Bright pink floods Rosalina’s cheeks, and she gives an awkward laugh. “I shouldn’t keep you.”
Reluctantly, I drop my hands from her face and turn back to the mirror. “You’re not. I’m the one delaying. It seems I cannot get my feet to work.”
“You’re nervous?” she asks.
“Terrified,” I admit softly.
She reaches out and laces her fingers through mine. “Are you afraid to see your people?”
“No. I’m sure I will be welcomed warmly, despite my extended absence. There’s even a member of Keep Hammergarden’s staff I’m looking forward to reuniting with. It’s—”
“Your father.”
“How did you know?”
She blinks up at me. “You mentioned he was sick. It’s hard to see our loved ones like that.”
Especially when I know it was my actions that made him so. A numbness tingles through my chest as I fight away the memory. “My father, Thalionor, is serving as steward over Spring. I call him sick, but it’s not exactly that. Physically, he’s still sound. After my mother died, he fell into a daze. It was as if he was the same person on the outside, but on the inside, he was … empty.”
Rosalina squeezes my hand. “Your mother’s passing was hard on everyone in your family.”
A small crack emerges among the numbness in my chest, words trapped within waiting to get out. “My father, my brother Kairyn, and I… We were all so hard all the time. That’s the way it is in Spring, in the royal family. You must be the foundation for your people to grow upon. But our mother was this filament of softness that held us together. Like the moss that grows over the rock. She was beloved as a High Princess, the fated mate of my father. She taught me everything I know of honor, of duty to our realm. For Kairyn, she was the only person he ever truly felt at home with.”
“I’m so sorry, Ezryn,” Rosalina whispers, leaning her head against my shoulder.
The pearlescent colors of the mirror swim before my eyes. “My father was a brilliant man before her passing. Though my mother was High Princess, Father often went abroad, directly serving the villages away from our capital. The people adored him. Still do, despite his condition. He was a great warrior, valiant and bold. Honor to the realm is everything to him.”
“How was—is—he as a father?” Rosalina asks tentatively.
I sigh. “Strict. He demanded a lot of Kairyn and me. He wanted us to be great.” I shake my head. “It was easier for me to follow in his example. But Kairyn was never good at following instructions or trusting in the process of something. It created tension between him and Father.”
“Is that why you’re afraid to see your father?” she asks. “Because he was so stern?”
“No,” I say slowly. “I was never afraid of him.” My mind reels trying to find the truth, trying to put this pain into words. “When I visit my father now, I see everything I’m missing. Not only who he used to be. But he’s the last remaining tie to my mother. I wish more than anything I could be the ruler she was.” I close my eyes, voice hoarse. “My father was her mate. Watching who he was vanish before my eyes … It feels like watching her die all over again.”
Rosalina wraps her arms around my waist and hugs me so tightly, my armor jingles. “Tell me something about her,” she whispers.
I sigh and hold her tight. “She wore a starlight silver helm. I never saw her face, but in my mind, she was beautiful.”
“Of course she was,” Rose says. She blinks up at me. “And no matter what, she’s always with you, Ez. There’s a piece of her inside of you that will never leave.”
“I suppose that’s why I must go to Spring and make sure the realm she left me is in good order,” I say.
“Wait. Before you go—”
My heart lurches. Ask me to stay.
But instead, she scrunches up her face and says: “Anon caria mirel baelorin. Yavanthy caeotin. Darisfeli em onore. Ezryn.”
The words are choppy, labored. But I’d know them anywhere.
“That is a language of Spring,” I tell her.
She places her palm flat on my chest plate and stares at her spread fingers. “I know. You said that to me down in Cryptgarden.”
“You remembered?”
She reaches up to caress my helm. Her brown eyes shine as she holds my gaze. “The mountains told me your name. The forest sang your song. My heart has been searching for you since the first dawn.”
Of course, the first thing Rosalina would do upon hearing a new language is find a way to translate it. I can picture her in the library, poring over a dictionary. My chest tenses. Those were words I meant to keep secret …
“My heart searches for you, too, Ez,” she whispers. “Let me find you.”
As much as I wish I could sweep her into my arms and tell her again and again and again that I’m right here, the mirror beckons me forward. “I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” Rose says and lets me go. “I promise.”
With her promise giving me the strength I need, I take one step forward and enter Spring.
6
Caspian
My palm smacks against the back of the wooden armoire, and an annoyed growl sounds in my throat. Not here either. I’ve covered the floor with Rosalina’s dresses, emptied every desk drawer. And the fae woman is still sleeping peacefully in her bed. She must be a deep sleeper.
Or my presence soothes her. The thought disturbs me.
I limp to her bedside table, ignoring the biting pain shooting up my leg. You don’t lose the Autumn Realm without a little retribution. The drawer is brimming with paper, pens, and a half-eaten cookie. But not my book.
“Where exactly did you hide it, Flower?” Her dark hair is loose, pieces curling around her face, with full lips slightly parted. She’s kicked her blankets low, and it’s so easy to make out the delectable curves of her body through the thin fabric.
Clutching my hands into fists to resist touching her, I proceed to the other side of the room. Of course, she could have hidden it anywhere in Castletree, but there’s this peculiar feeling that it’s here somewhere.
I sense the exact moment she wakes up, like a shock through my chest. But I don’t turn, busying myself in a drawer I’ve already checked. I pretend not to hear her stupidly loud breath or feel her taking control of my thorns and snaking them around my ankles. The floor creaks. Stars be damned, does she actually think she’s being sneaky?
The thorns yank me off my feet, and I slam to the ground. Rosalina straddles me, pinning me and pressing an elongated thorn to my neck.
“What are you doing here, Caspian?” she snarls, her face poised in an adorable grimace.
“I could ask you the same question.” I smirk. “If I’d thought this was what you were after, I’d have bargained for a lot more than a kiss.” My eyes snap to the thin thorn bracelet around my wrist, and the two matching ones around hers.