Chapter 54
CHAPTER 54
Rosalina
T he sky is a canvas painted in hues of coral and lavender, streaked with wisps of cotton candy clouds that catch the dying light of the setting sun. I walk along the powdery sand, my bare feet leaving imprints behind me.
Dayton walks closer to the water, sinking up to his ankles in the wet shoreline. Waves lap up his legs before curling back out to the sea. Seagulls wheel overhead, their cries almost joyful. The salty breeze carries with it the scent of brine and seaweed, mingling with the sweet fragrance of tropical blooms that dot the shoreline.
It’s so peaceful here, so tranquil. For a moment, it almost makes me forget about everything waiting for us in Hadria. We spent the rest of the afternoon training with Justus, but Dayton got no closer to mastering the trident. So, we’ll be here for another night.
There’s nothing to do but wait. Dayton shifts closer to me, his fingertips grazing mine. I wish I could grab his hand, but I smile up at him instead. “It’s beautiful here.”
His teal gaze doesn’t leave mine. “I agree. The Summer Realm suits you.”
There are far worse places to wait. In this moment, we’re free to wander these sandy shores, to lose ourselves in the beauty of the fading day. Soon, the wolf will take him again. I turn my head to the sinking sun, letting its warmth seep into my soul like I’m one of the trees in the lush forest.
“Want to watch the sunset from here before we go back?” Dayton asks.
“Sure.” I take a seat on the silken sand, knees drawn to my chest, toes just touching the ebb and flow of the waves.
Dayton collapses beside me. He isn’t wearing a shirt, as usual, just loose cropped pants. He stretches his hands over his knees, dangling the token of Summer from his fingertips. I notice he hasn’t strung it back with the rest of his shells, instead just corded it on its own with a thin piece of twine.
“Damocles wouldn’t have had any trouble wielding this trident,” he says softly.
“Your brother had the Blessing of Summer before you, didn’t he?”
Dayton nods. “Yes, my mother passed it to him before she became pregnant with Delphia.”
“Dayton,” I say cautiously, “you’ve never told me what happened to your family.”
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “I don’t talk about it, not with anyone. People know what happened, but it’s not a pleasant story, Rosalina.”
It’s almost like I can feel it within him, festering and coiling. Something eating him away from the inside out. Slowly, I reach out and place a hand on his arm. “Your family seems to be on your mind a lot since returning to Summer. If you’d like to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”
Dayton shakes his head, hand clenching around the token. “I know what everyone thinks of me, the drunken Prince of Summer. A coward who let his brothers die. But the truth is, it’s so much worse than all of that. I feel like I’ve lost you once already. I can’t lose you again to this truth.”
It takes me a moment to register his words. Lost me once … lost my love. Lost the chance to love me. Waves of grief flow through me.
I crawl in front of Dayton, wet knees sinking in the ground. I grab his face and force him to look at me. His teal gaze blinks open, tears clinging to his lashes like dewdrops on morning petals. “I’ll always stay with you, Day, I promise. You’re not going to lose me.” His tears fall over my fingers, but I hold on, making him believe it. “We’re a team. Help me understand what you’re going through.”
He places his large hand over mine. “That better be a promise, Blossom.”
“Promise.”
Dayton stares at me for a moment longer before flashing a lopsided grin. “You know, water nymphs are feisty creatures, but in my youth, I happened to have a special friend and—”
“Oh, come on.” I roll my eyes. “What does this have to do with—”
“I’m getting to the point. She happened to teach me a unique trick with my magic, one of memory and water. Come here.”
He widens his knees and I position myself between his legs, facing the water. Dayton reaches around me, and with a flick of his wrist, a wave rises before us in the shape of a shimmering fan.
“After Caspian created the Great Chasm and attacked the Winter Realm, the War of Thorns began,” Dayton says. “All the seasonal realms against the forces of the Below. Hadria, the capital of Summer, has always been nearly impregnable, with its high walls and back to the sea.”
Colors and images flicker across the fan of water, showing a large wall. A fae that looks almost like Dayton, but with short cropped golden hair, stands atop it.
“What’s this?” I whisper.
Dayton’s breath brushes my ear. “It’s my memory.”
“That’s Damocles,” I say.
In Dayton’s memory, the former High Prince of Summer gleams golden as a god, tanned skin, with hair the color of honey. A helmet with a red plume is tucked beneath his arm. His breastplate is beaten gold, and he wears a skirt crafted of red leather strips. His eyes are blue, so similar to Dayton’s. But where Dayton’s gaze is all the depths of the ocean, Damocles’ gaze is still as a pond with no wind.
“We’d received a report that forces of the Below were planning to march on Hadria through the Suadela Sands,” Dayton explains.
“Was it Caspian?”
“No,” Dayton says. “He was preoccupied with Winter. This was Sira’s own force. Damocles wanted to march our army out of Hadria and meet them in the open before they got a chance to lay siege. Decimus claimed we’d have power over them in our own land, that we knew the sands better than they ever could.”
Another figure appears in Dayton’s memory. A shorter man, but broad of shoulders, with dark brown skin and short black hair.
“Decimus,” I say. “He has the same smile as Delphie.”
“I know,” Dayton says. “It was Ovidius’s smile. He didn’t grace you with it often, but when he did, it was something special.”
“What did you think of meeting Sira in the open?”
A slight hitch trembles in Dayton’s voice as he continues, and I place my hand on his leg to steady him. “I advised against it. I told him we should keep our legionnaires inside and pick off the enemy as they approached the wall. My brothers would hear none of it. Decimus told me I was a coward. Damocles told me I was afraid. He ordered me to march with them at dawn. Our parents and Delphia would stay safe in the castle, and us three brothers would ride out together. It was the last thing I ever heard him say.”
