Woven by Gold (Beasts of the Briar, #2)
Elizabeth Helen
1
Rosalina
It’s been four months, and the rosebush is still frozen. Winter has turned to spring, warm rain has washed away the snow, pastel flowers sprout up from the hard earth, and the rosebush is still frozen. Crystallized red petals glimmer like jewels in the dusky pink light, while shadows—long and inky—dip between the thorns, casting fingers of darkness onto the forest floor.
Fiery rage crawls through my body as I dig my nails into my palms.
I hate him. Hate him all the way to my core where the anger simmers like a wild thing. Hate him in the deepest way. The way you can only hate yourself. Because despite everything, that is what he is. A part of me, woven into my very being.
Keldarion. The High Prince of Winter.
My mate.
I hadn’t known what a mate was before I found my way into the Enchanted Vale, home of the fae. The place where I’d spent every day researching mates, trying to find a way to break the four fae princes’ curse.
A humorless laugh bubbles within me. I’d been the answer—at least part of it—all along. Kel’s mate…
I clutch at my chest, gripping the fabric of my sweater. An ever-present ache. The bond that awoke when I saved Kel’s life. I know he felt it, too. But instead of accepting me and breaking the curse, he’d forced me back here.
To the human world. To Orca Cove.
This way is closed to you forevermore. His kiss still echoes on my lips, a tingling of frost that will never melt.
The rosebush shudders, chunks of ice falling off and breaking apart on the ground. Out crawls Papa. He gives me a wide smile, dusting off broken briars and dirt.
Going through the thicket doesn’t take you to the Enchanted Vale anymore, just ten feet behind to another cluster of trees. I would know. I’ve crawled through it more times than I can count these last four months.
My father’s brown hair is mussed, and dirt streaks across his nose. “I got a good one this time, Rosie.”
“That’s nice, Papa.”
He carefully wraps a frozen rose blossom in some cloth, then tucks it in his large backpack. “Come on.” Papa casts a glance back at me. “Let’s go home.”
But Orca Cove isn’t home anymore. Home is waking to cherry blossoms floating in my room and tea with Marigold and Astrid. Home is being surrounded by books so old the pages are stiff, and the sweetest smile peering out from behind them. Home is the smell of salt and sea, and a laugh so joyful it always brings out my own. Home is the softest touch over my body, safety behind what others fear.
And home is arguing with a stupid icy bastard across a dinner table and pelting him with bread rolls, as my friends—my family—laugh with me.
I trail behind my father out of the forest, my mud-caked boots sinking in the damp soil.
Keldarion took that home from me.
And I hate him so much I think it’s going to burn me alive.
2
Rosalina
It’s springtime in Orca Cove, and everything is gray.
It’s not like that’s unusual. Heavy clouds hang overhead, covering any remnant of the rising sun. They look so full of rain they might burst.
That’s how I feel, too. Gray and void on the outside but exploding within. Like there’s something in me clawing to get out.
I can’t let it.
But it’s not only the thick clouds overhead making Orca Cove void of color; the people seem ashen, the wooden buildings dull. Like I’ve forgotten all the colors I’ve just learned how to see.
Papa and I walk down the street toward our little cottage on the outskirts of town. He vibrates with energy, a near skip in his step. He doesn’t care about the side-eyes we get at his booming voice, or the way people cross the street to avoid walking near us. I don’t care either. Not anymore.
“Are you listening to me, Rose?” Papa waves a hand in front of my face. “First, we can grind the rose petal into the tonic from that tablet I dug up in Romania, or we can try the lullaby and dance from the children’s book. We’d need to choose a good tree. You’ve got excellent intuition. Which tree should we pick?”
I nearly laugh out loud. My intuition has been nothing but wrong.
“Papa,” I say, “I’m not skipping around a tree dancing and singing like I’m from some cursed musical.”
He narrows his bright blue eyes, then sighs. “Fine. We’ll try the tonic first.”
A pang of guilt simmers in my gut, and I hold on to his arm and lean my head on his shoulder. We walk in step. Gulls call from the harbor, and I inhale the rich smell of pine. “Let’s take the long way home past the willow tree.”
If there’s any silver lining to my gray world, it’s that for the first time in my life, I feel connected to my father. I’d spent my twenty-six years feeling nothing but resentment for him, for leaving me alone while he went on his wild quests to enter the fae realm. Now, I’m his accomplice.
After Keldarion sent me away from the Enchanted Vale and closed my only way through, I stumbled back to my first home. The home before Castletree.
I expected it to be empty. For Papa to have sold my belongings and be off on one of his adventures.
What I found instead was the physical manifestation of grief.
The cottage was a mess: a torn apart hovel littered with strange artifacts, unwashed cups of congealed coffee, and empty cans of beans. But George O’Connell was there, his usually full face gaunt, his tall form hunched over the kitchen table, hands shaking as he marked squares off a map of Briarwood Forest.
“Papa?” I whispered as I crept through the unlocked door.
His bloodshot eyes held mine. And he did something I’d never seen him do. He fell to the ground and cried.
I cried, too. For the father I left alone the same way he’d left me throughout my life. For the guilt of falling in love with a new world. For the sorrow of losing it.
The next day, all I’d wanted to do was stay huddled in bed, but Papa hadn’t let me. Now, he had proof. And he had me. “Covered in fae magic, that’s what you are,” Papa had said. “Plus, if the residents of Castletree are as good-hearted as you say, then that connection will lead us back.”
I’d been eager at first. So what if Keldarion had sent me away? He also claimed books were boring and made some sort of deal with the Prince of Thorns. He obviously wasn’t the sharpest icicle in the cavern. And once the other princes discovered I wasn’t at Castletree, they would come for me. Papa had said Keldarion sent him back to Orca Cove using the magical mirror inside Castletree. If the princes could use the mirror to connect to the human world, then it was only a matter of time before they found me.
But then the days turned to weeks, the weeks turned to months.
Keldarion didn’t change his mind. The snow melted from our little yard, the ice on the lake cracked. Winter gave way to spring, and he didn’t change his mind.
No one came for me.
I don’t cry when I think of them anymore. Not even when I think about the way Farron would raise his eyebrows, glasses too low down his nose. Or the rush of warmth through my body when Dayton trailed a hand up my back, the giddy delight in wanting so much. Or the rough-spun fabric of Ezryn’s cape that I clung to when the world seemed too big for me, or how in that moment I was grounded and sheltered and safe.
Or how I’d kissed Keldarion and known in every essence of me that I belonged to him. That he belonged to me.
“Hey, is that you, Rosalina?” A gruff voice tears me from my thoughts.
“Keep walking,” Papa says. “Don’t stop.”
We’re passing the Seagull’s Gullet Book Emporium, my old place of work. Richard, my former boss, is writing on a chalkboard sign in coarse, boxy letters. Not like the care I’d spend thinking of book puns and doodling literary characters.
“Rosalina!” Richard calls. “I left you a couple of voice messages. Thought you might want to pick up some shifts. You can even do a few of the orders. Rosalina?”