A flash of emerald fire blazes beside her, and then another figure appears. He stands above her, dressed in blackened steel, armor too formidable for his frame. Spikes jut out from the pauldrons. His black hair falls below his jaw, and a wicked smile curves his lips.
A smile I’ve spent forever trying to burn out of my mind.
When Rosalina sees Caspian, her face alights. But not in the way I know, such as the girlish smile when she tells a joke and is the only one who laughs, or the sultry smirk when she knows she has me right where she wants me. This is something else, something feverish.
The smile of a thrall.
Caspian grabs her by her neck to guide her up. His own expression is one of feral hunger. He nips at her bottom lip, tugging it away and biting down so hard, blood dribbles down her chin. The act only seems to make her more desperate for him. She scratches at his chest plate, trying to push every inch of her body against his.
My heart is a thundering drumbeat in my ears. This isn’t jealousy—I shared Rosalina with Caspian only days ago. I know she has other mates who worship her body in the way she deserves. But this sight before me …
This is not Rosalina. If I were to break my curse by making love to her, it would send her straight into Caspian’s arms. And this is what will happen.
It doesn’t matter if Caspian loves me. He loves her, too, and if the only way he can have her is by making her his thrall, he will do it.
Caspian grips her around the neck again and forces her down to her knees. She stares up at him reverently. As if he is the love of her life. As if he is a god.
And as I look around at the green fire burning everything in the horizon, I realize that’s exactly what he is.
A dark god with his dark queen.
“No!” I scream. The fire has created huge welts over my skin, but I don’t care. I surge up the staircase, hands lunging for Caspian.
Caspian turns and a crooked smile forms on his lips. “Hello, lover,” he says.
Then I’ve fallen to the ground, my fists ripping out the purple grass. The staircase and the flames are gone, revealing only thegrove. I look down at my skin. No burns, yet the chilling heat lingers in my bones.
“What did you see?” George asks, running over to me.
I ignore him and stare up at Philiris. “Will it come to pass? Is there no other future for her?”
She drifts over to me, moving a piece of hair out of my eyes with her stretched finger. “I only see the future, High Prince. It is you who makes it.”
“I will not let that happen,” I vow. My voice is ragged, desperate.
“Some things are set. For example,” her butterfly eyes look from me to George, “you are both destined to find your rose shattered. Go back to the place where all was lost.”
My Rose … shattered? No, no, I won’t let that happen. It can’t be our destiny! “What do you mean? What do you mean?”
But the Fate says nothing. She starts to shrink in size, her butterflies careening away from her in a blur. Before me stands a small, naked woman, her skin completely rotten. It hangs off her bones in folds of mottled gray and green, emitting a sickly sweet scent. Only one butterfly remains, the one covering her face. “Goodbye. I will see you again, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter. But not you, George of the O’Connells. Farewell.”
Then as if her bones were ripped out of her, the rotten skin tumbles to the ground in a heap. The butterfly covering her face flits off into the sky.
“Philiris!” I scream. “Wait!”
“What did you see, boy?” George yells, shaking me. “What did you see?”
But I cannot tell him. For if that future comes to pass, it is because of me. Because I fail to protect Rosalina.
No. It will never be like that.
I let my heart guide me with Caspian before, let his words sink beneath my bones until I gave him everything. I felt it happening again the night I shared with him and Rosalina, desperate to trust him again.
I was fooled last time, and it shattered me. But now I don’t only have myself to protect. There is Rosalina.
No matter what my heart wants, it must become stone. This vision is the truth. I have to protect Rosalina from Caspian.
Winter will fall to the Green Flame before Caspian puts his hands on my mate again.
