Chapter 68
CHAPTER 68
Keldarion
“C ome on, George. Not much farther.”
I’m not sure if my words are true. The prison at the inner sanctum of the labyrinth could be right around the next corner or on the other side of this damned maze. As certain as George has been at each fork in the road, we could be getting farther and farther away with every step.
And I’m not sure how many more steps George has in him. He still manages that assured grin, but his face is pale, his movements slow. I wrap an arm around his shoulders to keep him steady. Rosalina would beg for us to take a break, but we rested not long ago. We can’t keep stopping.
There isn’t much time left—only three more days before Farron and Caspian break the crystals. If it happens before we’re at the prison, it will all be for nothing. We’re running out of time.
“You’re a good sport, you know that?” George pats my chest.
“I would do anything for your family,” I say. “If I have to carry you through this maze, I will.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” George tilts his head to the right as we approach a T-shape in the maze.
I turn us right, only to be faced with a huge archway carved with cherubs. Beyond, it widens to a walled grove. The ground is purple grass, dotted with rocks that shine like amethysts. Trees glowing with iridescent leaves tower nearly as high as the walls. Bright pink butterflies flitter to and fro.
“Well, if this isn’t a nice change of pace!” George exclaims. It seems to have given him a second wind. He pushes off of me and heads with urgency into the grove.
“Careful. Nothing is placed in the labyrinth without reason.”
At the far end of the grove lies another archway: the continuation of the maze. There must be some sort of trap or trial here. Each step is dangerous.
“Keep an eye out for anything out of place,” I warn George.
“Like that pile moving over there?”
“What?”
George points to a cluster of trees across the grove. At their base lies a large lump covered in brilliant pink butterflies. It shifts and moves, as if awakening from a great slumber. I stand protectively in front of George.
The pile heaves upward, a mass of butterflies flapping. Standing, it’s nearly ten feet tall. A woman’s shape begins to form amid the crowding butterflies. Long white hair falls out from beneath the shroud of living creatures. A large butterfly covers her face, the spots upon its wings appearing like ghastly eyes peering through me.
“I saw that you would pass this way, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter,” the giantess says, her lips covered by butterflies. She begins to walk toward us. Her arms swing like pendulums, much too long for her body. Her legs, too, seem unnaturally thin and elongated.
“I hope we didn’t keep you waiting, Philiris,” I say. I knew we’d come across her eventually. The Fates are never far from each other.
“Of course not. I knew when you’d be here.” Her butterfly eyes loom over George, and her whole head twists nearly upside down upon its long neck as if getting a better look at him. “Though some of you are harder to see than others.”
“This is Philiris, the Visionary,” I say to George. “Another of the Fates.”
“Many have come to me before.” Philiris’s voice is deeper than her sister Clio’s, a strange, echoey sound that seems to originate from within all the wings covering her body. “I have shown a great many futures that have come to pass. The last to see me was the youngest son of Spring. The flutter of the wings depicted a great and terrible future. So, it has come to be.”
“Knowing the future has never helped me before,” I growl and grab George’s arms. “Whatever you’re going to offer us, we don’t want it.”
We start to walk past her when a massive expanse juts out before us: a culmination of all the small butterflies flying together to form Philiris’s giant wing. “I wasn’t going to offer to show you your future, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter. Or even yours, George of the O’Connells.” Her head twists all the way around so she can look at us. “But the future of the Prince of Thorns and his Golden Rose … That is what the wings have shown me.”
I should go. Keep walking. Spring every trap in this grove if I have to. But I can’t move my feet. “You … you know Rosalina’s future?”
Philiris sighs, her butterflies rippling with sound. “The wings of the future flutter endlessly. I catch sight, here and there.”
“Show me.” George pulls out of my grip and walks up to her. “I would see my daughter’s fate.”
Philiris places her unnaturally long fingers over George’s face. A butterfly springs into existence, forming a mask across George’s brow, with spots for unseeing eyes.
“No,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her spindly wrist. “I’ll do it.”
“High Prince?” Philiris asks, pulling the butterfly from George’s face.
I look at Rosalina’s father. “Seeing the future can set even the most determined man to hopelessness. I have lived with such despair for decades. Let me bear this burden.”
George holds my gaze for a long time, before finally, he nods.
The butterfly flits up from Philiris’s palm then lands on the bridge of my nose. All goes dark.
