Page 47
Her laugh turns sinister. Then why did the king secure two more bloodshade blossoms?
I glance at Riven, who’s waiting patiently beside me, his face carefully blank.
Whatever the reason, I can’t dwell on it—not yet.
“We must continue to chant until Rosemarie arrives,” I tell Riven, grateful for Death’s permission to continue.
I begin the chant, cuing him to recite the spell with me.
By the sixth time, the colors of the world around us start to fade.
While healing magic makes the world around me brighter, more vivid, death magic does the complete opposite. It drains the world of all its beauty and replaces it with infinite shades of gray and multitudes of blacks.
“What’s happening?” Riven asks, palm hot against mine.
“She’s coming,” I say softly. Then, “Rosemarie? Are you here?”
“I’m here,” says a feminine voice, steely and wise with age.
A female steps into focus from seemingly nowhere. Her face is flawless, not a sign of her age showing on her skin, and she’s tall with a willowy frame and long, gray hair in loose waves around her shoulders. A flower crown sits atop her head, nestled behind two arched ears, and her ankle-length dress exposes bare feet. Her toes wiggle against the snow as she stretches her arms high above her and then lets them fall limply at her sides.
“Godrick?” She blinks several times, then frowns. “No, you’re not my son.” She takes a step closer and inhales. “You smell like him, though. Blood of my blood. Kin of my kin.”
“I’m your grandson,” he says, his breathless tone belying his true emotion. He’s wonderstruck. “Riven.”
“I should’ve known.” Her eyes narrow. “You look so much like him. Tall, broad-shouldered, so handsome you’ve likely become an arrogant little shit.”
I snort, and Riven cuts me a glare. To her, he says, “I’m nothing like my father.”
Rosemarie tuts. “Whether you like it or not, we all turn out a little bit like our parents, even if we promised ourselves we wouldn’t. It’s which parts of our parents we claim that truly matter.” Her gaze softens as she looks at her grandson. “Which parts do you claim, Riven?”
His jaw clenches. “None.”
“His stubbornness, then.” She rolls her eyes. “So typically male.”
He sighs. “Grandmother, please, I need your help. There’s a blight ravaging the Fae Isles.”
“And?” She says the word so flippantly, so carelessly. Riven flinches.
“And… I don’t know what to do. Our magic is fading, and soon our people will suffer.”
“‘Our people,’” she repeats, voice dangerously low. “As the First Queen of Faerie, I made sure we followed in the Sovereign Sisters’ footsteps. We had a kingdom built on the promise of freedom. It was a place of reprieve to those who lost everything to the countless wars and bloodshed between creatures and mortals across Norica.”
“Faerie the Free,” I whisper. “My sister witches used to tell the witchlings fables of such a land.”
“It wasn’t a fable, my sweet. It was my reality for a long while,” she says. “However, as the years passed without a visit from the Sovereign Sisters, rumors spread that my benevolent rule, welcoming to outsiders, had angered them and kept them away. A council was formed, and they brought forth additional rumors of planned violence against the Crown and displeasure among faekind, demanding I close our borders and reject anyone seeking asylum so that I focus on our own people first and foremost in the hopes the Sovereign Sisters would return.” She shakes her head. “It didn’t feel right, not in my heart or soul, but there were firm plans showing a coup was likely. If I didn’t start playing their game, they’d take everything the Sovereign Sisters had given me, and then where would Faerie be? So I did. Mostly. I made them an official council of lords and ladies from throughout the kingdom, and I took their feedback and suggestions seriously. However, when they demanded I marry Edric, I refused.
“Nothing could convince me to marry such a vile male. He was the loudest on the council, spewing rhetoric that targeted anyone not of pure fae blood. He had this… plan for the future of Faerie should he become my king—banishing or enslaving those he deemed unworthy, stripping away everything I had built to protect all creatures. The hatred in his heart toward other creatures was as clear as a selkie’s pool, and it burned as bright as a midsummer bonfire.”
“What changed?” Riven asks, brow pinched.
“Edric discovered my relationship with my bodyguard and threatened to kill Archer unless I married him.” She folds her arms across her chest. “I should have obeyed when the wind urged me to run, when the rain begged me to get Archer as far away from Faerie as I could, when the lightning illuminated just how unsafe I was in my kingdom. But I couldn’t abandon the Sovereign Sisters or my people, so I married Edric. I hadn’t known it would grant him access and control over the magic of Faerie. Or that it would be the end of me.”
My skin is fever hot as I maintain the connection between us and Rosemarie. I’ve never had to use so much power when summoning the dead, and I fear Riven’s impulsivity to join the summons is to blame.
Magic slowly eeks out of me and into the runes charging our cage, but it is pulsing with overuse.
Enough, enough, enough.
