“Get us out of here. Use your thorns,” Farron says.
“I can’t. She’ll see my thorns and know I was here.” My mind races. There has to be something we can do. “He can’t see me. He’ll report my presence to her, and she’ll do horrible things to me. Kel will fail and—”
The guard’s footsteps get closer. The breath rages in my throat so fast I can barely breathe. How did I not realize someone was behind us? I was too distracted. I’m going to let them all down again. Green pulses on the edge of my vision.
Farron slams me against the wall, and all I catch is the glint of his golden elk mask before his lips are over mine. He’s only an inch taller than me—I’ve measured—but there’s a strength in his grip that I’ve never felt before. The power of a High Prince. His lips part as I’m engulfed in a wave of heat that ignites every nerve in my body, searing with the intensity of a thousand suns.
The guard’s footsteps draw near, and the man grumbles. I suddenly realize what Farron’s doing.
Something I really should have thought of.Clever boy. So, I weave my hands in his hair and kiss him backhard.With each brush of his lips, his tongue slips between my teeth, consuming me with a passion as wild and untamed as the Autumn winds.
“All right, break it up,” the guard yells.
Farron licks from my lips to my ear and whispers, “Decent kiss, Cas, now be a good boy and keep playing along.”
He spins us so fast my head whirls. His back is to the wall and my head is tucked into the crook of his neck.
“Oh, sorry, sir,” he says in a slurred, arrogant tone, one far deeper than his own. One similar to a certain Summer Prince. “Looks like we got distracted.”
“I’ve had enough of everyone’s distractions tonight. Get out of here.”
“Of course.” He straightens, still keeping my head tucked in the crook of his neck.
I can only keep moving one foot in front of the other, waiting for the guard to call out my name, waiting for him to recognize me, but nothing comes. We descend the stairs, only stopping once we round the corner.
I fight for breath, then glare at him, slapping his chest. “Decent?”
He laughs, pulling up the mask and raising a brow, unable to stop the blush forming on his cheeks. “Rosie told me to kiss you. I couldn’t let her down.”
“Rosalina is a meddler and causes more trouble than she knows what to do with.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He sighs then runs up a few steps to peer around the bend. “The guard’s gone back up. I think if we hurry, we can get inside the mountain before he comes back.”
My stomach knots, but I allow Farron to pull me back up the stairs to the lookout point. I press my palm against the hidden notch in the stone wall, feeling my magic bleed into the rock. It opens a crack. Green light washes over us both, and I turn to Farron. “Ready to piss off a cosmic god?”
His smile is dazzling. “As I’ll ever be.”
CHAPTER 80
Rosalina
Ispent an uncomfortable, sleepless night trapped in Wrenley’s room. I can tell by the position of the sun it’s late morning, and the roar of the crowd is unlike anything I’ve heard before. It’s like the trickle of rain working its way into a thunder. The High Prince of Summer must be stepping onto the sands. Desperately, I stretch my chains to look through Wrenley’s window.
The arena is still full of broken columns, though most of Kairyn’s plants have dried up in the heat.
Immediately, I know something is wrong. Dayton is stumbling. Oh my god, is he drunk?
“He thinks you’ve abandoned him,” Wrenley purrs. She sits at her vanity, kicking her feet, an annoyingly smug expression on her face.
I wish I could feel some relief in the fact that they didn’t sleep together. She’d come in late, ranting that her plan was still flawless, but I could see through the cracks. They both couldn’t go through with it.
Wrenley hardly seems bothered by it all. It never mattered to her how to break Dayton, only that he’s broken.
“Why would he think I abandoned him?” I snarl.
She cocks her head, the light from the Orb of Ancestors in the corner of the room shining in her hair. “Well, what else is he supposed to think when he woke up and you hadn’t returned? It’s not like he could even escape without your little thorns. His only choice is to face his destiny upon the sands.”
“I would never leave him!” I shout, chains rattling as I surge toward her.
