37. Rosalina
Rosalina
No. No, no, no. I’d seen him, seen him there for a moment with Kel’s words, tears running down his face. Cas, our Cas.
He’s in there. We’re so close.
But the more we push, the more we try to break him free, the more the Green Flame tightens its grip. The man before us is cold and cruel.
The Prince of Thorns.
Emerald flames erupt from the stones beneath his boots, coiling up his legs, around his arms, twisting through his hair. It’s not as if he’s wielding them so much as he is them.
The light they cast is wrong. All the Cryptgarden courtiers fall silent, fear gripping even them. A few on the outskirts start to run.
But I don’t move.
Because Keldarion is still kneeling. And Caspian is staring at Kel like he wants to turn him to ash.
“Anything more to say?” Caspian lifts his hand. A whip of thorns forms, coiling with flame.
Kel doesn’t flinch. He just looks at him, soft and unafraid, which only enrages Caspian more.
Look away, Rose, he says in my mind.
He knows I won’t.
The whip snaps.
I know what comes next. Know how this ends.
But something else rises in me. A memory.
Caspian’s voice, days ago, as he carried me away from Sira. If you lay a hand on her again, Mother, I fear nothing in this world could keep the green flame from burning through your pitiful fae bargain and consuming you.
Caspian would never hurt me. Some part of that lives in the Prince of Thorns. And if he would tear his own mother apart, what would he do to himself for causing me pain?
Break through the bargain?
Break through the Green Flame?
Time to find out.
The whip cracks just as I dive between Caspian and Keldarion, lashing across my skin.
Agony explodes through my body, white-hot and searing. The whip wraps across my back, fire biting into skin and silk and soul. I slam to the ground with a cry, the breath ripped from my lungs.
Everything goes silent.
I lie there, curled around the pain, gasping, feeling the heat sear through me like it’s trying to brand me. But all I can hear is Kel shouting my name.
And then—
“R-Rose?”
It’s Caspian.
His voice is soft. Shaking.
He drops the whip.
The last of the green flames flicker around him, then die.