He stares to the north, eyes faraway. “To find Wrenley. She’s out there somewhere. I don’t understand what…what this means,” he says, scratching at his heart, “but I need her to know she’s not alone.”
I think of that wildcat of a girl, moving through life like she’s cornered, her back always against a wall. “What will you do when you find her?”
Kairyn’s gaze turns skyward, through the trees, up toward Mount Lumidor. “I will return to Queen’s Reach Monastery and serve out the remainder of my penance until my high prince deems me worthy.”
A breeze rustles between us, carrying the smell of sweet water from nearby Sylvanita Lake. What does the grove look like now? It was once a place of immense beauty, but I drained the life from the earth. Has it regrown? Can a seed still manage to bloom even there?
Perhaps Kairyn and I will walk among the boughs of the willow trees once more. But for now, I rest my hands on the side of my helm and pull it off. Tucking it under my arm, I look at my brother with my own eyes. “Let us agree that you and I are finished doling out sentences for each other.”
A muscle trembles in Kairyn’s cheek. “Then perhaps, after I find Wrenley, I will continue to wander until I discover a new place to call home.”
I touch his arm. “Home isn’t always a location, Kairyn. It’s a heart, singing the same song as yours.”
Kairyn reaches over his shoulder, unstrapping the sheath at his back. He holds it out before me. I know it better than I know my own hands, for I have claimed more lives than I can count with it. Mother’s sword. Kairyn’s been holding on to it since the battle in Keep Wolfhelm.
“This is yours by birthright,” he mumbles.
I take it. Draw the sword. Examine the beauty of its craftsmanship in the starlight. If I close my eyes, it’s as if my mother’s wielding it with me.
Then I sheathe it once more and hand it to him. “Keep it.” I touch the small rectangular token at my neck, carved with cherry blossoms. “Now we both have something of Mother’s.”
Kairyn hesitates, then straps the sword on his back once more. He clasps his hand over mine. The words sound strangledfrom his throat. “Be well, big brother. May we meet again in a different world.”
With that, my brother turns and strides into the forest, cape snapping behind him.
I stand there, watching him until he is nothing but another shadow among the trees. I think of the ballad I sang at the coronation. Of the final line.
Naeven tiras elarion sai liraen em variel.
Let the weary walk in light and find the song of hope.
31
Rosalina
My heart hammers against my chest so loudly, I swear all ofCryptgarden below me can hear. Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I continue tiptoeing the spiraling path. It winds along the mountain that Caspian’s palace, the Gem, is built upon.
Ahead of me walks Sira, her dark cloak melding into the shadows that seem to follow her everywhere.
When I heard she’d left the Tower of Nether Reach, I tailed her through Cryptgarden and all the way up here. With my wits returned, it’s time for me to do what I came here for. No one is infallible, and nothing is impossible. I will find a way to end this threat once and for all.
The path arcs onto a lookout point that gazes over the gem-crusted city of Cryptgarden. Dull purple light shimmers over the buildings and glints off Sira’s tower in the distance. Sira seems to make a show of gazing over her dominion, then glances back the way she came.
I press myself against the side of the mountain and wrap my cloak around me. It’s one of the items I found in the bag the princes gave me as I left. Kel must have packed this cloak; it’s made of the thick, weather-resistant fabric worn bythe Tundrafolk. On its outside, it appears nothing more than mottled gray and black, but when worn, it blends into its surroundings. Safely covered, I appear as an outcrop of the mountain.
As helpful as my wedding gifts are, the most wonderful thing about them is it feels as if there’s a little bit of my loves with me. I can hold Aeneas, my lion plushie, and for a moment feel like I’m in my bed back at Castletree with Dayton. When I open the tin of healing balm, I remember what it was like to watch Ezryn prepare a poultice. Reading the handwriting in Farron’s book of secrets, it’s as if he’s whispering in my ear, cheering me on. And wrapped in this cloak, I am back under the starlit sky in Winter, staring at my new husband. Absently, I twist the wedding ring on my left hand, willing it to give me strength. I’m close now.
It wasn’t long after my thralldom broke that I remembered Farron’s instructions about the book he’d packed. Under firelight, the innocent words fade away, becoming his handwritten notes, everything the princes knew about the Below. Farron had taken considerable care writing about the spiraling path up the mountainside, the lookout point, and the notch hidden among the rocks that opens a secret door.
That’s where we’re going now. To the heart of the mountain, where a pool awaits, and within that pool, the god threatening to take over my home.
Even my thrall-muddled observations have helped this plan. The notes I scrawled were chaotic, but there was truth to be gleaned among the passages. Like how Sira takes this path nearly every day.
A fearful wave of nausea passes over me, thinking of what will happen if Sira discovers me, breaking into her most sacred place. But I can’t spend all my time flitting around, pretending to be under Caspian’s spell. I need answers.
Farron and Caspian shattered the crystals surrounding the Baron’s pool. That chain reaction surged throughout the Below, all the way to my mother’s prison. Though it destroyed her cell, a bargain still traps her in the Below. We have hindered Sira’s plan to loose the Baron on our home, but we haven’t stopped it.
It all ties here, to the pool. Each day that passes brings us closer to Sira’s full-on assault, with every perverse creation of the Below at her command. She has the rose now. We’re running out of time. I won’t shut my eyes because I’m afraid of her darkness.
