“Wait, Faustrius, no!” I scream.
But it’s too late.
“Are you ready, fallen Prince of Spring, to be reborn?” Sira runs a hand down Kairyn’s helm, then grabs the edge and rips it off.
62
Ezryn
“No!” The scream tears out of me.
My brother’s helmclinksto the stone, and his head falls to his chest, shielding his face with long, black hair.
Shouldn’t I feel some satisfaction? Some sense of divine providence? My brother inflicted on me the greatest shame any Spring royalty could endure. Why do I not feel avenged when the same is done to him?
But my body acts without thought. I surge forward across the bridge, drawing my hammer over my shoulder and swinging it at the first person I can: the underfae woman with green skin and hair like lichen. My hammer connects with her ribs, and she goes flying, skidding across the blackened stone. She stops just by the edge.
I wind up for my next strike and feel the bristle of magic around me as my family joins the fight. Shards of ice sail past my head, a golden briar whips out, a torrent of salty water jets above me, and a spiraling blaze of fire burns at my feet.
“Kai, I’m coming for you!” I yell, bringing my hammer down right where Faustrius was standing a moment ago. What am Idoing? For everything Kairyn did against Spring, I should let these monsters have him.
“Brother.” Kairyn looks up, and I gaze upon his face. Tawny skin, thick hair. Eyes so brown they’re nearly black. Whose eyes are they? Mother’s? Father’s? The stern mouth, I know, belongs to me.
Yes, perhaps I should let these monsters have Kairyn. But I don’t see Kairyn.
I see Kai. My little brother, running through the fields beyond Florendel. Chasing frogs and trying to cuddle them once caught. I hear his voice during our long talks outside the Hall of Vernalion as we waited for our parents to finish business. The break in his words when we realized Father was leaving for war again. When Mother was more of a stranger than Marigold. I feel the soft skin of his face before he donned the helm and that boy was lost to me forever.
And I even see him tied up in vines hanging below Solonius’s Spine, hissing like a cornered wildcat. Cursing me. Hating me. But it wasn’t hate that filled me then but pity.
If only I could do right by him, just once.
I won’t—no, Ican’t—let him down now.
I draw my hammer back up, but Faustrius moves faster, kicking me hard in the chest. I gasp, the breath taken out of me. My clothing and skin tear as I skid along the stone. What an idiot I am for only bringing the helm!
As I’m scrambling to stand, Faustrius screams, “Aquila!”
With a cackling laugh, Aquila unfurls her net, the fibers buzzing with electricity.
“Oh shit! That got me before. Look out for it!” Dayton yells.
But it’s too late. We’re too close together. She throws the net, and before I can roll out of the way, shocks of electricity rattle through my bones. Rosalina and Kel fall hard beside me, crying out and grasping at the holes, looking for any way to break free.Farron and Dayton are tangled together, all of us writhing under the shock.
“Brother,” I try to yell, but my voice is only a rasping breath.
Sira stands behind Kairyn, chanting in a language I don’t understand, that ancient fae tongue that’s long lost. The rose petal floats above her head, glistening with volcanic light.
Kairyn screams, neck arching back. His body floats as well, rising far above the bridge. His legs and arms thrash, but they’re still confined to the chains.
“Kairyn!” I need to get out of this net. I need to help him. But I can’t do anything but watch in horror as a guttural scream tears from his throat. Threads of light twined in darkness shoot from the rose petal and wrap around his body. He lets out a cry of agony as the twinned light and darkness spear through him.
Two massive horns erupt out of his skull, arched wide and curved downward, their surface ridged and rough like a weathered stone. His body grows, his already enormous height increasing. The chains snap off him, falling to the ground before rolling into the lava below. The buckles of his black armor pop, arms, shoulders, chest, legs swelling with muscle. An appendage whips behind him. A tail, I realize with horror, flesh-colored with a mulchy tip.
He lets out one final scream, revealing his two canine teeth elongated and sharpened to points. The rose petal tumbles to the ground, now dull. Kairyn falls. His broken armor hits the stone with a clatter.
“My new son!” Faustrius cries. He hands the glowing vial to Sira, then falls to his knees stroking Kairyn’s hair. It’s still shiny and black as always, his skin the same tawny shade from before. “So begins the second generation of Elderblood!”
“Kai,” I whisper, my vision blurry.
