Chapter 39
CHAPTER 39
Ezryn
T he whetstone slides effortlessly across my mother’s sword. Tenderly, I work the edge, making sure the blade is never dull, never dirty. I care for and protect this sword as I should have cared for and protected my mother.
Light flickers off the steel, but besides the lantern, my cabin is dark. After the decisions were made about our next plans, Dayton and Delphia had sequestered themselves in the captain’s quarters to look over sea charts, and Rosalina had stalked off below deck.
Huxton, a scrappy red-haired member of the crew, had offered me this small cabin. It’s nothing more than a wooden room with a desk, a chair, a lantern, and a rickety bed, but I’ll treasure even a few nights of sleep with a warm roof before facing the Ribs.
What am I doing? Agreeing to Dayton’s plea to watch over Princess Delphia and Princess Eleanor is madness. The last three days chaperoning them around Corsa Tuga have been torturous enough. Delphia has all of her brother’s bravado and only a quarter of his skill to back it up and, three times already, I’ve caught Eleanor attempting to prick my finger and get a few drops of blood for ‘research.’
What could have possessed me when I agreed to take them deep into the wilderness of Summer?
I close my eyes. I know the answer.
Whatever my Queen’s commandment, I will obey.
How can Rosalina still trust me after everything I’ve done? How can Dayton, especially when his sister’s life is at stake? I saw the pain etched across his face. Dayton has experienced so much loss in his life. His fathers, his mother, and his brothers fell in the War of Thorns. What man could endure more?
I still hear it ringing in my ears in the dead of night: Farron’s scream as he held his mother’s body on the battlefield. I was too late to save her. I can’t hear that sorrow again, not if I have a way to keep his sister safe.
He killed everyone in Queen’s Reach. Not just the soldiers, but the acolytes. Women. Children. The acolyte’s voice drifts through my mind. I didn’t. I know I didn’t. Even in the blood frenzy that’d overtaken me as I stormed Queen’s Reach Monastery, I never laid steel to one of the acolytes.
But can I keep Delphia and Eleanor safe?
There is no other choice. I will keep them safe.
I slam the sword back into its scabbard and place it on the floor. What does it matter what good I do now? None of it will erase the evils of my past. My hands are stained—does it matter with how much blood?
Closing my eyes, I think of Rosalina’s face. It is the only thing that calms my racing heart. I had been on the dock in Corsa Tuga with Delphia and Eleanor when the attack started. I ran up into the city proper to scout the situation, only to see Rosalina standing on a rooftop. It was as if my life had been given back to me. The months without her, it was as if I were walking through an endless mist of blood, my only mission to return to her.
I’ve just gotten her back and now I have to leave. Even though it kills me to do so, even when every fiber of my heart screams to stay.
But she didn’t need me to break her out of prison. She won’t need me in the arena; there is no fiercer spirit than she and Dayton has never lost a fight within the Sun Colosseum. She could have no better companion.
If Kairyn is there …
A pit opens in my stomach, a gnawing sensation that snaps at my ribs. Thoughts scatter like startled birds, and all I can feel is his hammer on my chest, the breath seized from my lungs.
I am not as powerful as him. Not only that, but I have no control. The vengeance that possessed me was like a demon, and I do not trust myself that it will not rear up again.
I cannot protect anyone against Kairyn, so I must trust Dayton to do so in my place. I will go where I belong—into the wilds with the monsters.
A loud, angry knock sounds at my door. I rise and open it.
Rosalina stands there, a scowl across her perfect face. Seven realms, she is a true beauty. Her long brown hair is especially wavy from the saltwater, and a small sunburn has formed right across the bridge of her nose, only making her frown look all the more innocent. She wears clothes that must have been lent to her by one of Delphia’s crew. A linen dress of turquoise showcases her long neck and collarbone, and a black corset is tightly tied and pressing up her luscious breasts.
“Why didn’t you come find me?” she asks, crossing her arms.
“You left. I thought you wanted to be alone.”
She pushes past me and storms into my room. Gently, I close the door.
“No, I didn’t want to be alone. It’s you who always wants to be alone, Ezryn.”
Oh. She’s angry.
With me.
“I’m … sorry,” I offer.
“Oh, great, you’re sorry . Well, that makes me feel better!” Her light brown eyes shimmer. “I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, should I?”
“I’ve upset you.”
“Oh, you think?” She throws her hands into the air. “For whatever reason could I be upset?”
“Because … I didn’t come and find you?” I guess.
“Because you left me , Ezryn,” she snarls. Angry tears flash in her eyes. “You left me and Kel there in the throne room. We had a chance to escape, and you chose your revenge over us and now you’re leaving me again.”
My body stills. The flicker of the lantern across the walls seems too bright, the crash of the waves outside too loud. I can barely remember that moment; there was only my hatred and my shame, emotions that felt as much living, breathing entities as Kairyn did.
“You agreed that I must go—”
“So what?” Rosalina storms right before me and shoves me in my chest. It’s not hard enough to make me move, so she does it again. Tears stream down her cheeks. “I spent three months in Kairyn’s prison, hating you. Hating the fact that you chose Kairyn over us. Hating the fact that you would have killed yourself and robbed me of my mate if it meant bringing Kairyn down with you. Hating that your honor meant more to you than our love.” Each point is marked with a firm shove against me.
