A flood of green spills across my vision, like oil over water. Pain ebbs away as the image emerges before me: changing Emberlash’s pathetic Autumn flames to emerald fire under my control. Letting the Green Flame run through me, strengthening my body, restoring my magic. Grabbing Emberlash by the throat and squeezing until every orifice explodes with green flame.
I could raze this entire city and bury my mother in its ashes.This is what you wanted from me, isn’t it, Mother? Let me bring upon the reckoning of your design and see if you survive it.
Yes, you could do it, a voice croons within me. The only company these past—what has it been in here? Hours? Days? Weeks? Centuries?—besides Emberlash and his cronies is my father inside my head. I’m grateful for him in a way. Forcing him out of my mind is the one thing that’s kept me conscious.
But this voice is…different. Lighter. Familiar. Comforting.
Take the Green Flame and free yourself, Cas, he says. A friend.Kill your mother. You don’t need her. Then you can come and find me. We can be a family, all together. Wouldn’t you like that? That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? For us to see you? To accept you? I know you, Cas.
His face shimmers in my mind’s eye. Auburn hair, freckles across his nose. Farron. He…is my friend.
Take the Green Flame, Farron urges.Free yourself. Destroy Sira, and rule the Enchanted Vale with your true family.
With you?I ask. My true family. Could Farron let me in? Bring me back to Rosalina and Kel?—
With me, Farron says, but his voice darkens, skin paling to a sickly white. His hair grows down to his waist, the colorof a corpse. His face elongates, cheekbones sharpening, ears tapering to a knife’s point.
My heart erupts into a gallop.Keep it out, keep it out, keep it out?—
Caspian, it is time, my father, the Baron of the Green Flame, croons.There is no escape. Is this your fate? To be tortured and humiliated and used? No one is coming to help you, son. Your mother hates you. Your lovers scorn you. There is only me. I am your future.
The image nearly suffocates me: standing over my mother, my body writhing with a phantasmal green glow, a pointed briar at her throat.
Tell me the truth of your desires, the Baron growls.
I want it. I want her to pay.
Then take my power.
No. No, I can’t. I have to?—
No one is coming for you! It is me or nothing!he screams, his face appearing in every flame around the cage.
I squeeze my eyes shut, palm biting into the moonstone token. Excruciating pain erupts within my body as I feel every lick of the blazing prison.No one is coming…
A woman’s voice cuts through the fire’s roar. My father’s face disappears from the flames. I know that laugh, raspy with a little snort at the end…
Peering through the surrounding glow, I see her down below,arms crossed and sneering at Emberlash. Emberlash has gone bright red from his bony cheeks to his tattooed skull, and Ican only imagine what cutting remark she said to embarrass himso.
Birdy Girl.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” one of Emberlash’s goons says, pacing by Wrenley. “Come to show off your shining toy?”
Wrenley is dressed in full Nightingale garb, her prismatic armor gleaming. She’s left her mask off, revealing a cruel smirk as she observes the courtyard. Her short, curly brown hair is tucked behind her softly pointed ears. With a dancer’s grace, she turns to address the goon, and I see the toy he’s talking about.
The Bow of Radiance sits on her back, gleaming with the light of the Above.
“Pretty thing, isn’t it?” another one of the cronies says and reaches over her shoulder toward it.
My adopted sister darts her hand out and snatches his wrist. With a flick of her own, a crack sounds across the courtyard, followed by the crony’s scream.
“Try to touch my bow again, and I’ll let you,” Wrenley purrs. “You can enjoy eternity as a pile of ash.”
Emberlash growls and crosses his arms, his barbed whip hanging from one hand. “What are you doing here, Nightingale? Come to marvel at your brother’s punishment?” He flicks his gaze down to the crying goon, cradling his wrist. “Cross me like that again, and I’ll make a matching cage for you, little bird. Don’t imagine even your pretty armor will stand a chance.”
Wrenley smiles. I know that fucking look, that dangerous, cunning look.Don’t try it, Birdy. Don’t try it?—
“Oh, Emberlash, it’s so cute you think you could put me in a cage.” Her smile grows wider. Prismatic briars burst forth from the ground, shining as if they were slicked with oil. “Here’s the thing. My wings are far too big, my talons too sharp. And I have the nasty habit of biting the hand that feeds me.”
