6. Rosalina
Rosalina
“Iunderstand now,” I tell Heidi the next morning as she sweeps my hair into a tousled bun upon my head. I’m wearing a dress of black lace with a collar of multicolored jewels around my neck.
“Understand what?” she responds in that squawky tone she gets when she’s concentrating.
“Why the Prince of Thorns will not have me. It’s because of this.” I hold up my left hand triumphantly.
Heidi narrows her yellow eyes and stares at my finger. “Because of that scrawny little grabber of yours?”
“No, because of what I’m wearing.” I wiggle my fourth finger. “This ring!”
“Ah, yes-yes, pretty thing. If you want to toss it, I’ll take it, oh yes!”
“No!” I snatch my hand to my chest, then lightly caress the silver band and diamond snowflake.
I take a steadying breath. “Ever since I came here, I’ve been wearing this ring.
I didn’t even think about it. But of course, it’s making the Prince of Thorns sad.
I remembered last night that someone else gave it to me.
So I need to show him I’m willing to take it off. ”
It had happened late at night—or what I’ve started to think of as night.
I’d been lying in bed, arms around the winged lion toy.
Sleep evaded me, which was unusual. Usually, I easily drift away with thoughts of my sweet prince.
But this time, I kept swirling the ring round and round my finger.
I haven’t even thought about it at all since coming here.
It’s felt like an extension of me, like part of my own skin.
But then I remembered.
Someone else gave it to me. Someone who was not the Prince of Thorns.
I spend the rest of the day sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the door. Despite Heidi’s cajoling to visit the “bloomies” again, I remain rooted to the spot.
There is nothing more important than the Prince of Thorns.
I belong to him.
Holding my hand in front of me, fingers splayed, I examine the ring. It is a pretty thing, as Heidi said, with a delicate silver band adorned with diamond snowflakes, garnet roses, and a beautiful sapphire in the middle.
When someone uses magic, I can feel it in the air, crackling and shivering. When I move my hand just so, the diamonds and sapphire catch the gemlight, and it looks as if that feeling of magic was captured and trapped in the ring.
My thoughts start buzzing again, faster than ever. I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. I can see things in my mind’s eye, hear voices…
Fae of Winter…visitors from across the realms…
A snow-covered courtyard, filled with people looking at me.
We are gathered here today…
Arm in arm with an older man with shining eyes and the warmest smile I’ve ever seen.
To celebrate the union…
Three figures standing upon a dais. Their faces are shadowed, but I feel something radiating from them. Something familiar. Something lost.
Of High Prince Keldarion of Winter and Princess Rosalina—
Another figure comes into view. Him I can see clearly. He’s the tallest man I’ve ever seen, with broad shoulders and long, white hair that flows down his back. His eyes shine with starlight, just like Caspian’s.
This is a wedding.
My wedding.
And this thing on my finger is a wedding ring.
A feeling of disgust so visceral roils through me that I swear I may vomit. That fae, that High Prince Keldarion… How could I ever wear a symbol of his upon my body? I tug the ring off. He is nothing but a pathetic gnat in my journey to true love with the Prince of Thorns.
No wonder the Prince of Thorns has scorned me so! All this time, I’ve been wearing this hideous thing on my finger. I must get rid of it. Destroy it. Burn it until it melts into a puddle—
My door swings open, and the Prince of Thorns strides in.
He is resplendent in a cape of purple violet, with eyes of glowing green. Distantly, I remember that I used to think he moved like a cat. Now, he is a panther, every motion thick with a predator’s confidence.
He walks over to me, close, so close, and stares down. “Your maid servant reported that you wished to speak with me.”
I need to give him the ring. Need to tell him…need to tell him…
Flicking my eyes up, I hold his gaze, no matter how terrifying it is in its beauty. “My prince, I remembered something.”
“Oh?” He looks to the door, his attention as fleeting as the wind.
“It’s about High Prince Keldarion.”
He jerks his whole body back toward me, and his lips curl. “What of Keldarion?”
“We fought him together. On the mountain.”
He raises a brow. “Something of the like.”
My breasts heave with my rapid breath, but I need to get the words out. I won’t survive if he continues to scorn me, continues to avoid me like I’m some mutt he dragged in from the rain.
I belong to Caspian. He must understand that.
Clinging to the torrent of memories, of words and images assaulting my mind, I grab hold of one. “You said you would make me your queen. That the Enchanted Vale would worship me as I worship you.”
He says nothing, simply wavering from foot to foot as if he were more shadow than man.
“But I cannot be your queen if I am left alone day and night to wander your halls like a lost specter. Let me help you. Let me serve you. It is my purpose. Together, we can make you king of all the Enchanted Vale and Keldarion nothing more than a smear of blood upon the snow.”
The Prince of Thorns stays quiet for a very long time. Oh, what I would give to hear the voice within his head, to understand what thoughts race through that glorious mind.
When he finally speaks, Caspian’s voice is raspy and hypnotic. “I suppose I have been treating you like you’re something precious, haven’t I? A treasure locked away in a chest. But if you’re my treasure, then I should wear you like a crown and let all gaze upon you.”
I wet my lips, core tightening at the darkness in his words.
“Kneel.”
My self-constraint gone, I fall to my knees in a clatter, chest heaving, hand knotted in my skirt so as not to clutch at him.
“Kiss my boots.”
They’re covered in mud, but I don’t care. I shower his filthy boots in kisses, caking my face in dirt. The mud tastes woodsy and damp, like rain-soaked leaves and fallen acorns. He’s been outside the Below.
He’s been in Autumn.
Long minutes pass as he lets me clean his boots with my lips, until my knees ache and my tongue tastes of leather and soil. His gaze presses down upon me like a weight.
Finally, he snatches my jeweled collar and hauls me up, cutting off my air until I’m gasping for a breath.
“Do you miss the sunshine?” He lets go of the collar.
My voice is a rasp. “I do not miss the sunshine. I am a creature of darkness and will forever scorn the light as it scorned my prince.”
“Good.” His cape whips my body as he turns away from me. “Because I will be bringing you back into the sun, and you must not fall in love with it. I shall send Heidigog to prepare you. It’s hot where we’re headed.”
I stay rooted to the spot, one hand on the raw skin that my collar dug into, one hand to my mud-caked lips. I shall never wash.
I’m to travel with the Prince of Thorns!
Unconsciously, one of my hands drifts down to my pocket. Oh, there’s something in it.
The ring.
I forgot to give it to him.
Oh well. Perhaps I’ll keep it. Just for a little while.