I catch one final glance at the Nightingale, her blue eyes wide with surprise.
Let’s give this a go.
Picturing the thorns that grew from the seed we planted in the burned library, I allow my energy to pulse out of me, lacing through the vines. I am both here and everywhere, my consciousness spreading like light scattered through a prism.Up, up, up.
We rocket through the earth.
A network of briars rushes past, and we’re like fish caught in the net. The underground thicket opens into a tunnel and we whip through, thorns snagging at my skin and hair. My stomach loops at our speed, only briars dashing by in my peripheral. Up, then left, then right, then down, and up again, the briars shoot us through tunnels I never knew existed.
The thorns twist away from us, responding with a violent surge of energy. But silvery moonlight gleams in a pinprick on the horizon.The surface.
My head spins as we’re shot out of the thicket, landing in a heap upon hard, charcoal-drenched ground.
“Is everyone alright?” Ezryn asks, voice slightly queasy.
I lift my hands up. Black. Ash everywhere. We’re at the burned library, where we planted the seed to allow us to travel to the Below.
“Farron?” Dayton cries, staggering to his feet.
We all clamber up. My knees shake, my body completely spent from the rush of magic. A bone-deep weariness fills me, and even standing is an effort.
Dayton’s voice cracks. “Fare…”
A massive brown wolf lopes out of the hidden door in the sacred alder tree. And in his mouth, he carries a grimoire, one of the books containing dark magic.
“This shouldn’t be happening. It’s the full moon—” I begin before a gasp takes over, and my hands cover my mouth. Through the open entrance into the hidden library, I see… destruction. All the precious books that had been saved from the first disaster—the family histories, the diaries, the grimoires—are ripped apart, destroyed by fang and claw. Papers fly in the breeze, and tears spring to my eyes.
“Prince of Thorns!” Dayton roars. “What did you do to him?”
Then I see him, sitting in a branch of the alder tree, swinging one leg down, looking perfectly nonchalant. He picks at a nail. “It was such a lovely birthday party. Farron thought he’d give me one last present.”
Farron sits at the base of the tree, eyes glazed. The thorn collar weaves tightly through his fur. A vine erupts from the ground and wraps around the book in his mouth before rising to Caspian.
A sharp metallic ring sounds through the night as Ezryn unsheathes his sword. “Another betrayal, Caspian? You’re getting predictable.”
The Prince of Thorns smiles. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
Keldarion falls to his knees, ash billowing up around him.
“You’ve got your stupid book,” Dayton says. “Let him go.”
“Oh, you really wouldn’t want me to do that.”
The princes banter back and forth, and I creep toward the tree, willing my heart to slow. Farron’s wolf seems like a statue, sitting so still. “Farron, are you in there? It’s me. Rosalina. Can you hear me?”
But the wolf doesn’t even blink.
“Release him or I’ll tear your fucking face off!” Dayton yells.
Caspian clicks his tongue. “Perhaps you’re upset because you didn’t receive a party favor. Don’t worry, I have a present for all of you as well.”
The portal to the Below flickers with purple light, and then a pungent, acrid smell wafts from its bellows.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no—”
Goblins pour out. Emerging in a chaotic, writhing mass, they run toward us, their movements frenzied and wild. Ten, twenty, more and more keep coming, their skin in sickly shades of green or white, their hair tangled messes of oily strands that point out in each direction. Moonlight gleams off their crude weapons.
“Rosalina!” My name is shouted over and over again, but I can barely comprehend. I must help Farron. If he’s trapped by the Prince of Thorns—
