16. Rosalina
Rosalina
It’s another perfect day.
The Prince of Thorns has me wrapped tightly against him as his lovely briars twine around us and we travel up, up, up.
We break through to the surface. Dusky clouds dot the sky, and there’s a faint drizzle. The raindrops are cold and refreshing on my skin. At least the clouds block the sun, so I don’t have to worry about looking at it.
He doesn’t like when I look at it.
But I inhale, and the sweet scent of fresh blooms and rain-wet stone fills the air.
Spring. We’re in the Spring Realm.
I know this, though I’m not sure how.
A terrible image flashes across my mind. Eyes like the richest soil, a jaw covered in stubble that scratched my cheek as he kissed me.
I shake my head, clearing the dreadful thought. Why would I want anyone to kiss me other than the Prince of Thorns? I touch the corner of my mouth where his lips touched mine. Such a special day.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
The Prince of Thorns has made a suspended chair of briars, legs dangling down. “Waiting for a delivery, darling. Mother wants this thing so badly.”
A delivery. How exciting! I’m sure whoever gets to deliver this thing to the Prince of Thorns is very lucky indeed. We’re in a small forest outside a grand city. I pace beside him, my slippers stained brown from the soft earth, the hem of my dress mud-splattered.
There’s a crunch in the briars, but looking at it would mean turning my attention from the Prince of Thorns, and that is something I cannot do.
“What do you think of our guest, Princess?”
The Prince of Thorns has asked me to do something, so do something I must. Observing the figure, I notice he has the same bright green eyes as my prince, but that is where their similarities end.
This fae is tall, far taller than Caspian, with long golden hair the color of the sun.
Where Caspian is lean and lithe, this man is broad.
He wears no shirt so I can see his muscles ripple as he moves.
And he walks strangely, an odd gate to his stance, as if he’s a puppet on strings.
Something about it makes me terribly sad.
“Well?” the Prince of Thorns prods.
He’s beautiful, I think, but somehow, I know better than to say that out loud. Nausea curls within me. How can I even think that? Think that when the most beautiful, perfect man in existence sits right above?
But now that I’ve had this thought, I can’t banish it. It’s taken root inside me. I can’t tear my eyes from him. There’s something else. His scent…it’s the same as the stuffed lion on my bed.
A man standing in a crowded market, trading a vendor a coin, and tossing the toy into my hands, the most brilliant smile on his face…
But the man coming toward us now isn’t smiling.
“He’s like…” I quirk my head, answering my master. “He’s like the sun.”
The Prince of Thorns chuckles and leaps from the branches toward the stranger.
But he’s not a stranger. I feel it inside me, this root growing. He’s like the sun. Like daylight.
The Prince of Thorns stands before him, and the man drops something into his outstretched palm.
It’s a rose.
Not one of the beautiful roses I dream about but a strange, almost glassy thing, with red petals and silver filigree along the stem that shines in the dim light.
My whole body goes cold. My mind begins to scream at me: Sira must not get that rose. Sira must not get that rose. Sira must not get that rose.
Holding my hand out, I notice I’m shaking. Neither the Prince of Thorns nor the man pay attention to me.
He did it. O’Connell. My name. My father’s name?
But why? Why can’t I remember?
Why does it matter? It doesn’t matter because it doesn’t involve the Prince of Thorns.
He’ll never be saved if—
I shake my head. It feels like wandering through mist within my mind.
The Prince of Thorns pockets the rose in the sleeve of his cloak and walks to me, looping an arm around my waist. My mind soothes. It feels so good to be close to him.
“Now that my thrall has served his purpose, he’s only a liability,” the Prince of Thorns muses. “You see, my father could intervene and turn him against us. The only choice is to dispose of him. Submit, thrall.”
The man drops to his knees, golden hair falling across his face. Green flames sprout in a circle around him.
Caspian tilts his chin. “Goodbye, Sunshine.”
Yes, the Prince of Thorns agrees with me. He’s like the sun. Like daylight. Cas called Dayton “Sunshine.”
My body trembles. My mind hums. I’m about to vibrate out of my skin. There’s too much light in my vision, bright and green and terrible.
“Let your last moments in the Vale be with the awareness of how you failed everyone…again,” the Prince of Thorns hisses.
And then the eyes of this man—Dayton, his name is Dayton—flash from green to teal.
Teal like waves under the burning sun, like a siren’s tail glittering beneath the sea. The eyes of a man I love.
His scream tears through the rain as the green flames writhe up his body. I feel as if it’s my own. Because it is passing through our mate bond, this connection that can fight through anything.
A fire blooms bright in my heart, burning away the fog that has clouded everything that I am. Like a dam being broken, it floods into my consciousness.
My mates. Dayton, Farron, Ezryn, and Keldarion.
Caspian.
My mission here.
All my memories return.