50. Rosalina
50
Rosalina
I watch helplessly as the sun dips lower. Where are they? Why haven’t they returned yet?
I don’t know how long it’s been since I arrived back at Castletree through the mirror. Every minute feels like a year as my stomach twists and my mind races through all the horrible possibilities.
Even the servants who went to the Winter Realm haven’t returned. Could they be hurt? In danger? If they don’t get back soon, night will fall, and their secret will be revealed to everyone.
My ruined gown floats like an icefall over the blanket as I flop on the bed. I shouldn’t have left… But what could I do? I’d only have been a liability to the princes.
Maybe Perth Quellos was right all along.
I thought dancing with the Prince of Thorns was the peaceful resolution. How stupid I was. He really is a trickster.
Your precious princes are hiding something from you.
My hand drifts to the thorn crown upon my head and I look up at the ceiling. Everyone has been so secretive about the High Tower. What is it? But the one time I’d tried the door, it was locked. Kel told me that place was strictly forbidden.
I stand and pace the length of my room. What are they hiding that could be any worse than the curse itself? After all we’ve been through these last few months, they trust me.
I know it.
But… Caspian’s words linger in my mind, a ghost shivering through my skin.
What is in the High Tower?
I go to the windowsill and take another look at the sun. They’re still not back. And I can’t do anything here waiting for them.
Time to take my destiny into my own hands.
I close my eyes, and feel a deep knowing, a visceral thing I’ve sensed since living in Castletree. There’s something more to this castle, to these thorns. They can hear me.
“Show me the way to High Tower,” I whisper. “Show me the path.”
A groan shudders behind me, and I turn to the cherry blossom tree in the corner of my room. The trunk, overgrown with briars and purple thorns, cracks open. The thorns retreat, the bark lifts, and the pink petals shiver to the ground.
Where once my cherry blossom tree had been is now a narrow staircase. A path up into the chasms of Castletree.
“Trust myself,” I whisper. And like a tether is tied to my heart, I glide up into the dark.
The staircase is pitch black and winds around and around and around. I’m heading straight through the heart of the tree, and up to the tallest branches. It’s like I can feel the pulse of magic from within.
A sense of something very sacred and very ancient.
Each step is deliberate, and I swear my heart beats with the same thrumming magic. There are briars in the stairway, but not so encompassing as elsewhere. Instead, a single branch of thorns winds around the walls on either side, almost serving as a railing as I ascend through the dark.
Finally, I reach a wooden door. I turn the handle and step into the top of High Tower.
Blinking, I take in the large chamber. Huge stained-glass windows let in the fading light and paint the room in brilliant red and blue and orange and green. And the briars…
No other area of the castle, not even the Winter Wing, is so infested with them. They lay like a carpet over the floor, tugging at my dress. Up, up, up the walls they stretch, tangling at the precipice of the ceiling. It’s as if they are the skeleton of Castletree itself.
My breath catches. In the very middle of the chamber lies a crescent shape where no briars dare touch. The floor is tiled in a vibrant mural of a starfall: shimmering lights descending from the heavens. And four roses grow from a small patch of rich earth.
One has pink petals and is shrouded in emerald light from the stained-glass window. Beside it grows one of turquoise petals, bathed in yellow light. Next to that is one of brilliant orange, the glass dusting it in dark red. And finally, there is a startingly blue rose, a color so potent I feel like I may freeze if I touch it.
And the roses are wilting.
I fall to my hands and knees, the magic radiating from the roses washing over me like a tidal wave.
The roses look as if they’re barely hanging onto life. The petals are wrinkled, leaves drooping. A precious blue petal falls from the one on the end and withers to ash upon the ground.
“What does this mean?” I say. “What are you trying to show me?”
And as if Castletree hears my plea, light from the stained-glass windows sparkles and moves. It twists together, swirling and arcing, a rainbow of luminous color, until it forms an image.
I gasp. Standing before me are… my princes.
I know it’s them, even though they’re bare images made of light. Ezryn standing behind his flower, his hand clasped on a sword. Dayton, his hair shorter but his smile the same. Farron, shrunken and timid. And Keldarion, his hair a white tangle upon his head, a feral grimace on his face.
They’re looking at me.
No, not me. Something behind me. Someone.
I turn to see the silhouette of a woman made of dusky gray light. Her shape shimmers forward through my body and she stands before the princes. She holds out four roses. Each one glimmers as if made of its own prism.
