I turn to see my mother standing beside me. Princess Niamh looks as elegant as ever, dressed in shining bronze armor with a golden thread woven through her braid. “Mother.”
She takes my hand and kisses it, her smile so warm. “Your family safe. Your friends happy. Your realm thriving. You, surrounded by those you love. Is this what you want?”
“Of course it is.” I run a hand along her cheek. “How are you here?”
“I came to show you the threads of destiny, clove.” She puts a hand on my back and guides me to look into the living quarters. Everyone I love is in there.
“What would you do to protect those you love?” my mother breathes.
“Anything.”
She stares at me. “What would you give?”
“Everything.”
She smiles, then lurches backward. Her skin starts to turn ashen, crumbling away like dust to reveal bone beneath. Dark circles turn her eyes to pits. She looks down at a hole in her armor, revealing a wound in her stomach, a gaping thing that drips blood all over the ground. “Will you stop what happened to me from happening to them?”
“Mother!” I cry, then turn to look into the living quarters.
They’re gone … replaced with a shadowy, ashen mockery of what had been my home. “Rosie!” I scream, running inside. “Father!”
It looks as if a fire has ripped through the keep, turning the furniture to piles of dust. The couch where my father sat with Billy and Dom … Now, there are three smiling skeletons. I fall to my knees, throwing up a plume of ash, and crawl over to them. “No! No, not my brothers!”
On the couch where Nori lounged, a skeleton has its legs up on the armrest, the burned pages of a book catching in its ribs. A guttural cry escapes me, and I spin.
Two skeletons lean against the wall near the balcony, one in tattered robes that may have once been blue, the other in charredarmor. The bottom of the helm is seared off, revealing a jaw hanging on only by one hinge.
My heart feels like it will rip out of my chest. “Rosie. Day.”
There, by the doorway to the balcony, are two skeletons clutched in an embrace, their mouths agape in a forever scream.
Numbness takes over my body. I waver on my knees, feeling as if I may black out. Hoping against all hope I will.
My mother’s voice cuts through the shock: “I can give you the power to save them. To keep them with you forever.”
Slowly, I look up. But it’s not my mother standing above me. It’s a man. He looks almost-fae, but his ears are too long, a sense of strangeness to his features. Long, pale white hair falls to his hips, but he has a kind smile. My mother’s smile, I think distantly.
“Who are you?” I ask, voice weak.
“A friend,” the man says. “I want to help you.”
“How can I trust you?”
He kneels down and takes my head in his hands. His touch is the only thing keeping me upright, my whole body dizzy and numb.
“What would you do to save them?” he asks.
“Anything.”
“What would you give?”
I meet his milky-white gaze and intake a sharp breath. My heart pounds a strong rhythm within my ribs. “Everything.”
He stands. There’s something cunning in his gaze, a knowing I can’t help but admire. “Then trust in that.”
He steps back, and I reach for him. “Wait—”
A smile crosses his clever mouth. He keeps walking backward. “Anything! Everything! That’s it, Farron, Autumn-blood!”
