31. Rosalina
Rosalina
My heart hammers against my chest so loudly, I swear all of Cryptgarden below me can hear. Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I continue tiptoeing the spiraling path. It winds along the mountain that Caspian’s palace, the Gem, is built upon.
Ahead of me walks Sira, her dark cloak melding into the shadows that seem to follow her everywhere.
When I heard she’d left the Tower of Nether Reach, I tailed her through Cryptgarden and all the way up here. With my wits returned, it’s time for me to do what I came here for. No one is infallible, and nothing is impossible. I will find a way to end this threat once and for all.
The path arcs onto a lookout point that gazes over the gem-crusted city of Cryptgarden. Dull purple light shimmers over the buildings and glints off Sira’s tower in the distance. Sira seems to make a show of gazing over her dominion, then glances back the way she came.
I press myself against the side of the mountain and wrap my cloak around me.
It’s one of the items I found in the bag the princes gave me as I left.
Kel must have packed this cloak; it’s made of the thick, weather-resistant fabric worn by the Tundrafolk.
On its outside, it appears nothing more than mottled gray and black, but when worn, it blends into its surroundings.
Safely covered, I appear as an outcrop of the mountain.
As helpful as my wedding gifts are, the most wonderful thing about them is it feels as if there’s a little bit of my loves with me.
I can hold Aeneas, my lion plushie, and for a moment feel like I’m in my bed back at Castletree with Dayton.
When I open the tin of healing balm, I remember what it was like to watch Ezryn prepare a poultice.
Reading the handwriting in Farron’s book of secrets, it’s as if he’s whispering in my ear, cheering me on.
And wrapped in this cloak, I am back under the starlit sky in Winter, staring at my new husband.
Absently, I twist the wedding ring on my left hand, willing it to give me strength. I’m close now.
It wasn’t long after my thralldom broke that I remembered Farron’s instructions about the book he’d packed.
Under firelight, the innocent words fade away, becoming his handwritten notes, everything the princes knew about the Below.
Farron had taken considerable care writing about the spiraling path up the mountainside, the lookout point, and the notch hidden among the rocks that opens a secret door.
That’s where we’re going now. To the heart of the mountain, where a pool awaits, and within that pool, the god threatening to take over my home.
Even my thrall-muddled observations have helped this plan. The notes I scrawled were chaotic, but there was truth to be gleaned among the passages. Like how Sira takes this path nearly every day.
A fearful wave of nausea passes over me, thinking of what will happen if Sira discovers me, breaking into her most sacred place. But I can’t spend all my time flitting around, pretending to be under Caspian’s spell. I need answers.
Farron and Caspian shattered the crystals surrounding the Baron’s pool.
That chain reaction surged throughout the Below, all the way to my mother’s prison.
Though it destroyed her cell, a bargain still traps her in the Below.
We have hindered Sira’s plan to loose the Baron on our home, but we haven’t stopped it.
It all ties here, to the pool. Each day that passes brings us closer to Sira’s full-on assault, with every perverse creation of the Below at her command. She has the rose now. We’re running out of time. I won’t shut my eyes because I’m afraid of her darkness.
So when Sira turns from the lookout point and opens the secret door, I don’t think. I slip behind her, as quiet as one of her pet shadows, and follow her into the heart of the mountain.
The passageway is pitch-dark, except for a few flickering torches here and there.
I have to squint to keep sight of her silky black hair ahead of me.
Away from the din of Cryptgarden, the whistle of my breath through my nose seems like a damned air horn.
At least in such darkness, this cloak makes me all but invisible.
My foot kicks something hard. It rolls across the ground, making a tingtingtingting sound. I stop, every muscle going taut. But Sira doesn’t turn around. Her pace has quickened now. The passageway opens to a large chamber lit by a soft green light—
That emanates from a pool in the middle.
An icy chill ripples up my spine. I’ve grown accustomed to the feel of magic in the air—a sparkly crackle—but this is different. Power pulses off the water in slow waves. Whereas Vale magic twinkles, then disperses, whatever this is seems to settle over the ground. A predator in wait.
With the added light, I look down to see what I kicked.
Crystalline shards litter the floor, colorless and dull.
Now that I’m looking, I notice them everywhere—spiking from the walls, cracked open like broken wineglasses, prismatic husks barely clinging to the ceiling.
There’s a graveyard of crushed glass lining the pool.
A smile graces my lips. How did the great god enjoy Nori’s little mushrooms?
Sira’s moving at a near run now, casting her cloak upon the ground. I meld against the remains of a large crystal, becoming another broken piece.
Sira doesn’t stop walking when she approaches the pool. Instead, she falls in it, a giddy tone to her voice. “Darling, have I a feast for you today! Anchors upon anchors to fuel your spirit.”
Then she takes a deep breath and dives down.
