“Rosie!” Farron yells, he and Dayton still locked in the endless dance with Sira.
“Cas!” Keldarion growls, gripping my shoulders and forcing me to look at him. “They need us. Our mates need us. Need you. All your power.”
Tears burn down my cheeks, and I feel it, something breaking inside me. The cage I’ve spent my whole life shoving the Green Flame into, locking it away. I thought control meant silence. Containment. Denial.
But every time I buried it, it only grew wilder. Hungrier. Until it wasn’t mine anymore—it was his. My father’s will. The lure of power. The promise of never being weak again.
But power always comes with a price.
And I’ve paid for it in pieces of myself.
“You’ve been fighting the Green Flame your whole life,” Keldarion growls. “Time to stop. Tame it, Cas.”
“What if I’m not strong enough?” I cry.
Keldarion’s eyes crinkle at the sides as he looks at me, even now, with so much love. “You have to be.”
As if it’s that simple.
Because either I can wield it, or I can’t.
Either I become the weapon, or I break beneath it.
The fire inside me surges, screaming for control, begging to be let loose. It wants to consume. To burn everything, starting with the ones I love most.
My fingers tremble. My breath shudders. “And if I lose myself again?” I whisper.
Keldarion leans closer, forehead pressing gently to mine, his voice a quiet storm.
“Then I’ll be there to pull you back.”
I believe him. With everything I am, I believe him.
“When the stars wove my fate,” he murmurs, eyes closed, a surrender to me, to the Prince of Thorns, Cas, all of me, any form, “they made a tapestry of light and fire and frost…”
“One that always ends with me loving you.”
I turn to Rosalina. The green shadow of my father draws closer to her, massive sword dragging on the ground behind him.
The Green Flame writhes beneath my skin, furious, untamed, alive. It’s never been quiet. Not once. It’s clawed at the edges of me, whispering with my father’s voice.
I’ve tried to fight it. Tried to bury it. I thought that was strength. That if I locked it away, I could be good. Safe. Worthy of a prince and princess’s love.
Because a monster could never have them.
But it was never the flame that made me dangerous. It was the fear of it.
The fear made me cruel. Made me cold. Made me run from the very things that make up who I am.
But Keldarion’s here, holding me. Ezryn stands guard like a mountain, unshaken. Dayton and Farron refuse to give up. And Rosalina looks away from death and stares at me.
In any form, I will love you.
And even George is here, tearing his hands apart trying to free the woman he loves. The woman who saved me once before.
“When you can’t stop the storm,” I murmur, “you find another way out.”
They’re still fighting.
