No, no, this isn’t good. There has to be a way to stop all this. Has to be something that can get me out of here. “That’s it, then? You didn’t grow a flower with nice magic at all?” I say in as snarky a tone as I can manage. “What about the yellow flower?”
The Nightingale plucks it from the bouquet and laughs. “Oh, this is as far from nice as you can get. It’s not used for a quick puff of pollen or in a potion. You grind the petals for this one, you see. Put it in food or tea. Can’t even taste it. And slowly, bit by bit, your mind weakens. Your muscles, too. Turns you feeble. You think you’re getting sick, but truly you’re becoming … better.” A crazed gleam flashes in your eye. “It can turn a simple rat into a monstrous beast of vine and teeth. Or a fae into a … Well, we’re not sure yet. But we’ll see soon enough.”
“You’re the monster,” I spit.
“So Mother likes to tell me.”
Fear sends my whole body shaking. “Where are the princes?”
She sets down the vase. “Alive, if that’s what you’re so concerned about. I’ve left Ezryn to wander and die in whatever shameful way he sees fit, an idiotic requirement of his brother.”
“Kairyn is a fucking traitor!” I spit.
She whirls to me, glaring. The briars tighten, thorns pricking into my flesh. “And he’s the only reason that mate of yours is still alive. You should thank him. If it were up to me, the former High Prince of Spring would be dead.”
I match her glare, refusing to show my pain. She sighs and releases the hold slightly. “The High Princes of Summer and Winter are being held in Keep Hammergarden. Or are you actually asking about my brother? Wouldn’t that be interesting if you were? In which case, yes, he’s alive. Mostly.”
Panic rears through me and my mind screams, Caspian! Caspian? But there’s nothing. “Where is he?”
“He was a very bad boy,” she purrs. “Letting all those princes and you escape, lying to Mother.”
“He saved your stupid life, and he took the blame for that rat monster you set free.”
“Then he’s forgotten every lesson he taught me about surviving in the Below,” she says. “It’s your fault. You’re making my brother soft.”
“Like I have any influence over the Prince of Thorns.”
“You really have no idea, do you?” Her gaze narrows to slits resembling a cat’s. She doesn’t look much like Caspian, but her mannerisms, the tilt of her head, even the cadence of her speech are eerily similar. “Well, he’s being punished. Don’t worry. Painful as it is, he’s used to it.”
Horrors pass through my mind at what Sira could be inflicting on him in the Below. But she wouldn’t kill him, would she? Not her own son.
“Mother is very interested in you, Lady of Castletree. My brother made me promise to keep all your secrets from Mother, but who knows? Maybe I’ll tell her. He left me without my Dreadknights after all. Though I am curious—do you know why you can create the thorns?”
I stare at her. The way she worded it, like she knows, and I don’t understand at all. Caspian knows, too. His words from his birthday party when I questioned him on the shared power come back to me: ‘Gift or legacy, the magic is the same, wouldn’t you agree?’ He’d flashed a golden bracelet inlaid with roses. “How can you control the briars?”
She tilts her head. “The same reason as you.”
Her thorns fall away, and I rub at my arms, scratched up and down. “What do you want with me?”
“Kairyn said you wore a moonstone rose necklace, but all Cas retrieved from you was this.” From beneath her armor, she pulls out a golden leaf necklace, the one I was gifted from Farron’s father.
“That belongs to me,” I snarl.
She shakes her head, tucking it away. “It is pretty, even if it’s not magical. The only thing I care about is the location of the moonstone. The one that belonged to your mother.”
They’ll just try to take it from you again, Caspian had told me. He was right. Though I’m certainly not going to tell her that. Lie. I have to lie to her.
She storms closer. “You had it the night of the jubilee. Where is it now?”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have lost it if you hadn’t set a giant rat on me!” I hiss, the anger coming easily.
She straightens. “Lost it? Hmm, well, there are ways to find magical artifacts. Or it could just be a piece of junk. You’ll never know though.”
“I am mate to the High Prince of Autumn and Winter. Holding me here will—”
“Without the necklace, you’re of no further use to me,” she interrupts. “But Mother is curious about you, especially after your thorny display in the Below. And because Caspian tried so hard to hide it from her. Do you know why he’s so interested in you?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“No matter.” The Nightingale turns back to her potions. “Mother wants me to deliver you to her in the Below.”
My gaze shifts out the window over the top of Mount Lumidor to Florendel. The Nightingale thinks I’m useless without my magic. But she doesn’t know I made it to the Enchanted Vale as a human. I fought goblins and protected the princes and ran through a battlefield as a human. It’s something I’m quite well-versed at.
And this human will escape and find her princes.
“If I’m wanted in the Below, why take me here?”
She whirls. “Because I’m preparing myself to tell Mother you perished from your wounds before I could deliver you.”
“But I’m not hurt.”
Then, the Turquoise Knight stabs me with his trident.
93
Keldarion
That bastard has my fucking sword. The Sword of the Protector sits sheathed on the back of one of Kairyn’s Penta Conclave, the icy hilt gleaming in the sun. It’s strange to have despised a thing for so long, now to yearn for it with every fiber of my being. It had always been within arm’s reach, yet I never took it up.
No, Caspian had to hand it to me. Then he took my token, and servants of the Below stole my sword. Was it all part of his plan? I don’t know. Stars know where he is now.
“What more does this tyrant have to say?” Dayton growls, chained beside me. They shackled both our wrists and ankles with Spring steel, then forced a vile potion down our lips. With that, the last traces of my magic disappeared. I can’t even feel my bond with Rosalina.
But we will be reunited again. She’s strong. It will take more than the Nightingale to break her.
I turn my attention back to Dayton, following the Summer Prince’s gaze. Kairyn’s seen fit to lead us back out to the dais in the public courtyard, once again gathering the people of Florendel. Vases of large red flowers, not yet bloomed, decorate everything from the courtyard to the nearby houses.
Kairyn has also dragged out his father, Thalionor. This elderly prince, slumped in his chair, tended by acolytes, is nothing like my memories of the strong and powerful leader.
Two of Kairyn’s Penta Conclave flank him. One wields my Sword of the Protector, the other the Lance of Valor. Our necklaces are preventing the further decay of these knights.
A great crowd has gathered. They speak in hushed tones, murmuring about seeing two High Princes chained.