“I’ve survived his torture for decades. But being close to him, to you…maybe together, we can remind him who he truly is.”
Rosalina doesn’t say anything, but she stares at me, deep and wondering. Her gaze flicks to her wedding ring. “My husband.”
“My wife,” I whisper back.
A soft smile appears as she leans toward the bars. “My reckless, brave, stubborn husband.”
I meet her, my breath a caress across her mouth. “My reckless, brave, stubborn wife.”
The cold bars press against my face as I kiss her, slow and savoring. My body warms with each pass of her lips over mine. It’s as if she’s giving me strength. Though the light of Castletreesimmers like dying ashes, her touch is a breeze, blowing me back to life.
Clattering my manacles against the bars, I stretch my fingers to caress a lock of her hair. Soft and perfumed. I want to say she is too delicate, too perfect for this place, but I know better. My Rose makes a home wherever she goes.
She mumbles my name against my lips, reaching through the bars to grab my neck. I am too filthy, too ruined, for the likes of her, but she doesn’t seem to care, kissing me as if starved. And are we not starved for each other?
A growl sounds deep in my throat, the taste of her driving the primal parts of me to madness. Perhaps I should reconsider her escape idea. I could freeze these bars until they shatter, then snatch her into this cage and fuck her like the beast they’ve made me.
But I resist. Because one day, we’ll be free of this, our trials only memories of all we overcame to be together. And I will stand with my strong, beautiful, lovely wife upon the boughs of Castletree. A queen and her king.
Hoots and hollers sound from the entrance of the menagerie, and torchlight flickers in the distance. Drunkards, stumbling toward us, clattering an iron pipe along all the cages, eliciting angry roars and growls from the poor beasts trying to sleep away their existences.
“We’re here to see the Beast of the Briar!” a goblin’s voice carries.
“Great Prince Keldarion! Where are you?”
I squeeze Rosalina’s hands. “Go, before they see you.”
“Kel—”
I kiss her one more time, hard and fast and filled with what strength I have left. “Go,” I urge again. “Whatever tomorrow holds, we’ll face it. For him.”
She looks at me once more with that fierce expression, then slips into her tundra cloak and disappears into the night. My Rose, with her many thorns.
I return to my position, curled up against the wall, to wait away the hours until Caspian comes for me. I must steel myself, become more unbreakable than the Sword of the Protector.
For no one can hurt you quite like the one you love.
35
Ezryn
“This damned thing won’t stay put,” I grumble, pushing on thehorned headpiece attached to my helmet. Never mind that one of the short horns, resembling an ibex’s, keeps drooping, but the helm is heavy, nothing like the Spring steel we use for armor.
“I kind of enjoy mine,” Dayton says. He’s got bull horns fastened to his skull with a special glue, his hair arranged to hide the fixture. He lowers his head and pretends to charge Farron. The tunnel, lit only by Farron’s palmful of fire, creates a menacing glint off the top of his horns. “Makes me feel as though I’m one of the minotaurs we’d fight in the games.”
“At least you all gottwohorns.” Farron pokes at the single spiraling horn jutting from his forehead, the fringe of his hair hiding its attachment. “Why did Flavia say I only suitedone?”
“Enough whinging,” George says, sporting his own headpiece, resembling elk antlers. “Judging by the map, we’re nearly there. There’s no time to lose focus.”
Flavia, Castletree’s seamstress, has outdone herself, transforming us from three fae and one human into a scouting party of underfae. With scavenged horns, she’s crafted elaborateheadpieces, and we’re dressed head to toe in the thick furs, heavy armor, and mottled coats recovered from Voidseal Bridge.
Anywhere else, and we’d look ridiculous. But we aren’t anywhere else. We’re in their territory.
The underfae tunnels, leading deep into the Below.
Even surrounded by rock, the cold bites. Memories crowd my mind, and it’s easier to focus on my drooping horn than drowning in them. To access these tunnels, we had to travel back to Voidseal, which meant facing all the destruction that befell here. All the lives we lost and the ones we took.
I spent a long moment, staring down into the darkness. There were barely any signs of the bridge I’d destroyed, as if it had never been there at all.