The water shifts again, revealing the shouting face of his brother.
“Did you follow his orders?”
Dayton’s chin dips to my shoulder, voice a low mumble. “No. I did what everyone would expect. I got drunk. I slept through dawn and their departure, passed out in some barn where no one could find me. I woke up choking on smoke.”
In the memory, I see rampant flames as Dayton rushes from a barn and into a city of chaos. People run wild, buildings burn, and goblins brandish weapons.
“It was all the Below’s trick,” Dayton says, anger tinging his words. “Sira had lured all the vile nightmares of the desert to do her bidding. She ordered them to dig tunnels beneath our city and ambush the people within. No army was left to defend them. What Damocles and Decimus found when they rode out was not a force of the Below struggling through the desert, but one adept at it.”
In the watery vision, flames lick the walls of Soltide Keep as Dayton enters. The next memory strikes me in my heart. A bloody massacre of soldiers and goblins litters the floor. I watch as Dayton falls to his knees in front of his two fathers. Jagged spears run through their lifeless bodies.
“I was too late to save them,” he says.
“You could have been killed too,” I say.
“I took a sword from each of them,” Dayton continues. “They are the swords I still wield today. At that moment, I knew I had to find my mother and Delphia. The palace was swarming with goblins, so I leaped out a window and climbed the vines along the outside walls. I nearly fell off multiple times, I was still so sick with drink. But from that height, I could see the sands beyond the wall. How little Damocles’ army had traveled. How surrounded they were.
“I got to Del’s bedroom and found her and my mother. They had furniture barred against the door as a horde tried to break it down.”
Dayton’s mother sparkles with a fierce glint, her hair the same color as her son’s. Delphia, looking much younger than she does now, clings to her mother’s legs. Through the waves, I watch the reunion. Sabine shoves Delphia into Dayton’s arms, ushering them to a corner of the room and pressing a stone to reveal a secret passage small enough to crawl through.
Dayton and Delphia crouch before it, their mother kissing them both.
“What did she say to you?” I ask.
Dayton’s voice is hoarse. “That I had to take Delphia to safety while she held back the force. That the goblins would surely find this passage if they came upon an empty room. I tried to tell her to let me stay instead. She refused, saying she only wished to give her children a chance. But I know the real reason.”
“Day—”
“I was in no state to even hold a sword.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “She trusted you with Delphia. She would not have wanted you to sacrifice yourself for her. No mother would.”
Dayton tugs me against his chest, head dipping to the crook of my neck, speaking the story only to my skin. “We fled through the tunnel and into the streets of Hadria, but nowhere was safe.”
I watch as Dayton carries Delphia through the streets, each turn, each corner drawing more and more goblins and other wicked creatures after them. He turns back once, looking to the palace, only to see a figure in purple satin fall from the tower and into the ocean.
His mother.
Delphia screams, and he covers her eyes. They round a corner only to be caged between a burning building and a troll crushing columns with his massive hammer. They run back into the streets, goblins gathering on all sides. Then Dayton pitches forward, going to all fours, Delphia tumbling from his arms. Dayton’s mouth widens in a scream.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“It came to me … the Blessing of Summer,” Dayton says. “It tore through me like all the fire of the sun. All I could think was … they’re dead. My brothers are dead.”
The memory of Dayton withers on the ground, his skin becoming luminescent. Beyond this memory, the sun sinks lower on the horizon, casting sapphire-rich shadows across the beach. The sky is a riot of color: fiery oranges, rosy pinks, and dusky purples, all swirling together.
The memory of Dayton rises, glowing from our own sun, and draws his swords.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“I suppose,” Dayton says, “I got angry.”
The vision plays out in a blur: his swords flashing and magic dancing from his fingertips. He sees Delphia to safety atop the gate and rallies the surviving soldiers in Hadria to drive the invading forces out. Finally, Dayton rides out himself to the remnants of the battle.
That’s when I witness magic as I’ve never seen before, the magic of a High Prince not bound by a curse or weakened by a sick Castletree. Dayton is a god unleashed, swords sweeping, great torrents of water flooding the sands and sinking whole legions of Sira’s army. The Queen of the Below herself is there, riding atop a giant scorpion before fleeing in the face of such power. The memory is so quick, as if it’s unimportant to Dayton.
It’s the next image we linger on. Dayton finds Damocles after the battle is won; body blood-soaked. Dayton cradles him in his arms, rocking the limp body over and over and over, repeating the same phrase. The vision has no sound, but I don’t need to hear it to read his lips. Take it back , he shouts to his brother, to the sky. Take it back, take it back, take it back.
Dayton waves his hand, and the memory falls away, ebbing back to the sea. “I never wanted to be the High Prince of Summer. It was never supposed to be me.”
I turn around to face him, my own tears streaming down my face. “Dayton, I don’t think you’ve seen what I have. You were a hero. You saved Hadria.”
“No, Rosie, you don’t see,” he says, pushing away from me and standing. “If I hadn’t run away from my duty and had ridden out with them, maybe I could have saved them somehow.”
I push myself up. “Then you wouldn’t have been there to save Delphia.”
“Or maybe my mother would have escaped with her,” Dayton counters. “Trust me, I’ve gone over it a thousand times. All I know is I let my brothers go off to battle without me, and they died. They died and I, the one who stayed behind, got the great Blessing of Summer. How is that fair or just or right?”
“Maybe staying behind was the best thing to do,” I snarl back at him. “You sensed the city was in danger. Dayton, you can’t change the past, but you can look at the good you did. You saved Hadria all on your own.”
He shakes his head, golden strands blowing in the wind. “We won the battle but lost so much more. It was my fault. The Enchantress was right to curse me for what I did.”
The sun dips below the horizon, and the Summer Prince shifts before me to the cursed wolf.