His words rumble in my mind.It will all have been for nothing.
Farron’s grief from days before echoes behind it:What was it all for?
And my own question joins the fray.
If we don’t stop it, who does?
86
Caspian
The human realm. It’s different than I remember. Though thelast time I was here was decades ago, when I was a youth. I’d left home, thinking there was a way for me to outrun my affliction. To outrun my destiny.
I look to Rosalina, eyes vacant, mouth a thin line. Little did I know my destiny was going to find me.
Magic is dying in the Enchanted Vale. I could sense it draining out of the earth like blood pouring from an opened artery. Castletree is the wellspring of the seasonal realms’ power. Without it…
Well, it may very much feel like this place soon.
This place.A cloud of damp mist shrouds the towering fir trees in a gray veil. Lights begin to wink on in wooden cabins, the quaint atmosphere shattered by a terrifying bug-eyed depiction of an orca on a sign.
Orca Cove.
Kel, Ezryn, Dayton, Farron, Anya, Birdy, and Rosalina stand in a line, no one quite prepared to take the first step into town. Not with what it will signify.
Defeat.
Fleeing the Vale.
Because Faustrius was right. There’s nowhere in the Enchanted Vale where Sira won’t look for us. And with only my weakened shadows and green flame—the only magic left between us—we had no choice but to run.
After Faustrius, the proud, self-righteous bastard that he is, decided to let us go, we had to move quickly. We five princes and the three O’Connell women have fled to the one place beyond Sira’s ambitions. Marigold, Eldy, and Justus have taken charge of the rest of Castletree’s orphans with intentions to lead them to Spring and seek sanctuary in Keep Hammergarden.
Marigold had been in a state at first, insisting we come with them. But Rosalina silenced her with words so filled with darkness, it didn’t seem like my Flower speaking at all: “If we go with you, Sira will hunt us down. We’re a liability. Sira won’t stop until we’re dead. And we can’t protect anyone.Ican’t protect anyone.”
So Marigold and Astrid hugged her tight. She didn’t hug them back.
Justus stopped us as we turned to leave. “Your tokens. You won’t need them in the human realm. But I might be able to think of something. There are a few tricks in this old bird yet.”
So we handed them over to the first High Prince of Summer. Kel’s snowflake, Ezryn’s wooden trinket carved with cherry blossoms, Dayton’s seashell, Farron’s leaf, and the moonstone rose gifted to me by my mate. It felt like giving up the last of my faeness.
The eight of us cut our way through the Briar, finding the rosebush Birdy had made. Brown rose petals and stems running with black veins of rot adorned the weak portal.
I’d been the first to step through, feeling the cool shiver as I crossed from one world to another. One by one, they followed me, each in a deeper pool of despair than the other. Kel and Ez, stoic as ever. Farron and Day, visibly exhausted with grief.
Then my girls.
How badly I wished to take Anya’s hand. I have seen her in fits of laughter, red with rage, and howling with sorrow. But this…whateverthisis that’s overtaken her…
It is as if she is nothing more than skin and bone, forced to move, her expression as numb as a doll’s.
I can’t let myself feel it: George’s death. He was good to me in ways no one ever has been before and no one will ever be again. And if I let myselfrealizeit—realize that I will never sit opposite him at a fire, discussing philosophy, or see the sparkling effect he has on those around him—then I have no idea what kind of animal the grief will turn me into.
I need to stand. Need to tell them which way to go. To watch out for roots so they don’t trip. I need to be a shore they can crash upon.
Birdy shivered out of the portal next. We hadn’t spoken, not once. But when I reached out to take her hand, she stumbled slightly, and I pulled her to my chest.
“You’re okay,” I mumbled into her hair.
