Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
Rosalina
I take a deep breath, soaking in the familiar scents of old books, candles long burned down to the wick, and mahogany furniture. Astrid had left me to settle in my room, but after I’d bathed and changed, it felt too empty, so I’d followed the pull to Farron’s room instead. I needed something to ground me, to tether me back to the earth. My bond led me here.
I sink to my knees at the foot of his bed and rest my forehead against the wooden frame. A position of surrender, but surrendering to what? My breath comes ragged from my throat, and I can’t seem to get a proper lungful. It’s all too much. I’ve been pulled from the watery monotony of my cell into the light, and my eyes can’t adjust.
Dayton has a mate. Someone who’s not me . Everything that’s been thrown at us, I’ve faced head on. I always believed we could do this together. But this … This isn’t something I can fight and I don’t know if I have the strength to face it.
Silent tears run down my cheeks. How could I lose control of myself? The Summer Wing, the home of the Summer staff who can’t return to Hadria, is gone. Because of my selfish heart. Every step I’ve taken has been wrong. My love has only ever been a burden to Dayton.
How can I even begin to imagine rising from the floor? Where do I go from here? Keldarion is still bound by his bargain with Caspian, and both refuse to bend. My father is sick, and I haven’t seen him in so long. He needs me, and I can’t even rise from the floor. I scratch at the skin of my chest. My other mate bond is so quiet, so distant. Where are you, Ezryn? I lost him, I lost my mate. He could be hurt or scared or dying and he left me …
A choked sob escapes me, and I hug my arms across my body to try to keep myself together. I should be grateful. I was rescued from prison. Dayton can break his curse. I’m back home …
So why are the pieces of me so jagged?
“Rosie.”
A voice echoes in the room, and I turn.
Farron stands in the doorway. I catch his gaze, and in that single, lingering look, hope flashes back in my heart.
“Fare.”
I remember what I used to think of him, back when I’d first come to Castletree. Like he had waltzed straight out of a book of fairytales. He looks like that now, wearing a vest woven with threads of russet and burgundy. Elaborate patterns of acorns and oak are stitched into the fabric. His cravat is perfectly tied and tucked into the vest, a brilliant amber. The fitted chestnut brown trousers are tucked into tall leather boots, embellished with golden filigree. One of his pointed ears is adorned with a golden ear cuff, intricately designed to resemble tiny leaves and vines. His tousled auburn hair falls around it.
Yes, he still looks like that fairytale prince. But now, I know that when he laughs, he tilts his head back so far, his reading glasses can slip right off his face. Or he has the habit of falling asleep in the library, and I’ll find him with ink smeared on his cheek. Or how when he’s worried, a wrinkle forms on the inside edge of his right eyebrow, but not his left one.
That wrinkle is there now as he stares at me.
I hold on to this moment. It’s something I would picture in my mind’s eye over and over again while I was locked below the surface. Reuniting with my mate.
I stand for him.
“Rosie,” he repeats and staggers toward me.
“Farron.” His name is my lifeline.
I run to him, and he envelops me in his embrace. My whole body gives out, falling against him, but he holds me up, holds me strong. This is home. This is peace. This is safety.
“My mate,” I breathe.
My hands run over his back, in his hair, his face, under his shirt so I can touch his sacred skin. He pulls me tighter against him, breathing in the dip between my neck and my shoulder, his lips all over me, first my collarbone, then my ears, then my cheeks, then my eyelids, then my mouth.
I let it all drift away, the sorrow, the exhaustion, as I fall completely into his embrace. I am a battery, drained, and he is an entire lightning storm, bringing me back to life. His lips are soft at first, barely more than a whisper over mine. I tug his hair then draw his face closer, and he changes, now hungry, seizing my breath. I don’t ever want him to stop.
His lips don’t leave mine, our kiss long, desperate. When he does pull away, he blinks down with his golden eyes, and my heart skips a beat. My mate . He’s so beautiful.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.
“Never,” I swear to him. “I never gave up hope. All those days in that cell, I knew it wasn’t the end. I knew I would be back here with you, in this moment, in your arms. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
A shaky smile breaks across his face. “You see the world so beautifully.”
“ You are my world.”
He pulls me close again, and I nestle my head in the crook of his neck. His strong hands run down my hair. “I love you, Rosalina. I love you so much. All of this—we can do it. I promise you. You and I, as long as we’re together, we can … We can do this, okay?”
I know what he means. He’s not talking about the realms being overthrown or breaking curses or saving the world.
He’s talking about losing Dayton.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I bury my face deeper into his chest. This heavy grief wraps us together. “How, Fare? How do we do this?”
He pulls back, thumbs wiping away my tears. His own face is wet. “One heartbeat at a time.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. One heartbeat at a time.
Lub-dub.
My love for Kel, held forever at a distance.
Lub-dub.
My love for Ezryn, echoing off his impenetrable shell.
Lub-dub.
My love for Dayton, now an evil thing, something to be spurned and buried and forgotten.
Lub-dub.
My whatever this painful and consuming feeling for Caspian is.
Lub-dub.
I open my eyes and stare at Farron. My best friend, my first true love. The first man to make me feel like I was someone worth loving.
This heartbeat is for him.
I trace the lines of his face, treasuring each one.
“I won’t lose you ever again,” he breathes. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“You are mine, High Prince of Autumn,” I say, reveling in the truth of it.
“And you are mine, Queen of the Vale.” He sinks to one knee and bows his head. Keldarion must have told him the discovery of my lineage.
I lift his chin with a finger. “So, you know.”
“I’m both shocked and not surprised. Though, knowing the truth, I want to go back and reread everything we’ve ever found about the Queen. It will all have such a new light. In fact, there was one text I—” He looks toward the door, but I pull him up to his feet and back into my arms.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I laugh.
He laughs too, throwing his head back. Thankfully, he’s not wearing his glasses, or they would have been tossed straight across the bedroom.
Laughing together—it feels so good. For a moment, I forget about all the empty spaces in my chest.
“Rosie.” The way he says my name, like all his dreams are wrapped up in it.
I’ll keep them safe, Farron , I think. I’ll keep you safe.
We kiss again, soft and slow. A kiss filled with those dreams. His skin grows warm beneath my touch, and a white light shines through my closed eyelids. I blink open.
“Farron,” I whisper, “you’re … glowing.”
“Huh?” He looks down at his hands. A soft white light radiates from his skin, warm like the coals of a fireplace. “Oh, what do you know.”
Another laugh bubbles up my throat. “ Why are you glowing?”
“I think it’s my magic telling you how happy you make me.”
It’s amazing that despite feeling like I know Farron with my whole heart, there’s still new depths to the love and magic we share. This is the first time our magic has ever manifested in this ethereal glow. What else is our love capable of?
He gives me that smile, the one that I can never resist mirroring on my own face. I step back from him, then reach behind my back and loosen the ribbon of the corset around my dress.
Then I let the dress fall.
Farron’s eyes roam over me, and his smile fades, turning into a hungry grimace. I swear his golden eyes flash black.
I think of his love, of the pure happiness I feel in his embrace, of my mate bond so strong and alive in my breast, beaming out for him. I think of an Autumn sunrise, warm light chasing the chill off the heather. I think of the fire that burns between us.
A soft glow radiates beneath my skin, shimmering out toward his.
“I can do it, too,” I say.
“I see that,” he says, voice now low and raspy.
“Now, High Prince of Autumn,” I say, “I’ve been waiting three months for you. Remind me who I belong to.”