Chapter Fourteen
Daric stood beforethe Cauldron. The final day of spring was almost over. Four years had passed since he and Rain broke the curse, and he was once again back at the stone circle. He’d built another shelter. As usual, Braylian would blow it down the moment he left the clearing for longer than a few hours. He did get called away. He wasn’t fully free to live as a savage and ignorehis name and kingdom, but when he could, he made his home next to the Cauldron. It brought him closer to Rain.
Everything had changed that day, especially him. Glittering parties and cozy family evenings now graced the House of Ash again—and sickened him more than anything. He’d done his duty and would do his duty in the future. For now, his parents were healthy and ruled wisely. When that wasno longer the case, he would take their place. The only thing he wouldn’t do was produce an heir for Leathen.
The mockweed had indeed revealed Illanna Nighthall’s treacherous face, although he’d barely seen it through his tears and misery. When Daric had finally brought himself to leave the clearing and the Cauldron—to leave Rain—he’d focused and honed his anger and desperation until it was assharp as a blade, and then he’d stabbed Raana.
The remainder of that first spring, with his heart wrecked and his spirit in agony, he’d plotted and struck, driving his army halfway to Nighthall with a gale and a tempest leading each attack. That summer, he’d secured Raana’s lake district for Leathen and taken back every single orin mine his father had relinquished. By autumn, Illanna’s strugglingarmy had retreated to the capital city, and by winter, he’d defeated her last battalion. He took Nighthall on a frozen afternoon and plunged a cold dagger into the chest of the wicked Queen of Raana. A knife through her heart for the knife through his.
He hadn’t turned his blade on Astraea, despite the temptation and his brokenhearted fury. She knew he could, though, and she’d sheathed her clawsin the interest of not dying. He had a contingent of guards watching her in her gloomy, inhospitable castle, making sure she didn’t touch sorcery, although he didn’t think she had her mother’s predilection for it. Astraea was cruel but not clever—and now lived as a prisoner in a land he’d conquered.
By the following spring, the second without Rain, Daric was no longer considered pleasant, fun,and easy-mannered. His people started calling him the Hallerhound Prince, and not only because of the way he bayed his misery into the Cauldron. He sought solitude and snapped and snarled at anyone who came near him. His kingdom was secure, largely expanded, and headed toward unparalleled prosperity, so he prowled the Wood of Layton, alone with his memories.
Each year since he’d given the bloodstones,the mockweed, and his precious Rain to Braylian, Spring had watered Leathen until the rivers nearly overflowed and farmers had to scramble between storms to do their planting. Rain wept her unhappiness for three moons, nearly drowning the kingdom. Then she slept while Summer brought them plentiful crops. She slumbered through Autumn’s crisp days and bountiful harvests. She slept while Winterallowed his people to rest once again in happy plenitude before crackling hearth fires—satisfaction and comforts that Daric refused for himself. He chose to winter among the beasts and blizzards of Layton.
He’d considered punishing the Barrow Witch for allowing Rain’s deception, but helping them end the drought had hastened her fall into insanity. She’d used so much sorcery that day to locatethe curse stone that her decline had started early and struck her like a thunderbolt. Now, Daric hunted for her when he was in the forest, and she cackled and cawed and lived like a wild bird, hopping in and out of her barrow.
He was sorry for her. They’d all lost more than they’d imagined that day. The gain had never once outweighed his heartbreak.
Rain’s next sleep was almost upon them. Daricreached a hand into the thick cloud rising from the Cauldron, desperately hoping that cool feminine fingers would brush his skin in a loving caress and that a beautiful silver-haired woman would appear before him. She’d smile, join him, and he’d be complete again, not this hollow shell, not this man whose nightmares echoed with words he never should have spoken.
Isme dolunde vaten crew.
He hadn’tbeen offering Rain. He wouldneverhave sacrificed Rain, and she’d known it.
