Threads of memories fray, snap, and?—
The green light flickers. The crystals drain to black.
“Get the hell out of our realms,” Rosalina snarls.
Golden briars rise from the ground and pierce the now dark crystals. A spiderweb of cracks carves across the obelisks.
The baron turns from the fight and rushes toward us.
“No!” Sira shrieks, true terror in her voice.
A creak sounds as the cracks multiply, turning the crystals into a flickering kaleidoscope. Malekai reaches me. He drops his sword and instead grasps my face.
Those glowing green eyes crinkle, his hair falling across his brow in the same way mine does. “In all the hundreds of thousands of worlds, you are my only family.”
The crystals shatter, scattering like a star shower. And he breaks apart too, into thousands of fragments of light, without so much as a scream.
I heave out a deep breath. “And I just saved my family from you.”
He’s not dead. Not really. But he has no more ties to this world. The Enchanted Vale is free of the Green Flame.
And the next world he decides to haunt better have a hero stronger than me to defeat him. Preferably several.
Anya drops to the ground, and George rushes to catch her in his arms, sobbing. “She’s alive. She’s alright, my Annie. Keep breathing.”
Rosalina sprints over to her father, laying a hand on his shoulder and gazing at her mother breathing softly in her husband’s embrace.
“Sira’s gone,” Ezryn yells. “Fled as soon as the crystals cracked.”
“We can track her down. She’s scared and injured,” Keldarion says. “We have the rose. We have the power.”
But a small voice breaks through. “Rosalina…”
It’s Farron. He holds Dayton in his arms.
The High Prince of Summer’s armor has faded away, and so has he.
60
Farron
He’s so heavy.
He’s so heavy in my arms.
Of course. Dayton has always been broad and strong.
But this is different. He’s so heavy because he can’t move himself. He can’t even stand.
Golden and purple briars wrap around us, but I can’t let go of Day. Iwon’tlet him go. We break through the earth to the surface.
Castletree.Home.
But it can never be home without him.
The other princes gather nearby. George is on the ground, Queen Aurelia in his arms. Rosalina rushes from their side to ours.
Not good, not a good sign, because then her mother must be okay, and Day is…
