Corin would rather believe in the existence of forever, where time could freeze in place for love to remain. If she were to wake up in the real world, she wouldn’t survive it. She was sure Briar felt the same way, or their grief wouldn’t have mixed together as one when they’d drowned in the ocean. They didn’t want change. Corin wanted stability, Briar wanted escape. If they were together, they could cling onto that hope.
“Let’s sleep forever,” Corin said. “We’ll never wake up, and we’ll never say goodbye.”
She knew she was being selfish. But in their dreams, it was okay to be, wasn’t it?
Briar’s shoulders lowered with relief, because they both knew it was easier to give in. Better to live in the calm after the storm than turn back and face it again.
A shrill croak erupted their reverie. Their heads snapped to the sky, where a row of stars parted for a flapping shadow. One wing drooped as if it were stuck in the wrong position, while the other wing fought to keep the rest of his body midair. Corin lunged forward and caught Talon before he could plunge in water. His feathers smelled like ash, and when she touched the drooping wing, he screeched in pain.
An item fell from his beak and onto the boat. Briar picked up the cloth, small and torn, barely the size of her palm. Corin held on to the raven, hoping he would stay with them, but his body already turned limp and cold. He had used the last of his remaining strength to carry the torn cloth.
Fear struck Corin at the same time Briar recognized where the fabric came from. The cloth was dark, but under the stars, they still recognized Malicine’s blood.
They were close to reaching Autumnland when a deafening rumble shattered the island and rippled across the ocean. The waves beneath the boat shook violently, as if the sea itself convulsed in agony. Corin held on to Briar as they watched rocks tumble down cliffsides and light shoot through the fog. She imagined a fissure splitting the earth, but knew the sudden earthquake was not an isolated incident.
“We’re too late,” Briar whispered. “He’s here. I can feel him.”
She knelt over, hands wrapped around her skull as a pounding headache took over. Her body trembled, matching the aftershocks ripping through the ocean. Corin seized her by the shoulders.
“You need to go back and hide. Now.”
“But—”
“He will kill you.” Corin remembered the rage in Ezran’s eyes, the trickle of blood from his blade at her throat. He was someone accustomed to violence, readily wielding it in his hands. “I’ll find Malicine and bring the amulet so we can escape. Together. I can’t—I don’t want to live a life without you, Briar Rose.”
Tears sprung from Briar’s eyes as she nodded and grabbed her bow and arrows. Corin handed her the oars and stepped onto the ledge. Ocean waves churned below them like snapping piranhas. As Corin jumped, memories triggered her mind to long unanswered questions. What thoughts had raced in her father’s mind during his own fatal plunge? Did regret course through him in that last breath before the water claimed him?
And had he realized, in that final split second, that he had wanted to live, after all?
CHAPTER 36
ALMOST 100 YEARS AGO
AMELIA PROMISED HER godmothers she and her father would return before midnight so they could celebrate her eighteenth birthday and watch the moonflowers bloom. In truth, she had no idea how long her father’s excursion would take. She followed him through the forest, their shoes crackling dead leaves on damp earth. Autumn proved itself foggy at night. Even with three soldiers trailing after them, she could hardly decipher chain mail from gray clouds.
“How could you abandon Gyldan? Abandonher?” Amelia cried. She could not tolerate any small talk about her father’s trip, even though the flat mouth of his expression indicated his search for an heir was unsuccessful. His journey had been interrupted by news of Lilith’s affair, yet nothing could justify throwing her to the dungeons.
“I do not need insolence from my child for doing the very same thing,” Victor replied. He took a sharp turn down a hidden path, barely discernible amidst undergrowth, where the trees looked like carved faces.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you expect me to believe a demon abducted you for almost a year? Your godmothers may be easily fooled, but not me.” He shook his head. Weariness made the bags under his eyes sag further. “Where were you, Amelia?”
She swallowed the lump down her throat. “I will tell you if you release Lilith,” she lied. “I know the godmothers told you Lilith seduced the prince, but that’s their version of the story—”
“She’s already been released.”
Amelia pictured Ezran sneaking to the dungeons, only to be met with empty cells. “Where is she?”
Moonlight filtered through a thinning canopy and illuminated the narrow trail. Familiarity prickled her skin as she recognized the area. Her father had taken her down this same path years ago when he tried teaching her how to hunt. She recalled the faint scent of decay and damp earth, the tightening of her throat as she cried, the arrow that missed the deer she could never kill.
“Do you know why I wanted to bring you to the woods long ago?” he said. “It’s because I knew you’d learn more here than any of those idyllic days you spent with Lilith in the library.”
With a steady hand and focused gaze, he reached for the sling that carried his bow and arrows. The pointed weapon looked sharp enough to cut into cloth and pierce skin.
“I was pleased to find, during my visit to Zilar, that their king enjoyed hunting as well. A conqueror in nature is as much as a conqueror in his kingdom. He took his son on trips and made Ezran keep a hunting journal. I was impressed, flipping through the pages, by how he recorded deer movement and behavior. He took great interest in tracking animals near Gyldan. So much so, that I started to wonder if they were truly animals at all.”
The air around Amelia thickened with something sharp and metallic, as if she’d bitten her lip and tasted the blood spilling down her throat. She couldn’t breathe as they reached the end of a narrow path, where thick trees blocked the clearing. No one from afar would have spotted two bodies hanging from their stakes.
