There’s chaos around me. Distantly, I hear Rosalina’s voice.
And then?—
I can’t feel the briars anymore. The veins I’ve dug into the earth surrounding Castletree, all leading here, weaving through its halls, strengthening its bones, protecting the home of those I love…
I can’t feel them.
My golden bracelet falls to the ground.
Castletree trembles.
The briars at my feet wither and turn to dust. My connection to them is severed. For over twenty-five years, I have been holding this castle up…and the connection disappears in an instant.
Aurelia isn’t yet strong enough to keep Castletree standing. She told me so herself.
My briars drop off the walls, raining down in a shower of purple dust. The tree groans and shakes.
Castletree is going to fall.
“Don’t cry, my darling boy,” Sira says. “Isn’t this what you always wanted?”
I scream.
And it sounds human.
76
Rosalina
Ican’t move. Sira’s magic holds me fast, frozen like a doll in anightmare. Her shadow knife is at my neck.
But I can see everything.
Caspian screams.
The sound tears through the air. His green fire flares, but it can’t protect him. A beam of light pours from my mother’s hands straight into his chest. Her face is soaked with tears, lips trembling, but she doesn’t stop. Shecan’tstop.
I want to scream. Want to claw free, run to her, run to him, doanything, but I’m trapped.
There has to besomethingI can do!
Caspian is shaking. His fingers dig into the earth like he’s trying to hold himself in this world, but I can see the light burning through him. I can feel it too. Like it’s ripping the faeness right out of him. His glow is dimming. His scream is breaking?—
Kel lets out a mournful cry. He collapses to his knees. The bracelet on his wrist, his side of the bargain, splinters and falls. Caspian’s does too. It clatters to the ground, icy thorns melting away.
He clutches his wrist, a sob ripping out of him, sharp and strangled.
I know the words they said.And if ever there is no love between us, let this bargain melt away like snow under rain.
No.
No, it wasn’t that.
I shake my head, blinking past the tears. “It’s not that you don’t love each other,” I whisper. My voice trembles, but my heart is screaming.
I look at the melting bracelets, at my mates kneeling in ash and light, at the beam still pouring from my mother’s hands. Her sobs, his pain.
I feel my own fury.
