My heart aches for Farron, but I need to respect his wishes and give him the space to sort out his thoughts. As much as I’d like to avoid Keldarion, there are things more important than my pride.
First, I check the Winter Wing, which has become an ice rink. I navigate by clinging to the banisters or hanging off the thorns. Hey, they might as well be useful for something.
Where are you?
And then I feel it: a glittering string bursting from my chest, urging me forward.
The mate bond.
It takes me to the door of High Tower. Carefully, I tug on the handle. Unlocked.
The stairway is a patchwork of thorns. Caspian created them, and the princes say they’re sucking the life from Castletree. That’s part of the reason Kel sent me away. Caspian wants you. I don’t buy it. He’s tormented me, sure, but with the intention to antagonize the princes. What would the Prince of the Below want with me?
I pause at the entrance to the chamber, and Kel turns to face me. He’s dressed now, wearing a fitted black tunic. His white snowflake necklace glimmers on his chest.
“You might as well come in,” he says.
Sunlight blazes through the stained-glass panes, making the chamber appear painted by an artist’s brush in vivid red, blue, orange, and green hues. Yet, the briars grow thicker here than anywhere else in the castle. They ensnare my gown, carpet the floor, and stretch up toward the ceiling as if they are the very bones of Castletree.
The tiled floor, barely visible beneath the thorns, depicts a breathtaking mural of a starfall. Amid the tiles, four roses flourish from a small patch of fertile earth. One for each of the princes: a rose of pink, turquoise, orange, and blue.
Their wilted petals are scattered on the floor.
“I just want to talk.” I walk up beside Keldarion.
“Do you think it’s me?” he asks. “Freezing the Autumn Realm?”
Kel’s magic has spread across Castletree. If it’s that wild here, then why not across the realms?
“No,” I say after a breath. “I don’t.”
He looks down at me, face filled with weariness. “Well, thank you for that.”
Something catches my gaze at the back of the room, a small piece of stained-glass peeking out from the thorns. I walk toward it, then quietly mutter under my breath, “Would you mind moving a little so I can see the picture, please?”
The thorns obey and slither down to reveal a stained-glass picture.
Kel looks around wildly, as if looking for someone. But Caspian’s not here. I study the picture. It’s the sigil of a rose about to bloom—the same shape as the emblem on Castletree’s door. The same emblem as my necklace. I pull it out of my shirt and study it.
“That’s how you contacted Ezryn?”
“Yes,” I say, studying the moonstone. “It belonged to my mother.”
“I recognized the sigil on your father’s neck when he first came to the castle. The symbol of the Queen who abandoned us.” Kel’s rough hands touch the necklace, then my hand. “I intended to question him. But when you came…”
“You’d rather have had me as your prisoner,” I say dryly. I don’t dare move, not with his rough fingers still grazing my palm. “My mother was an anthropologist. Perhaps the Queen lost it in the human world.”
He quirks his head, but he’s not looking at the necklace anymore. His blue fire gaze is entirely on me. Flushing, I continue, “My father and I think it could be why one of the fae took my mother. Maybe they thought she stole it from the Queen.”
“The Queen hasn’t been seen in five hundred years,” Kel says slowly. “Her name is still revered, and there are disciples who worship her, but I can’t imagine any so radical as to steal a human woman.”
“It’s only a theory.” My words have lost all sound, turning into nothing but breath as Kel’s hand slowly drops the necklace and glides past the planes of my chest, over my neck, and cups the side of my face.
I draw nearer to him, but my gaze catches on his rose in the ground. So wilted, ice-blue petals littering the dirt below. I kneel beside it.
“Shouldn’t it look better?” I chance a look up at him. The hard expression returns to his face. “I mean, the Enchantress said to break the curse you have to find your mate, and that’s… that’s me.”
Whether he likes it or not.
“I guess,” I continue, “we can assume the curse isn’t broken because you’re still a wolf at night. And when I touch you, it turns you fae… But I suppose that’s just holding off the curse for a bit. I really need to make some notes with Farron on all this.”
“The curse is not broken because we have not completed our mate bond,” Keldarion says.
“Oh, like, we have to have sex?” I stand and say bluntly.
He stares at me.
I stare at him.
Then I crumble over, hiding my burning face in my hands. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Completing the mate bond is more than sex, Rosalina. It’s the union of two souls into one. The sharing of every moment, every joy, every pain, every breath. It’s the ultimate expression of love, a bond that transcends time and space, a connection that no other can understand.” His eyes blaze with an intensity that takes my breath away. He’s not speaking, but it’s like I can hear his words in my mind, words I so desperately wish he’d say: I want that bond with you more than anything.
Hearing him speak about this connection, it’s like my whole body aches for him. I stare deeply into his ice-blue eyes. Let me show you all the ways I could love you.
A muscle feathers in his jaw, and he swallows a growl. Almost like… almost like he heard me.
Then he turns away. “It’s clear that the others cannot stand to exist without you. I will no longer ignore your wishes. You may continue to live and work in Castletree and help them find their mates. But do not believe that because you are now aware of our bond, it will change anything between us.”
I want to stab his stupid eyes out. “When did you know, Kel? When did you know I was your mate?”
He stills a hand on a thorn. “The moment you stepped into Castletree.”
I remember him looking down at me, such fury in his features. I shake my head at the realization of it all. “You knew I was your mate, and you kept me in the dungeon?”
He growls and paces, the flicker of his wolf wanting to break out. “I did not want to keep you at all.”
“Why not? Didn’t you want to break the curse?”
“If you must know, I thought when I first met you that merely having you near might be enough. The Enchantress mentioned love and accepting our mate bond, but I was willing to try regardless.” He shakes his head. “As I got to know you, it became clear that nothing in this world could persuade me to complete my mate bond with you.”
His words are arrows, sharp and piercing, tearing at the fragile hope that has been growing within me. I try to mask my pain, but my eyes betray me, brimming with unshed tears. “Because I’m a human?”
He shakes his head and gestures to all of me. “It’s nothing so defined as that.”
I try to push my pride aside, the desires of my own stupid heart. “But can’t you see? It’s so much bigger than you and me. We could… we could try to break your curse right now. You could get your full magic back and help heal Castletree. Maybe even stop the frost in Autumn—”
He gives a scoff, as if the fate of Castletree and the realms are meaningless to him.
I grit my teeth, holding back the urge to hit him in his big, broad, stupid chest. “I know I’m not exactly what you wanted. But you care about me, at least a little. You protect me and feed me, and you sent me home so I’d be safe. I know that. Would it really be such a hardship to just spend one night with me?”