I guess I can create too.
And then it’s just silence. Crumbling briars. The scent of ash and roses. My knees buckle, and Kel catches me before I hit the ground.
“I didn’t have the strength to kill her,” I rasp, “but she’ll fall in darkness for a while.”
Rosalina’s arms bind around me, holding tight.
“You’re still fae?” she whispers.
I nod. “Anya never finished the spell. My shadows and flames are still here. Weak but here.” I cup her face, my thumb brushing the tears from her cheek. “The briars, though…they were hers. I can’t feel them anymore, Rosie. They’re gone. Castletree is?—”
A quake jolts the floor. Above us, a branch crashes down from the ceiling.
“Without Cas’s thorns,” Farron says grimly, “and without Queen Aurelia’s magic…Castletree will fall.”
“No,” comes a voice.
We turn. Anya pushes herself up in George’s arms.
She looks different now. Not like the radiant Queen of the Vale or the imprisoned fae we found Below. No, she looks real. An anthropologist in the desert. Human.
“My magic is not gone from the Vale,” she says.
“But, Your Majesty,” Justus starts.
“I may be human,” the queen says, “but my daughter’s not. She will save Castletree.”
78
Rosalina
Me? My mother wants me to save Castletree?
“Mom,” I whisper, clutching her hand. It’s cold.
Her eyes burrow into mine, deep brown. No glow left but full of fire.
“You have to save it,” she rasps. “Castletree’s still alive. Only you can save her.”
“What about Papa?” I gasp. “You used your magic to tie his life with Castletree’s. But if you’re human, does that mean…” I can’t bear to utter the words.
“His lifeforce is woven with Castletree’s. The magic within the tree has long become its own. Of the high rulers. As long as the tree lives, so does your father.”
My heart pounds like a war drum in my chest. It’s not just a castle. Not just a home to dozens of people.
It’s a lifeline to all the magic in the Vale. It’sPapa’slifeline.
I swallow hard, chest tight. All around us, the vast, hollowed-out interior of Castletree shudders. It’s like being inside the bones of a dying god. Briars crumble from the walls, and chunks of bark fall away. I feel the tree’s heartbeat, faint and failing.
“I don’t know if I can,” I whisper.
A deafening crack splits the air.
The front doors erupt in a storm of splinters, blown inward by a force that reeks of rot. And through the shattered threshold, creatures pour in, snarling, clawed, and unnatural.
A monstrous horde of goblins and trolls charges into the chamber. Their growls reverberate through the roots, shaking the ground.
A screech sounds above, and the high stained-glass windows shatter in a spray of color. Harpies dive through, shrieking, wings like torn parchment, talons outstretched. Their eyes are wrong—completely black, no pupils, no whites. Just void.
