Farron’s quiet voice plays in my head: “Kel… Where is she?”
“Gone,” Kel had said. “She’d had too much. After she learned the truth of the Enchantress, she said she couldn’t stay here anymore. She wanted to return to the human world and forget the fae. I took her back where she belongs. We must honor her wish and pretend she never came into our lives.”
Another feral yell reverberates from beneath my helm, and I snatch out my sword, swiping uselessly at the briars. My pace quickens, mud squelching beneath my gait.
I can’t think of her huge brown eyes wavering. The way she said my name. The way I left her broken and deserted.
Because I trusted Keldarion.
My cape snaps in the harsh wind, and sharp thorns scrape against my armor. I push out of the thicket and stare up at Castletree. It’s been months since I’ve been home; I couldn’t stand the silence, or the dullness in Farron’s eyes, or watching Dayton self-destruct himself again and again.
Thorns crawl across every inch of the bridge as I storm toward the door, but I barely notice. I’ve been living in the Briar for so long now, they are familiar company.
But the ice cracking beneath my boots… That’s new. Looking up at the condition of the castle, I don’t feel empathy.
I feel disgust.
That selfish bastard.
I throw open the door and stride into what used to be home. It’s so dark and cold, it makes me want to bring the whole cursed place to the ground. It’s nothing less than the master of Castletree deserves.
A familiar face pokes around the corner into the entrance hall. Marigold’s eyes widen. She’s wearing her usual pink apron, but it’s stained and dirty. “Your Highness! My goodness, you’re back! It’s been months. I’ll prepare your room straight away—”
I walk past her with barely a glance. “I’m not staying.”
My heavy boots ring upon the glistening floor. A few more eyes poke around as word passes to the servants that the High Prince of Spring has returned. They all crouch back, none so brave as Marigold to approach me. I don’t blame them. I can only imagine what I look like.
A towering being of dark metal, scarred by monsters and stained with blood, with vengeance in each step.
I start up the stairs when a quiet voice breaks through the echoing silence. “Ez? Y-you’re back.”
Farron stands at the top of the landing. He’s a mess. There are dark circles under his eyes, and I swear he’s wearing the same tunic he was when I left months ago. A scraggly bit of scruff covers his jaw.
Deep within my chest, there’s a part of me that wants to grab him and pull him to me. Apologize for leaving him here in the cold alone. Tell him it’s going to be okay.
But that part is too buried beneath the scorching rage.
“Ez?” He stands in my path when I don’t answer.
I don’t even think. I shove him in the chest, causing him to stumble. I keep walking toward the Winter Wing.
“Well, well,” a voice slurs, “if it isn’t the long-lost faceless wonder.”
Dayton leans against the entrance to the Summer Wing. Like usual, he wears only a patterned wrap low on his hips and nothing else. Stars, he’s thin. At least by his standards. His chest, usually broad and bursting with muscle, seems narrow, his normally tanned skin pale and sallow. What happened to us?
But I know what happened.
And I know whose fault it is.
Ice shatters beneath the force of my boots; I am a spring gale. I am the thunder and the lightning. I am a reckoning.
Winter has taken Castletree.
It is time for Spring’s melt.
Idly, I notice Farron and Dayton following me, and behind them, two of the staff. Marigold and Astrid.
I fling open the door to Keldarion’s chambers. Despite it being day, a giant white wolf lies before me, his head down, eyes closed. If possible, it’s even more of a monstrosity than I last saw it: bright blue icicles jut out from the shoulder blades, and the ice covering the floor is marred with long claw marks. Clouds of mist form in the frigid air around its nostrils, the only sign it’s still alive.
“Keldarion,” I roar. The audience behind me, even the two High Princes, tremble.
The white wolf barely raises its head, cracking open a single glowing blue eye, then lowers its head again.
My comrade. My best friend. My brother.
My traitor.
For all else, I have turned my gaze. But not for this.
Not after what he did to her.
With the raw frenzy of a spring storm, I grab the wolf by the fur of its back and throw. The massive white beast sails through the air, breaking through the huge glass window, and lands in a heap below in the gardens.
Dayton and Farron cry out and grab my arms, but I tear loose.
Outside the window, the wolf gives a shudder, its body receding, shimmering into that of a fae man. He struggles up to his forearms and glowers at me through a curtain of white hair.
I stride over to his bed, reach underneath to retrieve the discarded Sword of the Protector, and chuck it out the broken window.
“Ezryn,” Dayton cries, “are you mad?”
“What are you doing?” Farron asks.
I turn to my brothers and hold each of their gazes. I know they can’t see my eyes, but they can feel it. The determination. The vengeance. “Kel sent her away.”
8
Dayton
He sent her away. Kel fucking sent her away.
Fury and despair mix inside of me. I can barely see straight through my ale-blurred vision, but I glimpse Ezryn. His metal body thrums with anger, shaking as if he’s about to jump out of his own skin.
He sent her away.
“So, she didn’t want to leave us?” Farron asks softly, the first whisper of hope I’ve heard in his voice in months.
“No.” Ezryn storms out the door. “Rosalina used magic to speak to me. I don’t know how. She said she’s been trying to find her way back to us.”
“Gods Below.” I tangle my hands in my hair, doubling over. Nausea roils in my gut.
“Get up.” Farron grabs me under the shoulders and the contact of his arms on my bare chest has me reeling. How long has it been since I’ve had him? My mind feels foggy. Weeks? Months? “Snap out of it, Day!”
He snatches something off a dresser, and suddenly I’m drenched in a spray of cold water. Well, that’s a shock to the system. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. “Okay, okay.”
Farron and I dart into the hall after Ez. It’s harder to get around with the huge number of new briars that have grown in the last few months. Fuck the Prince of Thorns.
Ez is almost to the main staircase, taking strong, deliberate steps. He pauses as he passes a huddled Astrid and Marigold. “Grab the master’s clothes. I will not fight a naked man.”
Farron and I exchange a look before following Ez out the main castle door to the grounds. Immediately, I’m hit with a wave of sleet and cold wind. Winter’s last attempt at the coming spring. The clouds are so dark, I almost think it’s night. But of course, it’s not. I’m a man, not a beast.
We circle Castletree. I glance at Farron, and I’m pretty sure those are tears mixed with the rainwater on his cheeks. “Ez just threw Kel out a window, and you’re smiling?”
He wipes his face with the heel of his palm and grins up at me. “Rosie didn’t leave us. She doesn’t hate us. Aren’t you happy?”
I… I don’t know what to feel. Because I honestly don’t know what I’ve been feeling these last four months. In fact, I’ve been doing everything in my power to not feel at all.
Because when Kel returned without Rosalina, and I knew I’d never see her again… That pierced something so deep inside me I thought I was going to die. And equally heartbreaking was watching Farron. For the first week he didn’t read, didn’t do anything, just stared glassy-eyed at the wall. Then he started going over everything, every moment that may have led to her leaving us. I wanted to help him. Really, I did. But when he said stuff like that, the ache in my chest started to grow.