The Green Flame.
I grab Dayton’s tunic and pull it up, burrowing my gaze into the skin of Dayton’s stomach, right where the arrow wound was. The one that killed him. I have to make myself think the words.Killed him. Because I can’t forget and pretend that him standing here is anything less than otherworldly. But no wound materializes.
“I’m fine,” Dayton says.
My hands find the sides of his face, Spring’s blessing rising through me, pouring into him. I reach for the flow of his body, desperate to feel that he’s still here?—
“Stop it. I’m fine.” Dayton tears out of my grip and steps away. Another pained sound escapes him. “I’mfine. Go to him, please, please, Ez. Farron…he’s the one who needs you.”
I stare at him for a few moments longer. Then I turn to Farron. A thousand shards of broken glass all seem to pierce my chest at once. This grief…this is my own. Because Billy looks like such a little thing, just a young boy who should be riding horses and chasing girls and looking forward to all the life he has to live.
And Farron should not have to grieve another loved one. Not Farron. Not he who has always been the kindest, the cleverest, the most caring of us beasts.
Staggering behind him, I fall to my knees, then wrap my arms around Farron, squeezing him so tight, as if I could leach the pain from him and bear it myself. I can’t help Billy. I can’t bring Farron’s mother back. But I can hold him and let his grief crash upon me, even if I can’t do anything else.
Farron crumples against me, clutching at my forearms. I squeeze him tighter. “What was any of it for?” he gasps. “What was it for?”
I don’t have the heart to tell him for nothing. Because I don’t have the heart to tell myself that. The death, the pain, the homes we’ve lost, the families torn apart… This warhasto be for something.
Doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
A crack sounds in the stone nearby, and golden briars erupt through the ground. Rosalina steps out of them. She wears pitch-black traveling clothes and carries a leather satchel, and even shrouded in sorrow, she is as radiant as the sun.
My breath staggers looking at her. How many sleepless nights did I spend, dreaming of seeing her once more? Worrying if she was okay, what horrors she had to endure down here in the dark, alone? But as she takes in the scene, her spine stays rigid.
She is stronger than Spring steel.
The horror in her eyes shifts to concern as she clutches her chest and looks at Dayton. Does she feel it? Farron’s freedom from the Green Flame?
Does she fear what I fear?
She goes to him, touching him to make sure he’s real, just as I did, then glides toward Farron and I, kneeling at our side.
I want to hold her, to clutch her to me and never let go. The strength of her love caresses me as she holds my gaze.
But grief swallows us all.
I release Farron, allowing Rosalina to take him in her arms. They embrace, become one entity.
Another crack sounds, and purple briars split open the nearby cobblestones. Kel and Caspian step out, followed by a small goblin woman.
I stand, drawing my hammer from the token.
“Easy now,” Caspian says and puts a hand in front of the goblin. “This is Heidigog. She’s with us.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about,” I growl.
“He’s himself,” Kel says.
I take Caspian in, the clever gaze, the catlike grace to his movements, the way he hovers right at Kel’s side. Heishimself.
My hammer disappears. I reach out, grab Caspian around the shoulders, and hug him. There’s too much pain in our world to let a moment of goodness pass by.
Caspian makes a purring sound in the back of his throat. “Missed you too, Metal Man.”
“How did you find us?”
