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Everyone stayed deathly quietly. Their expressions ranged from distraught to wrathful as the threat became clear. With bated breaths, they waited for me to explain this to my son.
A moment ago, Nicu had been regarding the castle without care. Likely, he hadn’t comprehended the dark windows, hadn’t interpreted them as a threat so much as a source of excitement. Nor had he translated Briar’s absence as a problem, having not made the connection between the stronghold and its princess. He didn’t register distances and locations that way.
But now, my son’s face folded in confusion. The trauma of losing her once before claimed his features.
Fighting to stay calm, I cupped his face. “She’s merely late. I’ll get her for you.”
The skin between Nicu’s eyebrows pleated. Every moment, he was getting older, so that his gaze lanced through me and dissected the lie. My son was no fucking fool.
His chin wobbled, then he started to wheeze, which riled up his familiar. Tumble squeaked and wriggled on the boy’s shoulders.
“Shush.” I grappled my son’s face. “Nicu, shush.”
“Briar Patch. Papa, please—”
“I’ll get her. I promise, I’ll get her.” Combing through his hair and planting a swift kiss on his head, I prompted, “You need to stay here and be a hero, remember? Keep Tumble calm.”
Given this assignment, Nicu swallowed his impending tears. Hiccupping, he nodded and began stroking the ferret, easing the creature’s movements.
Then suddenly, Nicu’s face transformed. His visage tightened with resilience and protectiveness, the emotions smashing through his fragile exterior and displaying a strong will beneath. “Be the darkness, to beat the darkness,” he whispered.
Be a shadow, to see through the shadows.
By Seasons. He would outshine us all someday.
In the quad, the residents grew antsy. Their octaves rose, merging with the unrest echoing from the lower town. Revelers from here to the fest square had noticed the unlit castle, the effect working like a brushfire, the makings of chaos percolating.
Eliot fished a garrote from his lute, rancor and protectiveness straining across his face. But before the minstrel could act, I set Nicu on the ground and urged him toward Eliot. “Get my son to safety,” I bit out to our clan. “Donotlet him out of your sight.”
Without waiting for a reply, I spun and struck toward an adjoining quad. Footfalls thudded behind me, and Avalea’s voice called out, “I’m coming with you.”
“Out of the question,” I snarled whilst charging across the bricks.
“She’s my daughter,” the queen hissed, the words stabbing my back like needles.
“She’s our princess,” Posy insisted.
“She’s my fucking best friend,” Eliot gritted.
“And Nicu is your priority,” I snapped, charging back around to face them. “There’s no one else I trust.”
Eliot smashed his lips together but wrapped a bulky arm around Nicu’s chest, securing him there. Cadence flared her nostrils, and Posy and Vale held back protests. The minstrel and Cadence had risked themselves to remain at Briar’s side during her banishment. Posy and Vale had lost the chance to help numerous times. They wanted to brave whatever was inside the castle for Briar’s sake, yet they also read my ferocious expression. My son came first, Briar would agree, and I would move faster without an entourage.
The queen was a different matter, storming forward and snapping, “I will not leave my child in there. You are a force of nature, but you’re still one person. You need—”
“I will go with him,” a baritone voice interrupted, the source of which stepped from the gloom in a froth of charcoal fur.
Jeryn of Winter didn’t smash through the murk so much as slice through it, with his features honed enough to grate steel. The prince’s dark blue mane was affixed to his nape, his skyscraping frame swallowed the backdrop, and his placid features blunted the scene like the strangest fucking palate cleanser.
He glanced at the castle as though inspecting it through a lens. “It’s the ashes of Summer tinder,” he said. “That’s what caused the blackout.”
“How the hell did you figure that out?” Cadence interrupted.
“A flame’s glare changes when traces of Summer ash are present.” The prince clicked his head to a nearby sconce. “Though it’s barely perceivable unless you know what to look for.”
Aire reached my side, his inflection dubious. “Are you certain?”
I couldn’t say which did it more. The soldier forgetting to address the prince by title or the fact that he questioned the Royal’s theory to begin with.
