Rosalina is on all fours, hair wild, hands digging into the ground. I canfeelmore than see the magic radiating from her. She’s making a connection with Castletree.
“We have to push out the door,” I say to Dayton. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Dayton and I fight our way through the splintered entrance, blades flashing, monsters falling at our feet. The air reeks of rot and burning bark. Behind us, Castletree groans.
We burst outside.
“Fuck,” I say.
The bridge is swarmed. Goblins, trolls, harpies, grinjaws—every nightmarish creature Sira could summon is crawling toward our home like ants over a carcass. And beyond…
Armies.
Tents and siege towers stretch as far as the eye can see, all camped along the edge of the briars. Or what’s left of them. There’s a hazy mist in the air, but it’s just Caspian’s briars fading away.
Dayton slows beside me, his trident dripping with dark blood. “How are we ever going to fight them all?”
I turn, and my chest clenches.
Castletree.
The great trunk groans, its bark splitting open with a sound like thunder. Towers crack and spiral downward, crashing into the earth with bone-rattling force. Vines shrivel to ash as they tumble from the heights. Stone walls, once cradled in living wood, shear away and plunge into the roots below. The whole structure is coming undone.
Without Caspian’s briars, without the queen’s magic…there’s nothing holding it together anymore.
It’s dying.
Rosalina is truly our only hope. She must tap into the magic of her birthright, but she’s so young, so new to the Vale. My Rose has only just begun to understand the depths of her power… and to save Castletree she’ll need to descend further than before.
And I need to give her the time to do this.
I grit my teeth, the wind howling through the ruins behind me.
“We fight them,” I say, turning back to the horde, “one at a time.”
Then I shift.
Bones crack. Fur bursts. The cold surges through me, glorious and wild. The wolf takes hold.
And I charge into the fray.
80
Rosalina
“It’s up to you, Rosalina,” my mother says. “Save Castletree.”
Placing my hands on the bark, I let my consciousness seep into Castletree. A gasp escapes my lips.
It’s weak, so very weak. But there is still life here. Life I cansave.
Like a tether snapping into place, I feel Castletree latch on to me and begin to drink. The gates of my magic open and flow into the tree.
It’s similar to when we transfer our magic to the roses, only…more intense. With the roses, it feels as if I’m getting something back. But Castletree has nothing left to give, and it’s sucking power from me at a rapid rate.
I gasp, sweat dotting my brow, the sensation unnerving. I’m a tap that can’t be turned off. My arms shake, but I hold on to the connection.
A bloom of dust showers to my right as another tree branch falls into the entrance hall. Ezryn is swift as the wind, dancing around me, making sure no one breaks past his barrier. Onhis other side, Justus moves masterfully with his trident. My parents hover on either shoulder.
