Now isn’t the time for memories. But at the sight of the keep, its spires crowned with frost, I can’t stop that acute sense of loss from creeping over me.
“How did you know to bring us here?” I whisper.
“It’s where Keldarion is, isn’t it?” Birdy snaps, dusting snow off her prismatic armor. Her keen eyes peer through the fir trees. We’re in deep enough no patrols will spot us. “And where Kel is,sheis.”
Ezryn straightens, his hammer shimmering into light before disappearing into the token around his neck. I wonder how he retrieved that little trinket. “I owe you my thanks for returning me to Keep Wolfhelm, Nightingale,” he says, then his gaze shifts to the glowing bow at her back. “But I cannot allow you to possess that weapon.”
In a single movement, Wrenley draws the bow and nocks a radiant arrow, the point inches from Ezryn’s forehead. “What you cannot do, Prince of Blood, is take this weapon from me.”
“Birdy Girl, let’s have a moment. We’re all worked up from that fun little adventure with Emberlash, but I don’t think we need to go blasting any holes in Keep Wolfhelm’s walls, let alone dear Ezryn’s skull. He helped rescue me after all.” I step toward her, arms outstretched, then dare a wink at Ezryn. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
Ezryn doesn’t look away from Wrenley but utters a growl I’m sure is meant for me.
“Birdy,” I say more sternly, “put the bow down.”
She clenches her jaw, a deep crease forming between her eyebrows. The bow trembles in her hands, and I notice her whole body is shaking. Her huge eyes are shiny with tears. “I hate you,” she breathes. “Do you know that?”
Ezryn flicks his gaze up to the tip of the arrow. “I’m getting that impression.”
“Everything revolves around you. ‘Where’s my brother? What is my brother doing? My brother, my brother, my fucking brother!’” Her voice shakes, each word strained. “Ilooked after him when you wouldn’t.Icared for him.Imade him realize the man he could be. And still, all he cared about was you.”
I take a deep breath, waiting for Ezryn’s response, but he says nothing, face an expressionless mask.
Birdy’s broken voice carries on: “He was a boy! He lost his mother, and he was just a boy. But you sent him away. How could he ever forgive you? You didn’t want him. You didn’t care. With your stupid Winter Prince and the whole Spring Realm, it was so easy to forget about him. But you were his everything.”
Ezryn’s chest heaves, and his dark brown eyes shine as bright as Wrenley’s. “I have spent every moment of every day wishing I could change what happened between Kairyn and me. If there is any love left in his heart for me, then speak it. After everything we have done to each other, I wish him only peace.”
Wrenley’s hands tighten on the bow, and her teeth clench. Then she lowers it, the arrow dematerializing, and stows it on her back. “You’re all the same. You and the other princes and Rosalina. How could you understand?” She turns away, walking deeper into the trees.
Ezryn steps after her. “Wait! You’re a liability with that bow, Wrenley. You know it. Holding on to it puts everyone in danger?—”
I grab his shoulder. “Let me talk to her.”
Ezryn stares down at my hand on his shoulder, then shrugs me off, grunting and storming in the opposite direction.
I sigh, taking a moment to collect myself. Between the lingering pain in my body, the severe lack of food, water, and sleep, my reeling thoughts over being saved by both my sister and Ezryn, let alone beingherewith Rosalina so close, I’m barely able to think straight. But I need to talk to my sister. Figure out what’s going through her mind.
Following her footsteps through the snow, I find her in the shadow of a fir tree, hugging herself. Pink-cheeked from the chill with snowflakes in her hair, she looks adorable, if a little uncomfortable. She’s never liked the cold or the dark.
“I wish I could bring you back to Summer,” I say. “Build you a boat and take you to a private island filled with nothing but chocolate. You could spend your days diving for sunken treasure and drinking coconut milk straight from the tree.”
“How many wishes can go unanswered before you stop trying?” she whispers.
“You answered my wish, Birdy. You saved me.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her in for a hug. With the queen’s token in my possession, the feel of the bow at her back is like warming my hands over the embers of a fire.
“Of course I saved you,” she mumbles. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I did.”
“How?”
She pulls out of my embrace and stalks away, brooding.
“How did you do it?” I say louder. “Who taught you to control flames?”
A hiss slips through her bared teeth. “It doesn’t matter.Iwas the one who did it.”
“You spoke with her. Your mother.” I take a step in her direction.
“She’s not my mother,” Wrenley snarls. “Didn’t want to be anyway. She abandoned me.”
