“I couldn’t tell you before,” she whispers. “I couldn’t break your heart again.”
Instinctual terror cuts through me as I look around. It doesn’t matter how many of these wraiths I destroy. More and more sprout from the ground, an endless wave of horror. “George, it’s now or never.”
“This is my fate, love,” Anya breathes. “But you can still save her. Find a way to save our daughter. I named her for the birds we used to love. Wrenley. Isn’t that beautiful?”
George closes his eyes, a look of pure agony on his face. He collapses to his knees. “I can’t—”
“You will. The longer you stay in the Vale, the more your memories will return. Treasure them, George.” The Queen of the Vale kisses her mortal husband and steps back. She closes her eyes and raises her hands slowly into the air. Huge, golden briars erupt from the ground. They wrap around George’s waist, then tangle up my legs and chest.
The Queen looks at me, and her eyes flash with power. “Keldarion, you are the Protector of the Realms. Our people are in your hands now. Help Rosalina lead. Together, do better than I did.”
Then she turns to George. Her face softens, looking … human. “Goodbye, love. Protect our daughters.”
The last thing I see are the wraiths leaping upon her, swallowing her up in their darkness, before her briars whip us into the earth and up toward the surface.
CHAPTER 100
Rosalina
Iam wrapped in Dayton’s arms, savoring the softness of the bed and the morning light drifting through the curtains, when a violent rumble shakes our room.
The whole palace trembles: a vase tumbles off the vanity and a painting falls to the ground. Dayton braces his body over mine.
“An earthquake?” I cry.
He stands, pulling me with him. I nearly fall over, my feet unable to find purchase amid the shaking. He guides me to the balcony.
“Rosie,” he whispers. “Look.”
Dark clouds rumble across the horizon.
No. Not clouds.
Shadows.
Like a storm rolling in from the sea, mass shadows cover the sky and drench the ground in darkness. Sitting atop the calamity of darkness is a figure, hands held high.
My throat tightens and a cold sweat breaks across my brow despite the heat. I know those eyes even from such a distance.
Sira, Queen of the Below, has come to the surface.
“It can’t be,” Dayton says. “Sira has never dared an outright attack.”
“Maybe she just wants to talk,” I murmur.
But we both know what this means. If Sira has come to the surface, it’s because she’s angry.
Very angry.
We did this, I realize. Whatever Caspian, Kel, Farron, and Papa did Below has enraged her.
If she chooses to attack, the blood of Hadria’s citizens is on our hands.
A blustering wind blows back my hair, and I curl against Dayton’s chest. He holds me tight, his mouth a firm line, eyes filled with rage as he glares into the clouds.
The shadows roll straight over the heart of Hadria, then stop. They undulate like thousands of snakes one over another. Sira looks to the colosseum. Looks to us.
“Citizens of the esteemed city of Hadria,” she cries, her voice amplified to sound like the crack of thunder. “I am Sira, Queen of the Below and protector of the savants who long have rejected the tyranny of your nobility. An act of aggression has been waged upon the Below, and I must return it in kind. Hadria has been claimed by an Emperor of my choosing; the violent attacks against Cryptgarden and the soldiers of Hadria prove that a heavier hand is needed to restore order.”
