“Those are our dead,” Farron says. “Those are the bones of our fallen soldiers!”
“He’s going to use them to take your living ones.” I grab my mate’s head between my hands. “We must warn Coppershire at once.”
Farron closes his eyes and nods.
“My horse ran off. We’ll have to find a way back to the city, and quickly,” I say.
Something sparks in Farron’s gaze. He looks up at the burning sun. “I know a way.” He touches the space above his heart. “We broke the curse, but I think the Enchantress left something. A gift.”
Slowly, he unclasps his cloak, letting it fall to the ground. Then he pulls off his shirt and pants. Standing in the bare golden light, my mate looks angelic.
His fae body melts away, revealing a majestic wolf with fur the color of fallen leaves and rippling flame. He shakes himself, and the air encircling him shimmers with energy.
Gone is the beast. Before me stands a guardian.
I glide over to the wolf and tentatively reach out to touch his snout. He nuzzles against me. Then he lowers his body and motions for me to get on. I mount the wolf, weaving my fingers through his rich fur. And as the great beast dashes across the Autumn realmlands, he lets loose such a howl that it shakes the very hills themselves.
71
Farron
Iamstrong.
Not the wolf. Not the beast.
I, Farron, High Prince of Autumn, am strong.
For now, the wolf and I are one and the same.
My powerful legs bound through the streets of Coppershire and toward Keep Oakheart. My mate’s thighs clutch tight around me, her hands woven into my fur.
Everything is heightened. I know where each guard is before I even see them: I smell their leather armor, hear the patter of their feet on the cobblestone. The beating of my great heart is both new and familiar all at once.You were always inside me.
The guards I can’t avoid are too astonished to spot a beautiful woman atop a massive wolf to pose any threat.
With each step of my massive paws, heat radiates from me. I run to the ruins of the library. My warmth thaws Keldarion’s frost. A crack sounds, and the soldiers and horses frozen by his attempt to save me shudder forth from their icy binds.
Flames flicker from my paws, and I direct my power up to the alder tree. Water drips down the trunk as the frost melts. The tree begins to breathe once more, leaves unfurling toward the sun.
One day, I will rebuild its sacred library. But I have to do something else first.
I run toward the keep. As we approach, a near-painful sensation tugs in my chest.
“Over there,” Rosalina says, but I don’t need her to tell me. I can feel him too—mate of my mate.
Keldarion.
He’s not in the dungeon.
I change course.
A large chamber lies within the grounds of Keep Oakheart, a place I’ve long avoided, one of justice and decision. But now, I charge toward it, heart beating with purpose. Rosalina tenses atop me as if she too steels herself.
Great mahogany doors lead into the building, and I rise on my hind legs to push them open with my huge paws. Rosalina gives a yelp but hangs on.
The doors burst open, and I enter the Autumn Realm’s throne room.
The large chamber bristles with nobles dressed in their finest attire. Smooth, dark wood makes up the walls, but the ground is a tapestry of foliage. At the far end, the throne looms atop a platform: a seat carved into a massive tree, its bark polished to a shine and engraved with runes. It rises up into a canopy of vibrant leaves, the branches covering the ceiling.
