endless cups of tea and mixed tinctures until she was swaying on her feet—I finally sent her home to sleep. Rogue and I took over. I hovered over Ma as thewhispfetched what it could to help me.