I wait, watching the ripples slow. Surely, she has to come up for air. As powerful as Sira is, even the Queen of the Below needs to breathe.
But she doesn’t emerge. A minute passes, then what must be ten. I’m struck still, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Caspian had told me of communing with the Baron, but it was always at the edge of the pool. Could there be something else?
Something…below the Below?
A chill rips through me, and I involuntarily shiver, clutching Kel’s cloak close. I didn’t think a breeze could find its way in, but a cold’s crept through my bones. It’s different from the icy wind in Winter. This feels dark and murky.
Nervously, I wring my hands together. My fingers trace a ring on my left hand.
I look down at it. Oh, it’s beautiful, the diamonds forming a snowflake so clear they appear carved of ice.
I rack my brain, trying to remember where I got it.
Perhaps Kel slipped it in my bag, and I started wearing it during my thralldom.
I’m still trying to recall its origin when little waves ripple in the pool. Sira takes a gasp of air, then glides out of the water. Droplets fall from her as if she were coated in liquid emerald. She snags her cloak from the ground and wraps it around herself, turning to face the water once more.
The pool continues to swell. Another figure appears, not rising out of the water like her but forming from it. With each poised and certain step toward the edge of the pool, his body gains corporeality. A man approaches, though man seems an inadequate word. My chest tightens, because so does fae.
He is something else entirely. Tall and broad of stature, the figure wears slim-fitting black armor with jagged edges.
Its finish is so sleek and oily, it reflects the green shimmer from the pool.
His hair is the same bone-white as his skin, a color reserved for skeletons and spiderwebs.
With a sharp jaw, cut-glass cheekbones, and long, pointed ears, everything about him seems ready to shred.
Yet there’s an undeniable beauty to him.
A sickening beauty. The firework spray of lava from a volcano, a tsunami on the edge of the horizon, a flash of lightning on a rooftop.
Malekai Furiondemius, Baron of the Green Flame.
“That was good magic, my little thief,” he rumbles. In a gesture that seems too gentle for his body, he runs a finger along Sira’s cheek. “You have fed me well. The tether is strong.”
“And strong I will keep it,” she purrs. “The time nears. All my subjects are nearly gathered.”
“And when they are, you shall bleed the sweet butterfly you keep in a cage for every drop of magic she possesses.”
Icy terror grips my heart. My mother…
Sira darts her gaze away from him. “Are you sure? It is a great risk. If we rush the process, she could die, then—”
“Then you secure her child. Is she not with our son now? As lovely a consort as she would make him, if her magic is needed to open the door, so be it.”
Sira’s voice adopts a tremor. “Caspian won’t be pleased if this is the path—”
“Caspian will do as he’s told,” the Baron thunders.
“He has been testing the limits of his power, testing my orders,” Sira says. “You need to keep him in line.”
“All children rebel against their parents at some point,” the Baron says. “You only need remind him of the power you possess.”
“Very well.” She lowers her gaze. “I’ll see to it that Aurelia survives long enough for the complete siphoning of her magic.”
Blood rushes between my ears. We’re running out of time.
The baron’s body curves over Sira’s, a crescent moon devouring the night. “Very good. Soon, we will be united. Your world, our home. And you shall have whatever you desire.”
The Baron waves a hand, and sparks of green flash behind Sira, forming the outline of wings. Sira looks over her shoulder, a delighted smile on her face.
Suddenly, they fall, sizzling on the wet ground.
The baron turns and strides back to the middle of the pool. “My presence is needed elsewhere. Worlds beyond this one require my dominion.”
Sira smooths a wrinkle in her skirt. “Very well. I must prepare for the coming revelry. All shall gaze upon the triumph of their creator.”
The baron’s body shivers like a lake caught in a rainstorm. “As soon they will gaze upon the triumph of their conqueror.” With that, he dissipates back into the pool.
Heart thumping and blood rushing, I have to hold my breath as Sira turns and strides out of the chamber.
I stay pressed against the crystal until long after her footsteps drift away.
Even after I hear the groan of the secret door at the end of the passageway open and close, I force myself to count to one hundred before I move.
The chamber’s gone dark besides the few lanterns, the pool having lost its luminous green glow. What did the Baron say? His presence is required elsewhere?
He’s gone. For now.
I wring my cloak in my hands. Just as we feared. Sira is going to siphon my mother’s magic all at once. How much time do we have? And what did all that mean, the talk of tethers?
I drift over to the pool. It doesn’t look unusual. The baron can’t be everywhere at once. And if he’s disappeared for now—
Where had Sira gone? She couldn’t have held her breath all that time.
There’s something down there.
I snap my fingers over the water. No response. Gingerly, I lean down and dip a finger in. It’s cool and clear.
There’s no telling when the Baron will be back or if my absence at the castle will be noted. I came to the Below for a reason, so there’s no point deliberating it.
I take a deep breath and dive in.