Caspian rolls his eyes, then easily restrains the wolf in shadows. He leans in close to me, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Say the bargain is fulfilled, Rosalina.”
My gaze flicks to my thorn bracelets. Without them, I can’t make my own arrows, can’t protect myself. Can’t save the princes. But what choice do I have? I can’t even use them now, trapped beneath Caspian’s shadows.
I meet the Prince of Thorns’ violet-flecked gaze. “The bargain is fulfilled.”
A jolt surges through me, and a burning sensation shoots along my arms. The bramble bracelets uncoil, then drop by my feet. A small, thin thorn falls from Caspian’s wrist.
Caspian looks to the thorns, then back up to me. “Guess you’re on your own now. Just like the last time you were here.”
Unbidden tears slide down my cheeks at the loss of the thorns.
“I thought it would be quite amusing,” Caspian runs a hand through his hair, “to bargain a kiss from Keldarion’s mate. Didn’t think she could get in too much trouble making a couple of extra briars, figuring the castle he keeps her in is already covered in them.”
“The Golden Rose,” Sira purrs. “Is that how she got the nickname? From using your magic, my son?”
“Those simple Autumn folk will turn anything into a song. Give them a rock, they’ll call it a diamond. Give them briars, they’ll call them roses.”
“Hmm, you are certainly rash. You should have informed me of your plan from the start. But you’ve always had a clever mind when it comes to bargains.” Sira snatches his wrist. “Like that perfectly wicked one you devised for the Prince of Winter.”
59
Keldarion
Caspian looks at me, and his expression is so raw, it’s like I’m back at Cryptgarden all those years ago when we first said the words of our bargain.
But those were words meant for whispered breath, not to be spoken aloud.
“A deep regret I shall suffer always,” I growl, the frosted thorn bracelet on my wrist seeming to dig into my skin.
A twisted smile spreads up Sira’s mouth. I’d always known that darkness ran in her veins, but for a while I’d hoped it had not passed to Caspian. But seeing them together, it’s a wonder I ever believed that. The same inky black hair, the depth of their violet eyes, the grace of movement.
“You should have broken the curse when you had the chance, Kel,” Caspian purrs. “Now you all belong to me, instead of just her.”
Rosalina whirls, cheeks flushed and stained. “What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t know?” Sira chirps happily, looking as pleased at this news as she did when she was about to set her shadows on Ezryn.
Of course, Rosalina doesn’t know. I have never had the courage to speak of it to anyone, not even my brothers. The shame and stupidity were too great to bear aloud.
And the answer is so clear and so complex. To free myself without Caspian’s agreement to rescind the bargain, only his death would do. Even with the High Princes’ combined power, that would be a feat. How do you kill someone with his magic? How can you bring yourself to kill someone who’s lying on your bed, body betrayed by the air of the very world he wishes to conquer?
My fists close at my side, bound by shadow. A magic he’s always loathed to use.
“What was it again, hmm?” Caspian drums his fingers on his arm. “It was so very long ago now.”
“Rescind the bargain,” I growl.
“Oh, I remember now,” he purrs. His voice takes on a dark purpose. “Let me take no other but you. If one day, my vow shall prove false and I lie with another, let them serve you in repentance until you tire of them as I did your heart. And if ever there is no love between us, let this bargain melt away like snow under rain.”
There it is, the words hovering between us. I watch as they register with my brothers.
Ezryn roars and falls to his knees, shadow shackles still tight. “Kel, how could you?”
“All the fae that showed up at the castle,” Farron says slowly. “Caspian didn’t want to send them. They were forced to come after he lay with them. It wasn’t that our magic wasn’t strong enough to send them away. It needed to be Kel.”
“It was you,” Rosalina breathes, but it’s Caspian she’s staring at. “You were Kel’s great love.”
“Call it what you want, Flower.” Caspian smirks. “It’ll bring us together before long.”
There’s no anger on Rosalina’s face, only a shocked understanding and sadness. “Let them serve you in repentance …” She echoes the bargain.
The way Caspian said it … So unlike how he’d said it all those years ago. The memory floods back to me in a rush. His hair longer, falling below his shoulders and into his eyes, which at the time were streaked with tears. When no words I said would convince him how I felt, would convince him he was enough.
“Then prove it, Kel. Prove it to me,” he had said.
So, I’d spoken different words instead. “Then let us make a bargain.”
And for the first time, his eyes cleared, and he sniffed, “You would do that with me?”
The magic of fae bargains is powerful and ancient. The only thing more so is the mate bond. I was not his mate, but this I could give him.
Back then, I had no notion of Rosalina. No notion that I would ever have a mate, or that I would be cursed into needing to find one. No notion that my realm and soul would rely on her love.
Every part of me had been convinced the broken and beautiful prince loved me. And that I loved him.
“Let me take no other but you,” I had told him. “If one day, my vow shall prove false and I lie with another, let them serve you in repentance until you tire of them as I did your heart. And if ever there is no love between us, let this bargain melt away like snow under rain.”
“No one but me,” Caspian had echoed, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. As if my choice to leave everything behind and join him in the damned Below wasn’t proof in itself.
I spun him then, pushing him down to the sheets, so we were chest to chest. “Do we have a bargain, Cas?”
“Let me take no other but you,” he gasped and kissed me wildly. Kissed me as he repeated the bargain. As our clothes fell away and we made love. It was not until later that I even noticed the bracelet on my wrist, the swirling twist of frosted thorns.
Scattered moments are still etched in my memory, clearer than any painting. The dusky lavender light hitting the sapphire silver circlet that rested on his dark hair. The pearl of moisture over his full lips. His elegant fingers stroking the newly formed frosted thorn bracelet over my wrist with a quiet curiosity.
“It’s beautiful,” he’d whispered.
“As long as it encircles your wrist, you’ll know I love you.”
“Or … I love you.”
High-pitched laughter draws my memories away, and I feel raw and open as Sira’s gaze rakes over me. “Even he doesn’t know the truth of it, does he, my darling?”
Caspian raises a dark brow and smirks. “No, Mother. I never bothered to tell him.”
Dayton growls low, and Farron watches me with a mixture of pity and horror. And Ezryn has removed his gloves and is clawing at the dead briars on the ground.