Daylight waned, the healthy, leafy branches of the trees around the Cauldron blotting out what little sunlight remained on this last day of spring. Daric turned Rain’s starflower over in his hand. She’d left it in her saddlebag, and he’d rubbed the carving so often between his fingers that the shallower details on theflower had faded. Her hairpin still dangled from the loop, sometimes pricking him. He’d taken a few strands of silver hair from it, but those he kept in a safer place.
Rain would be dormant for the rest of the year soon. He’d still call to her. He’d call and call, but she would never answer. And next spring, she would wake again and pour her unhappiness down on Leathen. The farmers still criedtears of joy when spring rains started, but Daric watched the drops fall in torment. His love was gone, and he’d never accept it.
Rain’s new sisterwas jealous and possessive. She didn’t understand why she had to share her season. Rain tried to communicate with her, to explain that they could work together, but this new Spring didn’tunderstand the idea of producing those kinds of thoughts herself—or have any interest in listening. Rain shaped clouds into people she loved and missed, and her sister blew them away with disapproving gusts. Rain moped on clouds of gloom, and her sister threw down rainbows from her darkness simply to contradict her. Rain cried in gentle, steady streams while her sister did her best to cut throughher clouds with violent weather.
After three seasons of bickering, Rain, who remembered her name, her life, her love—everythingfrom her time in Leathen—claimed her land with the explosive force and fierce determination of a goddess much older and stronger than any spring infant. The sister born when Rain left the Cauldron, this child who hadn’t even lived the span of a human lifetime, ran toBraylian when Rain banished her from Leathen.
Braylian chose not to intercede, for Rain’s sister still had the rest of the continent, and Rain cared nothing about what happened in Parr or what used to be Raana, or anywhere that wasn’therLeathen.
Her heart broke every time and somehow harder each time she saw Daric at the Cauldron. He barely resembled the prince she’d known. He was leaner,tougher, shaggier—more jagged all over. His eyes glinted like chips of blue ice, but they’d once held warmth despite their cool color. Now, they held only rage and bitterness.
Rain longed to go to him, to help him somehow. She was desperate to show herself and speak, even if she couldn’t touch him. Braylian wouldn’t let her. The great goddess stopped her with harsh elements every time Rain triedto take shape at the Cauldron. After being burned, battered, and overcome too many times to count—and seeing Daric also violently blown back by the tremendous force of Braylian’s power—Rain finally stopped trying and simply watched Daric from afar, giving her tears to him instead.
He’d turn his face up, and sometimes, she knew they wept together.
And when he told her it was too wet, that theland was flooding, she did her best to dry the eyes she didn’t truly have anymore and let the sun peek through, thinking not of loss but of happy memories.
Just hours from now, she would sleep. She’d spend three seasons without Daric, without being able to see him or watch over him. Four years ago, she’d sent thunder and lightning along with his army into Raana. She’d lashed storms down on hisenemies. She’d done her best to protect him and Leathen. But a lot could happen while she slept, and it terrified her each time the Great Rest claimed her.
From the ground, Daric called her name until he was hoarse. He always did, his anguished rasp scraping across bark and branches. She’d been transformed into something without form, but heartbreak wasn’t physical. It was her soul that crackedand suffered.
Daric suddenly howled and threw her starflower into Braylian’s Cauldron with a curse that rattled the forest. Rain gasped, her shocked inhalation sucking at leaves that abruptly shook and churned upward.
His gaze rose sharply. Daric’s eyes narrowed. “Rain?”
Focusing on the starflower, Rain gathered all her power and barreled toward the Cauldron. Painfully hot flames shot up todeter her. She fought and dodged them. She had to save the carving. It belonged to her and Daric.
Pressing downward like a tornado, she blew out and crushed Braylian’s fire with her own formidable weather. Rain was just one season compared to the mighty goddess of all the elements, but she wasdetermined.
The two ancient and savage forces clashed in the Cauldron. Rain doubled her efforts, drawingstrength and courage not from knowing she was a deity but from the stubborn resolve she’d learned from humans, that boldness of spirit that embodied fight and sacrifice and hard, unwavering purpose.
Smoke and ash suddenly took the place of violent struggles—a war turned silent. She’d done it. She’d overcome Braylian. Extinguished her fire!
