There would be no force in the Below that could save her from my mother. Death would be a mercy. I can’t even begin to imagine the torture my mother would put Rosalina through to control me.
“There is still Winter and Autumn for you to claim.” My mother purses her lips. “Perhaps start with Autumn. Even with his full power, that prince is nothing but a boy playing with fire.”
“Farron’s not as weak as you think,” I say, then realize it might sound too close to a compliment, so I quickly add, “TheAutumn Prince’s spell was one of the only things that thwarted the Green Flame.”
“Perth’s first failed experiment.” Sira shifts her eyes to the green pool. “Nothing but feeble echoes of the true power.”
Ah, dear Perth Quellos. He’s not a quitter, I’ll give him that. Last I heard, he’d left the comfort of his laboratory on a mission I wasn’t privy to.
Ice roils through my veins. The pool begins bubbling before twisting into a whirl. The Green Flame inside of me sparks to life, growing hotter with the intensity of the magic within this space. “What’s happening?”
Sira kneels before the pool and dips her slender fingers into the water. “The magic is not yet strong enough to send your father through. But Caspian, he is sending us a gift.”
I rush to my mother and yank her up. “You shouldn’t touch that.”
Her smile is wild with frenzy. It’s a smile I’ve glimpsed on my own face more than once … usually when I’m about to do something crazy.
“This is for you, my son.” She clutches my face, the green liquid cold as ice as it drips down my cheek. “We will use this gift to capture the Winter Realm. The Enchanted Vale will bow to us.”
Hazy fog writhes from the liquid. Noxious fumes rise in eerie tendrils. Shadows dance across the surface, then one breaks free. A figure shrouded in darkness, its skeletal form glinting in the dim light. Bone by bone, it climbs from the pool, movements stiff, as though puppeteered by unseen hands.
Or hands from another world.
Armor hangs off its pale bones. Maybe once it was resplendent, but now it only bears the scars of battles long forgotten. In its bony grasp, the skeleton wields a pair of swords unlike any I have ever seen. The blades gleam. Sigils I don’t recognize adorn the hilt; the faded image of a large winged lizard curled around a tree.
Emerald flames swirl beneath its rib bones and light the caverns of its eyes. It snaps its head to me with an unnatural click. Then it’s not the skeleton’s face I’m staring at, buthis.
Pain radiates through me, and I crash to my knees, green flames coursing through my vision. There’s ringing in my ears, and I have the odd sensation of being pulled somewhere far away, though I’m not moving.
When I open my eyes, a wave of nausea rolls through me. There are tall marble pillars and high windows that show a barren landscape of snow and ice, though by looking at the shape of the jagged mountains and falling snow, I know it isn’t the Winter Realm or anywhere else in the Enchanted Vale.
Before me are towering stairs that lead to a massive throne. An even more enormous figure sits upon it. The power radiating off him hits me like a wave, and I can’t look away from his eyes. They’re green—unsurprisingly—along with the flames licking off his glittering black armor, and the huge broadsword he grips pointed into the ground beside the throne.
“Greetings, Caspian. Stand.” His voice is deep and commanding. Each word is not just spoken, but rather, a decree that must be obeyed.
His face is foreign to me, yet familiar; something I’ve felt all my life but never seen. There’s an unsettling beauty to his features, sharp and dangerous, like a concealed dagger. The longer I stare, the more they seem unnaturally perfect, as if each detail of his face was crafted by an artist. Even his grin seems made with exact precision.
Long, ashen-white hair drapes over his shoulders. His skin, the color of bone, diffuses the glowing green light, highlighting his sharp jaw. My gaze catches on the tips of his ears, which veer out from the curtain of his hair. They’re pointed, like a fae’s, but longer than I’ve ever seen the likes of in our realm. Pieces of shadowy-black armor elegantly fit together on his body, forming a suit worthy of the divine—or the infernal.
“Who are you?” I gasp, my words hoarse, each one an effort to get across to this place—this world.
“I’ve had many names over the ages.” His voice is a deep rumble. “Some have called me Malekai, the Green Flame, or the Baron, but you, Prince, know me by a name none other do.”
I swallow, fingers curled at my sides. I force myself to stand.
“I’ve forged worlds and created armies, but I have never created life such as you. I have never had a son. An heir.”
Panicked heartbeats careen in my chest, and I desperately try to keep my face blank. The dark marble floor goes translucent below me, and I’m looking down on myself, kneeling before the pool, my eyes flooded with green.
But it’s what’s pouring out of the pool that has my heart ablaze. Row after row of Green Flame skeletal soldiers. They file fromthe pool, moving with purpose, a legion of the damned marching forth from their watery grave.
I watch, transfixed, as they assemble at the base of the pool, a relentless tide of bone and sinew. They seem to pulse with dark energy. An army of the undead: not one created by Perth, but soldiers of my father’s own creation.
The sight fades as he pulls me back into his throne room.
“I grant this army to your mother,” the Baron says. “Prove your obedience and worthiness, and I shall grant you this and more.”
Something snaps within me, my vision fracturing as I picture Sira—picture myself—leading this army around the Enchanted Vale, watching realm after realm fall to it.
