“Okay, yes,” I whisper. “You love Kel very much.”
He leans toward me. “Give the icy bastard a kiss from me.” Then his lips press over mine, even as I feel the purple thorns wrap around my body to claim me.
Something splashes into my mouth, a metallic sort of taste. Caspian coughs, and I pull back. Blood sputters from his mouth and splashes over my chest.
He looks down at his body, where a prismatic thorn impales his ribs.
“Very good,” a dark voice slithers.
Sira.
The Queen of the Below stands behind us, the Nightingale beside her. My sister’s eyes are a void black, the same as whenSira told her to shoot Dayton. Behind them, dozens of soldiers stand and wait.
“I knew your brother was up to something distasteful,” Sira says.
“Caspian!” I scream. Rage billows inside me so hot, I feel it can burn through the crystals’ barrier. How could she do this to her ownson?
Caspian clutches his chest as blood pumps out between his fingers. But he just smiles. “You’re too late.”
Too late … too late.
“No!” I scream, but the magic of his bargain is already consuming me. Thorns swallow my body, dragging me under. “Caspian!”
He doesn’t turn back to me as the guards drag him away, and I’m wrapped in thorns and shadows. My mind fills with mist. Keldarion. Keldarion, I’m going to Kel. I belong to Kel.
The last thought I have before my mind is entirely consumed with Kel is that I never told Caspian I loved him back.
CHAPTER 124
Keldarion
Outside of Keep Wolfhelm, snow swirls in furious eddies, whipped by a fierce storm. George and I made it back to Frostfang just in time and we have retrieved a treasure long thought lost. That man really can excavate anything. The shards of the shattered rose are now delicately wrapped in cloth, hidden in my chambers. Though whether the rose still holds any power remains to be seen.
When our destination was in sight, George collapsed, falling into that broken sleep. I carried him the rest of the way. Now, he slumbers in the medical ward.
Castletree is weak, which means the other princes have not returned. I have heard no report on Summer. Where is my Rose? Feelings of turmoil and confusion flicker through the bond.
I know what I must do. Castletree, my home, lies dormant, its magic dwindling in my absence. I must return to restore its strength, to ensure George does not slip away forever. Then, I must find my own path to Summer, to Rosalina.
Yet, amid my concerns, there is a nagging absence. Caspian has not reached out to me as I expected. He and Farron broke the crystals. Why would he not come to me to gloat? Ice floods my veins at the thought of him, of the vision the Fates showed me: Rosalina, his dark princess … I will never let that come to pass.
As if in response to my thoughts, tendrils of purple briars erupt from the floor, coiling and twisting in an ominous display of power. A growl emits from my throat, and I turn to him, snarling, “I expected you sooner.”
But there’s no answer. Instead, I see the flash of skin through the briars. An unexpected wave of jealousy and anger flickers through me—another one of his twistedpresents? He hasn’t used our bargain so frivolously in months, since his birthday party in Cryptgarden. A part of me thought he’d given it up. To use it now, after the night we spent together, after he allied with us, and without so much as a word—
Warmth and longing bloom in my chest, and suddenly where I was once half, I am now whole. The briars fall away, revealing a figure partially covered by a dark cloak. The rest of their body is bare, smelling of blood, sex, and lavender.
Rosalina tilts her head, a spill of curls falling over her shoulder. She blinks her large brown eyes, but there’s a milkiness to them.
“Keldarion,” she purrs, “I belong to you.”
CHAPTER 125
Wrenley
Fuck the twisting halls and the traps and fuck the Fates most of all and their weapons of words. They can spout their snarky prophecies at me all they want.
I write my own future.
