No matter how much it hurts.
Besides, I have other important things to worry about. I look back down at my hands, Fire, water, thorns … What else is locked inside of me?
5
Ezryn
One step.
The Spring Realm is one step away. That’s all I have to take in order to be back in the place of my birth.
My birthplace, but not my home, I think curiously. When did my mind shift so that the crumbling walls of Castletree and the dark, twisting vines of the Briar were more home than my own realm?
I stand in the entrance hall before the enchanted mirror, its surface glistening like nectar. All I need to do is step through it and think of Florendel, the capital of Spring, and there I shall arrive.
I’ve thought about going through this mirror every day since I arrived home from the Autumn Realm, thought about it every time no tidings came from Spring. But I told myself I was needed here. When the other princes took leave to visit their realms, I had offered to stay behind to watch over the castle. To watch over Rosalina. Spring has waited a long time for my return; a few weeks would be nothing in the span of my absence until now.
But I have been as poor a protector of Castletree as I have been a High Ruler.
Though Farron and Keldarion have been gone much of the six weeks—with Farron returning for short stints to visit Rosalina—Dayton has only been gone for the last two. Something has shifted in our dynamic, a sort of solidarity between Dayton and me. Though Keldarion may still remain cursed, at least he knows his path to freedom. But Dayton and I …
How does one hold on to hope when it has waned to but a sliver of moonlight?
I exhale roughly, the sound echoing in my ears. The stone beneath my feet should be worn into trenches by how long I’ve paced before this mirror. One step. Why can’t I take it?
Perhaps it’s for the same reason I couldn’t stay in Castletree with Rosalina when the other princes left. Castles and keeps cannot contain what I’ve become.
Rosalina deserves a man of honor.
Not the Black Beast of the Briar.
That’s what they scream, the goblins. The last name on their lips as my wolf’s jaws tear out their throats, as their skulls crush beneath my paws. I tell everyone I patrol the Briar for their safety. But that’s not the only reason.
The rage inside of me needs to come out. Better the goblins than someone I love.
I square my shoulders and face the mirror. One step. One step—
“Another silent getaway, I see.”
Her voice drifts into the entrance hall, and I turn, my armor clattering with the movement.
She’s leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
“Rosalina,” I breathe.
“Not running off to the Briar this time. Home to the Spring Realm, then?”
There’s a sharpness to her tone. She’s … angry with me.
In the heat of the moment in the library, it was easy to pretend everything was fine, that I hadn’t left her alone, or that I wasn’t leaving again. But with me on the edge of another realm, there’s no hiding from the truth.
“Yes. That’s the plan anyway,” I say lowly.
She raises her chin in the air, eyes averted. “Well, you’ve been staring at that mirror for half an hour. You’re usually so eager to leave.”
No wonder she’s Keldarion’s mate. In this moment, she could rival him in iciness. Who am I to blame her?
I owe her an apology for leaving her with Castletree in this state. For leaving her at all.
