Do I have enough hope for all of us?
CHAPTER 39
Ezryn
The whetstone slides effortlessly across my mother’s sword. Tenderly, I work the edge, making sure the blade is never dull, never dirty. I care for and protect this sword as I should have cared for and protected my mother.
Light flickers off the steel, but besides the lantern, my cabin is dark. After the decisions were made about our next plans, Dayton and Delphia had sequestered themselves in the captain’s quarters to look over sea charts, and Rosalina had stalked off below deck.
Huxton, a scrappy red-haired member of the crew, had offered me this small cabin. It’s nothing more than a wooden room with a desk, a chair, a lantern, and a rickety bed, but I’ll treasure even a few nights of sleep with a warm roof before facing the Ribs.
What am I doing?Agreeing to Dayton’s plea to watch over Princess Delphia and Princess Eleanor is madness. The last three days chaperoning them around Corsa Tuga have been torturous enough. Delphia has all of her brother’s bravado and only a quarter of his skill to back it up and, three times already, I’ve caught Eleanor attempting to prick my finger and get a few drops of blood for ‘research.’
What could have possessed me when I agreed to take them deep into the wilderness of Summer?
I close my eyes. I know the answer.
Whatever my Queen’s commandment, I will obey.
How can Rosalina still trust me after everything I’ve done? How can Dayton, especially when his sister’s life is at stake? I saw the pain etched across his face. Dayton has experienced somuch loss in his life. His fathers, his mother, and his brothers fell in the War of Thorns. What man could endure more?
I still hear it ringing in my ears in the dead of night: Farron’s scream as he held his mother’s body on the battlefield. I was too late to save her. I can’t hear that sorrow again, not if I have a way to keep his sister safe.
He killed everyone in Queen’s Reach. Not just the soldiers, but the acolytes. Women. Children.The acolyte’s voice drifts through my mind. I didn’t. IknowI didn’t. Even in the blood frenzy that’d overtaken me as I stormed Queen’s Reach Monastery, I never laid steel to one of the acolytes.
But can I keep Delphia and Eleanor safe?
There is no other choice. Iwillkeep them safe.
I slam the sword back into its scabbard and place it on the floor. What does it matter what good I do now? None of it will erase the evils of my past. My hands are stained—does it matter with how much blood?
Closing my eyes, I think of Rosalina’s face. It is the only thing that calms my racing heart. I had been on the dock in Corsa Tuga with Delphia and Eleanor when the attack started. I ran up into the city proper to scout the situation, only to see Rosalina standing on a rooftop. It was as if my life had been given back to me. The months without her, it was as if I were walking through an endless mist of blood, my only mission to return to her.
I’ve just gotten her back and now I have to leave. Even though it kills me to do so, even when every fiber of my heart screams to stay.
But she didn’t need me to break her out of prison. She won’t need me in the arena; there is no fiercer spirit than she and Dayton has never lost a fight within the Sun Colosseum. She could have no better companion.
If Kairyn is there …
A pit opens in my stomach, a gnawing sensation that snaps at my ribs. Thoughts scatter like startled birds, and all I can feel is his hammer on my chest, the breath seized from my lungs.
I am not as powerful as him. Not only that, but I have no control. The vengeance that possessed me was like a demon, and I do not trust myself that it will not rear up again.
I cannot protect anyone against Kairyn, so I must trust Daytonto do so in my place. I will go where I belong—into the wilds with the monsters.
A loud, angry knock sounds at my door. I rise and open it.
Rosalina stands there, a scowl across her perfect face. Seven realms, she is a true beauty. Her long brown hair is especially wavy from the saltwater, and a small sunburn has formed right across the bridge of her nose, only making her frown look all the more innocent. She wears clothes that must have been lent to her by one of Delphia’s crew. A linen dress of turquoise showcases her long neck and collarbone, and a black corset is tightly tied and pressing up her luscious breasts.
“Why didn’t you come find me?” she asks, crossing her arms.
“You left. I thought you wanted to be alone.”
She pushes past me and storms into my room. Gently, I close the door.
“No, I didn’t want to be alone. It’s you who always wants to be alone, Ezryn.”
Oh. She’s angry.