I snag her wrists to stop her from attacking me. “One day, I will get vengeance for what he did to you. I vow it.”
“Don’t you understand?” she yells. “That’s the problem! If you’re constantly meeting his storm with your own, you’ll only bring the whole world down with you.”
“He hurt you.”
“You hurt me,” she breathes. “You hurt me every time you doubt the strength of your heart. Every time you believe your worth only comes from how much blood you can spill. Every time you hold on to the curse because you think that’s what you deserve.”
Silence hangs between us. “Rosalina, I never wished to bring you such sorrow.”
“I will take the sorrow because it comes with the joy.” Her eyes sparkle with a fierce intensity. “But I will not let you destroy yourself because you think there’s no other way. You’re too smart and good and funny and kind for that, Ezryn. Until you see that, the beast will never leave you.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I stare down at the floor, unable to meet her gaze. I know what she wants from me. To let go of the wolf and all the shame and malice he holds within him.
But without the wolf, what will be left of me?
“Without killing Kairyn, how else can I protect you, Rose?” I breathe.
“I don’t want vengeance.” Her voice cracks. “I only want you.”
Her rage—I can take it. I can take all of it, the words, the shoving, the vitriol. But the pain—knowing I am the cause—breaks me. Emotion floods my heart: anger and longing and love. Our bond is alive with all the emotions. Her anger is her love, as her grief is her love.
“You have me, Rosalina,” I breathe. “Wherever I go, you have me. Whatever desert I leave my footprints in, whatever wilderness I inhabit or mountain I scale. It was set by the Fates and bound in the stars. You have me.”
Tears run silently down her cheeks, and in my mind, I hear her voice: Promise me you’ll come back, Ezryn. Vow it. On your knees.
I do.
I sink to the floor and stare up at her. “Whatever it takes, I will return to you, my Queen. If I have to crawl, I’ll crawl. If I have to swim through rivers of fire, I’ll swim. If I have to defy the Fates themselves and rearrange the stars, I will do it.”
She looks down at me, a goddess looking at peasants from her throne in the clouds. “Stand.”
I do.
She cups the side of my face, and I lean into her touch. Her other hand caresses the line of my lips, my nose, my jaw. “I’m still angry with you,” she whispers.
“As long as you feel something for me.” Unable to hold back a moment longer, I grab her around the waist and kiss her.
She kisses me back, a woman starved. I cannot get enough of her taste; I wish I could devour her whole, right here, right now. Finally, when breath can wait no more, I pull away and bury my nose in the crook of her neck. I inhale deeply.
Her sweet scent mixed with salty water and …
Lavender.
A growl roils up my chest. “Rosalina, why do I smell him on you?”
“Who?”
“The murderer. Caspian .”
She pulls away and blinks up at me. “Ez, he’s—”
Primal jealousy surges through my veins, a wild dog unleashed. His scent is on her, on what is mine by bond. “He killed my father!”
She grabs the side of my face, eyes searching for some sanity in my own. “Ezryn, listen to me. Your father was dying. He was poisoned by Perth Quellos. If Caspian hadn’t ended his life, he’d have turned into something like that plant monster that nearly killed us by the lake. He spared your father a horrible fate.”
“The lies of a snake!” I roar, tearing away from her. “He’s a murderer.”
“That’s what Wrenley called you,” Rosalina snaps. “I know better.”
I pace back and forth across the room. “This is Kel’s fault. He’s trapped you with his own lust for Caspian.”
“My feelings are my own,” she asserts.
The words make a growl surge up in my throat. Desperately, I fight against the urge to claim her right now. To mark her so completely that Caspian would never dare to touch what is mine again.
“He’s risking his life to save us,” Rosalina continues. “We’re all trusting him. Not just Kel and I, but Farron and Dayton, too. I would never do anything to hurt you, Ez. I truly believe Caspian wants to do right by us. By you.”
Her words are meaningless to me compared to the anguish on Kel’s face when he found out Caspian was storming Frostfang. Compared to the green scar that cut across the Anelkrol Badlands, creating a rift in the world where all manner of Below scum can freely ascend. Compared to the sound of my father choking on his own blood as Caspian’s thorns cut through his chest. “He’s a traitor, Rose.”
She approaches me and grabs my hands, kissing the knuckles. I almost pull away, but she holds me still with her gaze. “I know you, Ez. Know the deepest parts. There is darkness in you, but there is also light. I will have you as you are, and I will have Caspian as he is.” Her voice lowers to a husky plea. “Will you have me?”
I breathe in a ragged breath. Within the depths of my soul, I know there are no lengths I would not go to in order to keep her safe. Caspian has her in his clutches, as he has Kel.
I will have to kill him. There is no other way.
For now, my mate stands before me, claimed by another man’s scent. Primal need sends the blood raging through my veins. I will have to rectify this immediately. She has become the very definition of my existence, her mere presence turning me into both predator and protector.
“I will have you,” I say lowly.
She steps back from me and undoes the laces of her corset. She slips out of the sleeves of her dress and lets it whisper to the ground. “Then prove it.”