I see her. Rosalina. She sits on a throne at the top of a huge staircase crafted of intertwining purple and golden thorns. Her long legs are crossed, the milky skin I long to touch visible from the high slit in her dark gown. A crown of thorns adorns her hair.
I stagger up the stairs toward her. Heat radiates on all sides of me, but not the normal warmth of fire. This heat seems to chill and burn all at once, raking my skin with clawed fingers. Emerald fire licks the edge of the stairs. Faces form in the blaze, screaming mouths and eyes agape, before vanishing in the next flicker.
Rosalina taps her fingers on the armrest, mouth curved in a frown. Her eyes, usually so kind and warm, are vacant and dull.
A flash of emerald fire blazes beside her, and then another figure appears. He stands above her, dressed in blackened steel, armor too formidable for his frame. Spikes jut out from the pauldrons. His black hair falls below his jaw, and a wicked smile curves his lips.
A smile I’ve spent forever trying to burn out of my mind.
When Rosalina sees Caspian, her face alights. But not in the way I know, such as the girlish smile when she tells a joke and is the only one who laughs, or the sultry smirk when she knows she has me right where she wants me. This is something else, something feverish.
The smile of a thrall.
Caspian grabs her by her neck to guide her up. His own expression is one of feral hunger. He nips at her bottom lip, tugging it away and biting down so hard, blood dribbles down her chin. The act only seems to make her more desperate for him. She scratches at his chest plate, trying to push every inch of her body against his.
My heart is a thundering drumbeat in my ears. This isn’t jealousy—I shared Rosalina with Caspian only days ago. I know she has other mates who worship her body in the way she deserves. But this sight before me …
This is not Rosalina. If I were to break my curse by making love to her, it would send her straight into Caspian’s arms. And this is what will happen.
It doesn’t matter if Caspian loves me. He loves her, too, and if the only way he can have her is by making her his thrall, he will do it.
Caspian grips her around the neck again and forces her down to her knees. She stares up at him reverently. As if he is the love of her life. As if he is a god.
And as I look around at the green fire burning everything in the horizon, I realize that’s exactly what he is.
A dark god with his dark queen.
“No!” I scream. The fire has created huge welts over my skin, but I don’t care. I surge up the staircase, hands lunging for Caspian.
Caspian turns and a crooked smile forms on his lips. “Hello, lover,” he says.
Then I’ve fallen to the ground, my fists ripping out the purple grass. The staircase and the flames are gone, revealing only the grove. I look down at my skin. No burns, yet the chilling heat lingers in my bones.
“What did you see?” George asks, running over to me.
I ignore him and stare up at Philiris. “Will it come to pass? Is there no other future for her?”
She drifts over to me, moving a piece of hair out of my eyes with her stretched finger. “I only see the future, High Prince. It is you who makes it.”
“I will not let that happen,” I vow. My voice is ragged, desperate.
“Some things are set. For example,” her butterfly eyes look from me to George, “you are both destined to find your rose shattered. Go back to the place where all was lost.”
My Rose … shattered? No, no, I won’t let that happen. It can’t be our destiny! “What do you mean? What do you mean?”
But the Fate says nothing. She starts to shrink in size, her butterflies careening away from her in a blur. Before me stands a small, naked woman, her skin completely rotten. It hangs off her bones in folds of mottled gray and green, emitting a sickly sweet scent. Only one butterfly remains, the one covering her face. “Goodbye. I will see you again, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter. But not you, George of the O’Connells. Farewell.”
Then as if her bones were ripped out of her, the rotten skin tumbles to the ground in a heap. The butterfly covering her face flits off into the sky.
“Philiris!” I scream. “Wait!”
“What did you see, boy?” George yells, shaking me. “What did you see?”
But I cannot tell him. For if that future comes to pass, it is because of me. Because I fail to protect Rosalina.
No. It will never be like that.
I let my heart guide me with Caspian before, let his words sink beneath my bones until I gave him everything. I felt it happening again the night I shared with him and Rosalina, desperate to trust him again.
I was fooled last time, and it shattered me. But now I don’t only have myself to protect. There is Rosalina.
No matter what my heart wants, it must become stone. This vision is the truth. I have to protect Rosalina from Caspian.
Winter will fall to the Green Flame before Caspian puts his hands on my mate again.