I make it to Keldarion and grip his leg, resting my cheek on his thigh. He’s shaking, but not from the cold. Something else. Anger?
“Do I not please you?” I worry my bottom lip and wrap myself tighter around his leg. “I’ll do anything you ask.”
Keldarion gives a low growl and reaches for the discarded cloak. “Stars, his scent is all over you. Andthis?” He throws the cloak away before gathering me in his arms.
I smile into his neck and eagerly cling to him. Yes, this is what I need. To be close to him. To serve him.
Unceremoniously, he drops me to the bed and wraps a warm knit blanket around my shoulders. I like this blanket. It smells like him—and that other scent he mentioned. Why would I smell like anyone else? Why would I need anyone else? I take a deep breath, inhaling Keldarion’s scent—pine and cranberries and wood smoke. But there’s something deeper, something clinging to my skin. Lavender and moss…
Lilac eyes, a thatch of dark hair, blood staining his mouth. I look down. There’s a spatter of red across my chest. His blood.
A sharp pain cuts across my skull, and I whimper.
Keldarion is there, running a hand along my brow. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you? Where are the other princes?”
I give a contented sigh, the pain in my head gone. With Keldarion here, I don’t need anyone else. “Keldarion, I belong to you.”
Something bright burns hot in my chest. Of course I belong to him; even my heart knows it. But…
There are other fires there too. The warmth of the summer sun, the blossoming of a seed, the rustle of a leaf, and the caress of a shadow. How can I belong only to Keldarion with so many other fires in my heart?
Keldarion gives a sad smile. “Of course you can’t comprehend what I’m saying. The bargain won’t allow it. Know, with every fiber of my being, that I do not mean this.”
“Kel?”
“Rosalina, you are not wanted here.”
There’s a snap within me.
In an instant, it all comes flooding back—all the light of my loves and the pain. The pain of what happened to them.
4
Keldarion
Rosalina paces my room at Keep Wolfhelm, now clean ofCaspian’s blood, wearing one of my tunics belted at her waist. She speaks rapidly, recounting everything that’s happened since we last connected through our bond.
Despite the sacrifices, Rosalina succeeded. Though Hadria is underwater, the people are safe and the Baron’s skeletal soldiers washed away. Now, Ezryn has taken control of the Queen’s Army, and Rosalina is the temporary caretaker of Spring’s blessing. I’ve never thought such a thing possible, but sheisthe queen’s daughter.
May I never again hear pain in her voice the way I did after she spoke of Dayton being struck by an arrow from the Bow of Radiance.
“I don’t understand,” Rosalina says, tears still brimming in her eyes. “There was nothing left. But Day’s alive. Iknowit. I can feel it in here.” She clutches her hand over her chest.
Stepping closer, I wait for her to explain how she appeared naked, covered in Caspian’s scent and blood, clearly having just lain with the Prince of Thorns. She offers nothing, and though I’m trying to let her speak in her own time, my patience wearsthinner with each passing moment. I can’t stop seeing the image that Philiris, the Fate, showed me: Rosalina, a thrall of Caspian, at his side as he rules on his dark throne. A vision so clear it could only be of a future almost certain.
“Dayton is strong,” I say. “A high prince. Perhaps there was some way he survived the wound.”
“I’m not sure, Kel.” Rosalina falls to the chair by the fire. Flames cast over her face. She looks so alert, but weariness is evident on her features. “After Day was shot, I lost control of myself, my magic, of everything. Sira used the opportunity to capture me.”
Slowly, I walk over and sit down in the chair across from her. The thought of Sira touching my mate sets my body on edge. Where were the other princes? I should have been at her side.
Rosalina gives me a wary glance. “It was Caspian that got me out. Sira had me in a cell so deep in the Below no magic would penetrate it. But it was the magic of your bargain, yourlove, that saved me, Kel. It brought me here.”
Breath rattles in my throat, and I stand, turning away from her. “That wasn’t love, Rosalina. I’m sure it was another of Caspian’s twisted games.”
“His twisted games? Do you think it was part of his plan to be stabbed by the Nightingale? Because that’s the last thing I saw before the thorns took me away.”
The words conjure an image in my head: Caspian, mouth open, eyes shining with fear. Cold horror skitters across my spine, but I tamp it down. The Nightingale is no match for Caspian. “Perhaps a ploy to trust him,” I say.
