The sentiment makes me throw my head back and give a half-laugh, half-howl. “Is that how you see me, brother? Then fine. Let the Vale mark me as a villain. But I would lay waste to every realm, cover every field and mountain in an eternal winter, and keep you and Dayton and Farron and every being in Castletree cursed if it meant saving her.”
Rage alights in his gaze, and he tackles me. I am pinned on my back, and the entire weight of the black wolf pushes down upon me. “Tell me the truth of your bargain with Caspian,” he roars. “Tell me what it has to do with Rosalina!”
For a second, I see him behind the primal rage of the wolf. My brother, my friend.He wants to help me. He wants to keep me safe.
But I cannot tell him this truth.
For if I did, the burden would fall on him, too.
I would so much rather be his enemy than let him carry the weight of this decision with me. I tried to rest in his harbor of safety years ago. Tried to trust him with a secret.
A secret he betrayed.
And there is something much darker in my heart, something I can’t even bear to think of. Because I know what course of action Ezryn would take. An action that would either end his life or the life of…
Caspian’s words haunt my mind.
Kel, we both know if you were capable of doing that, you’d have done it when I first betrayed you.
I stay silent, even though my bones are crushing beneath his weight, and his incisors are dangerously close to my jugular.
Light shivers through the window. His body trembles over mine, the curse fading for another day. Immediately, I close my eyes as I feel the warm touch of his skin instead of fur.
I could open my eyes right now and look upon his face. Bring about the greatest shame any royal of the Spring Realm could endure. That would stop him from questioning me.
But I place a hand over my eyes. We breathe together, skin against skin. “There’s a helm in the wardrobe,” I say.
“I know,” he mumbles.
He presses on my chest to stand, and I wait to hear the clink of metal before I open my eyes. He braces his hands against the wardrobe, body muscular and tan. I’ve kept the helmet in this room precisely for an instance like this when he may need it. The downturned visor makes him look disapproving, a suitable expression. “I don’t care what your reason is, Kel,” Ezryn whispers. “You can’t treat your mate like this. You can’t treatherlike this. If I were—”
“If you were her mate?” I growl.
He intakes a sharp breath. “She would never wonder for a moment that I would seize the stars from the sky for her if she asked.”
“Well, that’s where we’re different, Ez.” I fall back to the icy ground, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m doing it without her asking.”
He shakes his head and strides to the doorway, naked besides the helm. My chest grows tight, and I want to call out for him to stay.
I want to crack myself open and admit that I’ve destroyed my world for her, and I’d do it again, but it’shard. Because I miss him.
“Ez,” I croak.
He turns to me.
“I need your forgiveness.”
He stands rigidly in the doorway, the muscles of his back tensing. “Not for this, Kel,” he whispers. “Never for this.”
I lay there on my back for a long while after he’s gone. For the first time in so long, I feel cold. The ice beneath me seeps through my skin and into my bones. I wonder if I were never to move, what would happen to me? Would I turn to ice like the castle? What would they find when they came looking for me—a skeleton of hoarfrost?
Though I don’t suspect anyone would come looking for me at all. And who could blame them?
Perhaps I shall just wait for my winter to freeze me—
A dark shape skitters on the edge of my chambers. Slowly, I turn to look when something cold presses against my throat.
A dagger.
