“All the fae that showed up at the castle,” Farron says slowly. “Caspian didn’twantto send them. They were forced to come after he lay with them. It wasn’t that our magic wasn’t strong enough to send them away. It needed to be Kel.”
“It was you,” Rosalina breathes, but it’s Caspian she’s staring at. “You were Kel’s great love.”
“Call it what you want, Flower.” Caspian smirks. “It’ll bring us together before long.”
There’s no anger on Rosalina’s face, only a shocked understanding and sadness. “Let them serve you in repentance …” She echoes the bargain.
The way Caspian said it … So unlike how he’d said it all those years ago. The memory floods back to me in a rush. His hair longer, falling below his shoulders and into his eyes, which at the time were streaked with tears. When no words I said would convince him how I felt, would convince him he wasenough.
“Then prove it, Kel. Prove it to me,” he had said.
So, I’d spoken different words instead. “Then let us make a bargain.”
And for the first time, his eyes cleared, and he sniffed, “You would do that with me?”
The magic of fae bargains is powerful and ancient. The only thing more so is the mate bond. I was not his mate, but this I could give him.
Back then, I had no notion of Rosalina. No notion that I would ever have a mate, or that I would be cursed into needing to find one. No notion that my realm and soul would rely on her love.
Every part of me had been convinced the broken and beautiful prince loved me. And that I loved him.
“Let me take no other but you,” I had told him. “If one day, my vow shall prove false and I lie with another, let them serve you in repentance until you tire of them as I did your heart. And if ever there is no love between us, let this bargain melt away like snow under rain.”
“No one but me,” Caspian had echoed, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. As if my choice to leave everything behind and join him in the damned Below wasn’t proof in itself.
I spun him then, pushing him down to the sheets, so we were chest to chest. “Do we have a bargain, Cas?”
“Let me take no other but you,” he gasped and kissed me wildly. Kissed me as he repeated the bargain. As our clothes fell away and we made love. It was not until later that I even noticed the bracelet on my wrist, the swirling twist of frosted thorns.
Scattered moments are still etched in my memory, clearer than any painting. The dusky lavender light hitting the sapphire silver circlet that rested on his dark hair. The pearl of moisture over his full lips. His elegant fingers stroking the newly formed frosted thorn bracelet over my wrist with a quiet curiosity.
“It’s beautiful,” he’d whispered.
“As long as it encircles your wrist, you’ll know I love you.”
“Or … I love you.”
High-pitched laughter draws my memories away, and I feel raw and open as Sira’s gaze rakes over me. “Evenhedoesn’t know the truth of it, does he, my darling?”
Caspian raises a dark brow and smirks. “No, Mother. I never bothered to tell him.”
Dayton growls low, and Farron watches me with a mixture of pity and horror. And Ezryn has removed his gloves and is clawing at the dead briars on the ground.
“Tell me what?” I ask.
“What I showed him the night before he made that little bargain with you.” Sira claps her hands together. “Or what the Fates showed him.”
The Fates. I had ventured to them only once. Ancient creatures that dwelled in the deepest depths of the Below. Perhaps they came from the Above like our ancestors, or more likely they’ve been here since the dawn of time.
Some described them as beautiful, others wizened and old. All I saw were shadows of time and space.
What had Cas gone to them for?
Caspian turns to Rosalina. “The Fates showed me you.”
Rosalina doesn’t say a word, but her eyes move between us. I know that look. She’s thinking, always thinking. But there’s nothing we can do. No way out of this. Perhaps I can find a means to petition for her safety. Why would Caspian even help me save her if this was his plan all along?
“What do you mean, you saw Rosalina? She wasn’t even born.”
