I feel the blow as if the thorn were my own hand. A bargain well-struck, I think.
As I run, two more briars sink into the earth, racing alongside me like twin sea snakes, their backs arching in and out of the ground. A couple wraiths step in front of my path. I skid to a stop, flowing my consciousness into my briar companions. They leap up, jagged edges like spears.
One strikes straight through a wraith’s eye socket, shattering the skull. But the other wraith is quicker, slicing my vine in half. A cold shiver passes through me. Physically, I’m not hurt; it’s only a phantom pain.
My lip curls back, and I whip my hands down then up, sprouting a terrible, twisting fury of thorns that consume the wraith. It falls to the ground in a tangle of briars.
I’m left face-to-face with a young fae soldier, his sword shaking in his hands. “T-the… the Below,” he stammers. More soldiers look my way.
My thorns have twisted all the way up my arms. Crap. I guess wielding the same magic as the Prince of Thorns isn’t the best look.
Come on, Rosalina. If there was ever a time for me to find my voice, this is it.
“I am not your enemy,” I call, emulating the same air of command Farron had earlier. “I am the mate of the High Prince of Autumn, and I’m here to aid him.”
I don’t retract the thorns; instead, more rise around me, and I hold each of the soldiers’ attention.
“Please,” I say. “Help me get to him.”
The first soldier steadies her shaking sword. “I stand with you, Lady of Castletree.”
The others eye her warily, then nod. I tighten my fists. “Then let’s go.”
I take off across the field, flanked by my thorns and the members of the Autumn Guard. My briars shoot out at every passing wraith, plunging through their skulls or chests. My movements are instinctual. There’s so much more to this magic. Too bad the only person who could teach me is a lying jerk from the Below.
A sudden sharp pain courses through my body, as if I’m struck by lightning. I clutch at my chest, expecting to find a wound, a spear from one of the wraiths. But there’s nothing.
Pain continues through me, and I fall to my knees in the mud. The Autumn Guard make a circle around me, and my briars rise to form a protective barrier.
The pain is so intense, I dig my fingers into the mud for purchase. What’s happening? My heart pounds so hard, it feels like it might burst.
A cry radiates through my mind. Mother!
This pain… It’s not my own. It’s his. Farron’s.
I blink through my tears. There I see him, a glimmer on the horizon, clutching Princess Niamh’s body. Dayton is a blur of gold blocking Perth Quellos.
Grief—my own, Farron’s—threatens to consume me. I’m too late.
The soldiers grunt, crying out as a wave of wraiths surround them. I dig my fingers into Autumn’s soil. The thorns around my arms shiver and thrash, new vines breaking off and spilling into the earth, burrowing deeper, growing.
“It’s not too late,” I whisper to myself. Not for Ezryn. Not for Dayton. Not for Farron. Not for Billy and Dom, and every Autumn soldier fighting to defend their home.
With a deep growl I rise, bringing my briars with me. They burst from the earth, consuming each of the wraiths surrounding us.
The Autumn Guard murmurs a collective thanks, but my gaze is set ahead. To Perth Quellos. To my mate.
“Farron,” I whisper, “I’m coming.”
83
Farron
Did it happen to me too? Did the frost creep over my body and steal my will? For I can’t move; everything in me feels cold.
Cold as my mother’s dead body in my arms.
I’m screaming. I know that, like I know that the sky is blue and I need air to breathe. But it’s a distant thing. There’s a battle: ice and cries and blood.
My mother is dead.
“Get out of here, Farron! Go!” Someone’s voice. A familiar voice. A voice I love. He wants me to leave. He thinks I’m in danger. Maybe I am. But what does it matter at this point?
My army is falling. The frost has come. And my mother is dead.
“Farron.”
There’s another voice. Ah, maybe I was wrong. I’m not overtaken by the frost; I’m simply lifeless. I know this voice, and there’s no way it would be here on the battlefield. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Farron, I’m here.”
It’s so sweet, this voice, like a small drop of sunlight over the ice inside me.
“Farron, look at me!”
I open my eyes. “Rosalina?” Something cracks. I blink, and the breath hitches in my throat. She’s here in front of me, dressed in the golden armor of Autumn.
She looks down at my mother’s body. “I’m so sorry.”
“Get out of here, Rosie!” That other voice. I look up to see Dayton, blood streaking down his cheek. His sword clangs against Quellos’s ice spear. He lands death strike after death strike, but nothing kills the cursed vizier. “Take Farron and go!”
I’ve left him to fight Quellos alone. Gently, I place my mother on the ground and grab Rosalina’s shoulders. “What are you doing here? You have to get out of Autumn.”
She lifts her chin in defiance. “I fought my way to you, Farron. I won’t let you do this by yourself.”
“Look around you! The battle is lost.”
“No, it isn’t.” She grabs my hand and pushes something into it. A scroll. “Not while the High Prince of Autumn still has strength in him.”
Slowly, I unravel the scroll. A great burst of energy seeps from it, blowing back my hair and sending cold shivers through my skin. “This… This is from a grimoire.” I barely get the words out: “This is a death spell.”
“Take it from me.” Rosalina runs a hand along my jaw, causing me to look up at her. “Not everything that looks evil is evil. Embrace what you are, Farron.”
I inhale deeply and draw my eyes over the words. She wants me to use a death spell…
Why shouldn’t I? Autumn is the death of life. That’s what everyone says. It’s what Quellos fears. That Autumn should bring the end of all things, that it should leach and drain and steal.
And yet…
Embrace what you are.
Without death, the threads of life would never tie together to create the binding of the world. The bounty of our harvests would not be as precious; the ground would never be filled with leaves; and we would never see the beauty of embers after a roaring fire.
Yes, Autumn is death.
And I shall become death to save the living.
I stand on shaking legs, holding the scroll with one hand on top, one on the bottom. Rosalina rises beside me, her eyes shining.
The words seem to light into flame as I say the incantation aloud: “Ancient winds and shadows deep, hear our call and spirits reap.” Vast power grows within my chest. “Send these souls to their final rest, where earth may claim them and death attest.”
A stinging clang shoots through the air as Dayton’s sword meets again with Quellos’s spear. But Quellos stumbles back. “What are you doing? Stop that!” he snarls.
“In darkness and silence, you will lie, where no living gaze may pry.” My voice carries on the breeze like a great echo. “Rest now in eternal sleep and let your souls find peace to keep.”
My eyes catch on a cluster of wraiths. They step back, dropping their weapons, blank eyes turned upward. Their frosted bones shiver, pieces of sparkling dust creeping away into the wind. The living dead drift away, back to the soil where they belong.
“Slumber, oh dead, and take your rest. Your bones will crumble, your souls now blessed. Return to the earth and let the living be. And in your final death, you shall be free.”
“It’s working,” Rosalina cries, spinning. Around us, the wraiths look toward the sky. A sense of peace overtakes their frozen expressions as their bodies float away, glimmering like snowflakes.
Reaching for the deepest well of my magic, I speak the final words of the spell: “For death is not the end, but a new beginning. A part of the cycle, forever spinning. Your time on earth has now ended, a peaceful death, a circle mended.”
A torrent of wind blows across the battlefield. My soldiers blink and lower their weapons as the poor wraiths, forced to fight even in death, are finally gifted peace.