“Oh, here it is,” Nori says and begins to read. “I shouldn’t be surprised Daytonales wasn’t there to see me off. The empty seat beside me in the carriage looks like a specter. The ache in my heart?—”
“The lamenting goes on for sixteen pages,” Delphia says, reading over Nori’s shoulder. “Skip to the part about my brother.”
“But Farron’s misery is just so dark and delicious.” Nori sighs, flips the page, and continues to read. “Despite all that, I still believe the words his brother, High Prince Damocles, spoke are true: ‘Dayton is a fool.’”
I turn away, because I already know this part of the story. I heard my brother speak those words when he wasn’t aware I was listening.
“‘But I know my brother. His spirit is wild and untamed, like the fiercest of Summer storms,’” Nori continues to read.
I stop and turn. Because this I hadn’t heard. I’d left trying to spare my own feelings. But had my brother been saying something nice about me?
Delphia takes the book and stares me in the eye, reciting the last line. “‘Yet there is a warmth and a light in him that can shine in any darkness. He may stumble, he may falter, but within him lies the potential to ignite a path of glory.’”
“A path of glory, hey?” I say and smile, then stare out at the sea. “That’s a big ask, big brother.”
Delphia comes up beside me and takes my hand. And despite the fear coursing through me, I let her. “We’ll do it together. Now get your big butt on that throne.”
I give a long, dramatic sigh, then march toward the coral monstrosity and fall into it.
Damn, it really is as uncomfortable as it looks. Regardless, I laugh. “Guess you were right about me again, Dammy. One last time.”
12
Farron
Briars snag on my clothes and pull on my hair. I keep running,shoving myself deeper into the thicket, holding my arms up to shield my eyes. Branches snap beneath my boots, and wilted roses float from their stems.
Another scream shatters the air, as clear and violent as the last. Rosalina’s scream. I’ve never heard her so terrified, in such pain…
I have to get to her. My vision tunnels, heart pounding, lungs burning as I dive deeper and deeper into the Briar. She’s somewhere in here. Someone’s hurting her.Killing her.
My skin is tattered ribbons by the time I fling out into a clearing. Blinking against the blaring sun, I peer around. There’s nothing but dark fog hovering over the ground?—
Not fog. Shadow.
And from the shadows, a figure forms, a gargantuan woman with tendrils of darkness wisping out from her skirt like tentacles. Her hair is a black cloak behind her, and her face is elegant and cruel. Lightless, joyless eyes peer down at me, and her mouth curls into a smile.
“Welcome, Farron, Autumn blood. Are you ready to join your family?”
Sira, Queen of the Below, laughs, the sound blowing her shadows away and revealing a sight that staggers me.
I fall to my knees, reaching out, hand grasping empty air—but there’s nothing to hold on to.
Huge, snaking briars jerk in awkward angles from all around her. Pierced on the ends of her barbs are my family. Father, Billy, Dom, Nori…hanging like puppets who have had their strings cut. On the other side, a thorn pierces through the chest plate of Ezryn’s armor. His helmet lies upside down below him, filling with blood from the dripping slice across his neck. Keldarion hangs limp beside him, impaled through the stomach. His lifeless eyes stare upward, mouth agape in a silent scream.
“Did you think you could save them all?” Sira cackles. “You couldn’t even saveher!”
A briar spears through the ground right in front of me.
Rosalina looks like a paper doll, blowing in the wind. Her face is pale, long hair waving in the breeze. But a thin streak of blood runs from her perfect lips. I follow its trail, down her chin, along her neck, over the crest of her bosom?—
To her ribs, which are splayed open by a jagged thorn.
Sira laughs. The sound assaults me on all sides, ringing between the briars, hitting me like arrows.
I throw my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. This can’t be happening, this can’t, this can’t?—
I rock back and forth in the mud, the sickening smell of wilted roses assaulting me along with Sira’s relentless laughter. I open my eyes, begging to be anywhere but here, but only see Rosalina’s dangling corpse before me, hanging like wet laundry.
