He stares at me.My love was too great to obey that.
“Liar,” I say.
Other voices filter in, laughter and murmurs from the crowd. They came to watch the Winter Prince humiliated. Not…whatever this is.
Keldarion shakes his head. “You can make me kneel. But you’ll never make me lie.”
His words land sharper than a blade between my ribs. Not hate but love.
Not the venom I craved. Not the fury I needed. Just that same quiet, pathetic love offered up, a gift he knows I’ll never take.
Rosalina has been a bad influence on the High Prince of Winter.
And she’s watching him now, eyes shining, like he’s every star in the damn sky.
But there are no stars in the Below.
My jaw tightens. Green flames roar to life around me, surging up from the cracks in the stone. The crowd gasps.
Rosalina flinches. “Cas, it’s alright.”
But I don’t look at her. I don’t look at anyone.
Except him.
“You should have ended me when you had the chance,” I snarl. “Because now you’ll pay for every lie you called love.”
37
Rosalina
No. No, no, no. I’d seen him, seen him there for a moment withKel’s words, tears running down his face. Cas,ourCas.
He’s in there. We’re so close.
But the more we push, the more we try to break him free, the more the Green Flame tightens its grip. The man before us is cold and cruel.
The Prince of Thorns.
Emerald flames erupt from the stones beneath his boots, coiling up his legs, around his arms, twisting through his hair. It’s not as if he’s wielding them so much as heisthem.
The light they cast is wrong. All the Cryptgarden courtiers fall silent, fear gripping even them. A few on the outskirts start to run.
But I don’t move.
Because Keldarion is still kneeling. And Caspian is staring at Kel like he wants to turn him to ash.
“Anything more to say?” Caspian lifts his hand. A whip of thorns forms, coiling with flame.
Kel doesn’t flinch. He just looks at him, soft and unafraid, which only enrages Caspian more.
Look away, Rose, he says in my mind.
He knows I won’t.
The whip snaps.
I know what comes next. Know how this ends.
