“Find your anchor, a calm in the storming waves around you.”
I inhale deeply, tasting salt on my tongue, feeling the sand beneath my feet and the heat of his touch like a blazing sun.
“That’s my girl,” Dayton breathes, releasing his hold and stepping back.
Warmth blooms through me, and I narrow that focus to the goblin target and release.
The arrow whizzes, striking the target and exploding in a spray of water.
A spray of water?
“W-what?” Dayton calls.
I can’t even celebrate finally hitting the target because all I can do is stare at the wet sand beneath the utterly destroyed goblin target. There’s a hole through its belly, straw sticking out at strange angles.
Both Ezryn and Farron jump up. “Did you use water magic?” Ezryn asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Not just any water,” Farron says, leaning in front of the target. “Seawater.”
Shells and seaweed cover the sand. But there’s no arrow to be seen.
“That wasn’t me,” Dayton says.
“Water magic is fairly common for fae in the Summer and Winter realms but …” Farron looks up. “You completely changed the arrow into water. Rosie, not even Kel and Day can do that.”
“I … changed it?” A knot of unease settles in my stomach. I shouldn’t be capable of doing that. Many fae can control the elements, but to change things completely …
As far as I know, there’s only one fae who’s ever been able to do that.
“Add that to your research notes,” Ezryn says. “Thorns, flames, and now this.”
I stare down at my palms, unsure how I accomplished it.
“At this point, we should realize nothing about our Rose is expected.” My heart sings at the deep, gravelly voice, and I look up to see Keldarion leaning in the doorway.
“Keldarion,” Ezryn says, inclining his head.
“I’ll be departing for Winter now. My wolf will make good time overnight.” His eyes only briefly pass over mine before he turns. “The staff will have dinner prepared for you.”
Before I would have run after him. I would have followed that ache in my heart.
But I stay put.
If Keldarion can ignore our mate bond, then so can I.
No matter how much it hurts.
Besides, I have other important things to worry about. I look back down at my hands, Fire, water, thorns … What else is locked inside of me?
5
Ezryn
One step.
The Spring Realm is one step away. That’s all I have to take in order to be back in the place of my birth.
My birthplace, but not my home, I think curiously. When did my mind shift so that the crumbling walls of Castletree and the dark, twisting vines of the Briar were more home than my own realm?
I stand in the entrance hall before the enchanted mirror, its surface glistening like nectar. All I need to do is step through it and think of Florendel, the capital of Spring, and there I shall arrive.
I’ve thought about going through this mirror every day since I arrived home from the Autumn Realm, thought about it every time no tidings came from Spring. But I told myself I was needed here. When the other princes took leave to visit their realms, I had offered to stay behind to watch over the castle. To watch over Rosalina. Spring has waited a long time for my return; a few weeks would be nothing in the span of my absence until now.
But I have been as poor a protector of Castletree as I have been a High Ruler.
Though Farron and Keldarion have been gone much of the six weeks—with Farron returning for short stints to visit Rosalina—Dayton has only been gone for the last two. Something has shifted in our dynamic, a sort of solidarity between Dayton and me. Though Keldarion may still remain cursed, at least he knows his path to freedom. But Dayton and I …
How does one hold on to hope when it has waned to but a sliver of moonlight?
I exhale roughly, the sound echoing in my ears. The stone beneath my feet should be worn into trenches by how long I’ve paced before this mirror. One step. Why can’t I take it?
Perhaps it’s for the same reason I couldn’t stay in Castletree with Rosalina when the other princes left. Castles and keeps cannot contain what I’ve become.
Rosalina deserves a man of honor.
Not the Black Beast of the Briar.
That’s what they scream, the goblins. The last name on their lips as my wolf’s jaws tear out their throats, as their skulls crush beneath my paws. I tell everyone I patrol the Briar for their safety. But that’s not the only reason.
The rage inside of me needs to come out. Better the goblins than someone I love.
I square my shoulders and face the mirror. One step. One step—
“Another silent getaway, I see.”
Her voice drifts into the entrance hall, and I turn, my armor clattering with the movement.
She’s leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
“Rosalina,” I breathe.
“Not running off to the Briar this time. Home to the Spring Realm, then?”
There’s a sharpness to her tone. She’s … angry with me.
In the heat of the moment in the library, it was easy to pretend everything was fine, that I hadn’t left her alone, or that I wasn’t leaving again. But with me on the edge of another realm, there’s no hiding from the truth.
“Yes. That’s the plan anyway,” I say lowly.
She raises her chin in the air, eyes averted. “Well, you’ve been staring at that mirror for half an hour. You’re usually so eager to leave.”
No wonder she’s Keldarion’s mate. In this moment, she could rival him in iciness. Who am I to blame her?
I owe her an apology for leaving her with Castletree in this state. For leaving her at all.
What do I say? That I never feel fear around the goblins or during the long, lonely nights, but she frightens me beyond measure? That each smile or touch she offers me is like a lightning strike, rending me to my core? And more than all of these things, I know it is only a matter of time before my determination breaks, and I will be hopelessly lost to her?
“Rosalina,” I manage, “I’m sorry.”
She sighs and walks over to me. Her every movement, from the sway of her hips to the exasperated pout, sends my heart pounding. “It’s okay. I know the goblins are wonderful company. Next time, I’m going to paint myself green and sharpen my teeth, so you’ll want to hang out with me.” She makes a ridiculous attempt at a scary face and holds her hands up like claws.
A low laugh escapes me and I reach forward, tucking a strand of hair behind her pointed ear. “They certainly don’t have your sense of humor.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, pushing herself closer to me. “I just missed you.”
Despite my better judgment, I place my hands on either side of her face, lightly stroking her cheeks with my thumbs. “It’s easier this way.”
“Tell my heart that.”
The honesty of her words tears through me. What would she say if I offered every piece of myself to her? Would she have me? Would she break me?
One step to the Spring Realm. One question asked of Rosalina. I have the strength to do neither.