Only his head can move. “What have you done? What have you done to me?”
“You have done this to yourself,” I say.
“No,” his voice cracks, almost boyish. “No. No, this isn’t it. I have to kill you!”
“I’m sorry, brother. I cannot die today. Not while there are still those who need my protection.”
“Ezryn!” he screams, my name echoing through the canyon. “Ezryn!”
I look down at my brother, thrashing helplessly in the cage of his own creation. Now, I draw my mother’s blade and hold it to his neck.
“Do it,” he growls. “Kill me. Take this misery from me. Rid me of it!”
My hand is steady as the steel fits perfectly beneath his helm. One push and I could cut clean through his neck.
I stare into the dark abyss of metal. The downturned feather brow melds away in my mind’s eye. I can picture my little brother as he once was, can picture the man he could have been.
Could still be.
I made a vow to Rosalina. I promised I would return to her.
If I kill my brother and slay the last of my kin, I don’t know what man would come back to her.
“Do it,” my brother breathes. “Free me.”
I move the blade slightly, just enough to slice through the chain around his neck. The token of Spring falls and I catch it midair. Without the Blessing, it is little more than a trinket to me, but at least this will keep the Hammer of Hope out of his hands. I tuck it safely into my pocket.
“You have the token and the hammer. Kill me and be done with this torment,” Kairyn growls.
“I can’t free you of your torment,” I say softly. “Only you can do that.”
With a cry, I bring my blade down. The tip of my sword digs into the cracks of the bridge. The stone beneath Kairyn gives way, crumbling into the abyss below. Kairyn falls, suspended in midair by his vines.
“Ezryn!” he screams. “You should have killed me! Ezryn! Ihateyou!”
I collapse to my knees as his cries echo through the canyon, suspended in the remnants of his own destruction.
A part of me wishes I could lie down here, in the remnants of mine.
But there are still those who would hunt Delphia and Eleanor.
I pick up the hilt of my mother’s sword and walk into the sun toward my brother’s army.
CHAPTER 95
Farron
Ihave been afraid many times in my life. So afraid, it felt as if the sun would never shine again through such darkness. Like when I hid in the alder tree as the goblins ravaged my home. Or when I looked into the eyes of the Enchantress and saw the worst parts of myself looking back at me. Or when I held my mother’s dead body and realized that every challenge I would ever face, I would face without her guidance.
But standing before the pool is a different kind of fear entirely.
Green light flickers across my body from the giant diamond-shaped crystals that adorn the room. It’s as if just being in their glow saps my body of will; I am small beneath their radiance. Their light seems to cut through my skin, leaving me a bare skeleton, my every weak thought, ripped apart and put on display.
In the middle of the stone chamber lies the reservoir: a large pool of ink-black water. Emerald stalagmites jut up from the ground, while deadly sharp stalactites jut down from the ceiling. Brilliant green energy flows from each crystal, surging through the ground toward the reservoir. When the lines of energy reach the pool, they drip into the water like liquid light, making the water appear oily and luminescent.
There’s something lingering in the darkness. Something lying in wait.
Farron, Autumn-blood. Come—
