“Rosie?” Dayton’s voice. He’s standing on the balcony, dawn basking him in light as if the sun woke up just to grace his skin.
I can’t catch my breath. My heart rams against my ribs.
“Rosie, what happened?” Dayton rushes over to the bed and puts his arms around me.
“I saw her … I saw my mother,” I gasp.
But it’s not her image I can’t chase from my mind.
It’s Papa’s. His crystal-blue gaze.
I’ve seen that gaze before. Seen it angry, conniving, resentful. Seen it tired, desperate, sad. Seen it in tears because she was left with nothing.
While I grew up with my father.
“Dayton,” I whisper. “Wrenley is my sister.”
He leans back against the bedframe, eyes faraway. “The Nightingale. It can’t be.”
“I think she needs our help, Day.”
He chokes out a laugh. “Only Rosalina O’Connell would want to help the assassin who tried to murder her! Not to mention seduce me.”
“Come on.” I poke his chest. “We’ve done weirder things.”
He pulls me tight to him and kisses the top of my head. “As long as I get to do them with you.”
I hold on to this moment. I will see Kel again, and my father. I don’t know what’s happening down Below, but I will not let my mother stay imprisoned.
And my sister …
What would our life have been like if we had the opportunity to grow up together? How alone she must have been all these years, raised by Sira in the dark. At least she had Caspian. He cares for her. Loves her, even.
Caspian’s had the chance to know her in a way I never have. Despite working for Sira, I know Caspian’s kind and funny and clever. If he loves Wrenley like a sister, there must be more to her than I know.
My mother believes she deserves peace. If I can give her that, I will. Even if she hates me. Even if she wants to kill me.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell Dayton. “We always do.”
CHAPTER 94
Ezryn
Itake cover behind the colossal sandstone pillars flanking Solonius’s Spine, the bridge marking the boundary between the Ribs and the rest of Summer.
True to his word, the defector from Kairyn’s army, Mozi, led us back to where he’d come from. The closer we got to Kairyn’s camp, the less the storm raged. We emerged out of the swirling sands beaten, gritty, and weak, but alive.
The girls lean against a pillar, sharing a waterskin. We don’t have many left. I tucked my last skins into their bags for them to find later. They’ll need them, and I most likely won’t.
Pillars guard the canyon before us, their surfaces etched with stories from epochs so old, only the Queen would remember them. A sense of awe strikes me as I run my hand over one of the carvings.
Before us stretches the bridge, a massive structure carved from the very bones of the desert itself. The weathered stone bears the weight of centuries; even the historians of Summer don’t know who built it or why. Perhaps at one point in Summer’s history, there was something in the Ribs worth traveling here for. Now the only greenery is bits of shrub growing between cracks in the stone.
The sun rises on the horizon, casting warm, golden light over the bridge.
A lone figure stands in the middle, dressed all in black, his cape snapping in the wind.
Kairyn’s body is completely still, save for his arms, which jerk from left to right, up and down.He’s coaxing the winds, I realize.I never mastered the art of the Spring storm; the only time I ever seemed to utilize such magic was when I was overpowered by it.