I realize now.
“Castletree,” I whisper. “You’re showing me a memory.”
The princes look down upon the woman, their prismatic doppelg?ngers moving in ways so familiar. Ezryn turns his back to the woman, Dayton laughs, Farron shrinks away, and Keldarion… Keldarion points an accusing finger.
A deep sense of dread fills me. Because I know how this story ends. I’ve seen the nightmare in person. This is no lost traveler asking for shelter against the bitter wind.
This is the Enchantress.
And suddenly, a brilliant white light erupts from around me and the woman turns inward on herself, robes cocooning around her. She emerges the most beautiful fae I’ve ever seen. A gleaming entity of starlight made whole.
Tears flood down my face and I don’t know why. I step forward, grasping for her hand, but she’s out of my reach.
The princes fall back in her wake, their own light dimming. The roses she once held now float above their heads.
“The universe is cyclical,” the woman’s voice says, and it’s like the shimmer of stars through the atmosphere. “Day gives way to night and back again. Spring to summer, summer to autumn, autumn to winter, and winter to spring. Those who die go back into the cosmos, their spirits remade into the grass and the animals and the fae reborn.”
This voice… It sparks something inside of me, like a dream I woke up from but can’t remember. I collapse to my knees, stretching my arm up to the memory.
“And as the universe is cyclical, so is the rule and magic of the realms,” the Enchantress says to the princes. “Destiny has passed this rule to the four of you.” Her voice darkens. “And you have squandered the responsibility.”
The four princes collapse to their knees, heads bowed. The fae enchantress grows even larger. “In your states, you are all undeserving of the great destiny that awaits you. This providence shall not be disregarded in the way you have all failed your realms and your people.”
“Please, offer us forgiveness,” they say in unison.
Her voice is the ocean breeze and the cracking of ice during the first thaw. “You must earn your repentance.”
Then she turns to Ezryn. “Here stands the vigilante, who seeks vengeance instead of redemption. Who drowns his sorrows in blood and bone instead of facing what lies beneath. Here stands a beast who will let his realm go to rot as long as his sword is wet with blood.”
Ezryn collapses, clawing at his skin.
Leave him alone! I want to scream, but my voice is trapped inside of me.
She turns to Dayton. “Here stands the fool, who escapes within the flesh for fear of his fate. Who languishes his time and talent. Here stands a beast who will let his realm go to rot as long as his mind is muddled enough not to comprehend.”
Dayton falls to his knees, back arching, face twisted in anguish.
But the Enchantress is not finished. She looms above Farron. “And here stands the coward, who pretends passiveness is pacifism. Who hides behind investigation instead of admitting indecisiveness. Here stands a beast who will let his realm go to rot as long as his curtains are drawn so he need not see it.”
Now Farron falls to the ground, his shape curling inward.
And finally, the Enchantress turns to face Keldarion. He falls to his knees, groveling. But I know it’s not for himself. It’s for the others.
I scream into the void, begging her not to do what I know happens next. But it’s no use. This is a memory. And the course of time has been ravaged by destiny.
“Here stands the Sworn Protector of the Realm, the traitor who betrayed his people for love.” The Enchantress’s voice booms like the felling of a forest. “The one who sought glory and passion. Here stands a beast who will let the entire Vale go to rot for the sake of his own selfish heart.”
“No!” I scream.
But there’s nothing I can do to stop the past.
With a triumphant rise of the Enchantress’s hands, the princes contort, their bodies metamorphosing into something monstrous and horrible. Their backs break, their faces change to snouts, and claws replace what once were the hands that have since held me.
And now before me are the wolves.
The roses hover above their heads and the Enchantress reaches up to touch each one. “I lay a curse upon this castle, upon all those within it, and upon each High Prince of the Vale. Every night, you shall take the hideous form of a beast. This spell may only be broken by winning the true love of your fated mate; and having them accept the mate bond that has long been woven among the stars.” A shining tear runs down her starlight face. “For only then will you have proven you are worthy of your destiny.”
The wolves lie low before her, the looks of torment clear even on their light-born faces.
The Enchantress rises higher in the air. “These roses will remain in Castletree. When they have wilted and returned to the ash,” the Enchantress closes her eyes, “the curse will be sealed forever and you will be beasts for all time.”
The wolves howl, and it sounds like a thousand storms raging at once. Amongst the calamity of light and wails, the Enchantress spins, and the image vanishes before me.