42. Rosalina
Rosalina
I’ve perfected the dull-eyed gaze and wandering amble of a thrall. No one blinks an eye as I meander through the outskirts of Nether Reach. Though the citizens of the Below aren’t under a spell like I’m supposed to be, many share that same inward look.
It reminds me of working at the bookstore back in Orca Cove, where reality felt so gloomy, it was better to live inside my head. In lots of ways, these people—goblins, deserters of the surface realms, or fae born in the dark—are no more free than the animals in the menagerie.
I grit my teeth. If I don’t succeed, they’ll be worse off. If we don’t get the rose, Sira won’t just be stealing happy memories. If they’re one of her creations, she’ll steal their wills. And if they aren’t, they’ll be at the whim of what she orders her creations to do.
I took a grinjaw carriage from Cryptgarden most of the way to Nether Reach but am now making the final stretch on foot to be more inconspicuous.
The Tower of Nether Reach looms ahead, a thin, jagged tower resembling a stalagmite made of black glass.
Beautiful and deadly, like its queen. I imagine Sira, pacing her balcony, looking out over the horizon.
She built it to be as high as possible, yet it can never reach the surface.
A great weight falls over my shoulders with each step closer.
Memories of when the princes and I were imprisoned at the top of the tower.
My magic felt so far away. Even now, at the bottom, it feels sluggish in my veins.
Is there an enchantment on this place, or is Sira’s energy so strong here, it suffocates all other forms of magic?
Regardless, I’m so much stronger than I was back then.
My magic will answer me when I call upon it.
Sira’s revelry day party is planned for the courtyard outside the tower, so I’ve come to scope it out. The more information I have on the setup, the easier it will be to pull off our plan tonight.
I grunt, heaving my heavy bag higher on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what the security would be like, so I brought everything in case. Kel’s cloak and Farron’s book of maps may be useful if I need to do some actual sneaking.
But it doesn’t look like anything’s being set up yet.
The courtyard is empty, and there’s only a pair of goblin guards—Truubo and Scrumpy—at the door of the tower.
They give me a nod as I wander by, used to seeing me about these last few weeks.
A party in a few hours and the preparations haven’t begun? Marigold would throw a fit.
Just as I’m certain I’ll have to come back later for my intel, my ear twitches. There’s a sound in the distance, so soft I’m now doubting I heard it at all.
Sniffling.
Giving Truubo and Scrumpy a friendly wave, I walk the curve of the round base of the tower. A black stream trickles behind, and I follow its bank.
A woman sits curled over the edge of the water, thin strands of long, green hair dusting the stream. Her sage-green cheeks are shiny with tears. One side of her face is badly scarred, half her head bald.
It’s Aquila, priestess of the underfae and Faustrius’s second-in-command.
Why is she all alone, crying? I suck in a breath. I should turn around, pretend I never heard her. What do I care anyway? She attacked us. Her people sided with Sira. Her misery is not my problem—
Aquila lets out a pathetic wail, and my breath rushes out of me in a sigh. I creep over to her. She doesn’t look up until I’m right beside her, crouching down at her side.
“Aquila?”
She gives a few sniffles as she attempts to compose herself. “Rosalina.”
“Are you okay? I heard crying so I came over.”
She takes a breathy gasp that sounds somewhere between a baby bird’s call and a hiccup.
“Imagine! Imagine! I never thought there’d be anywhere darker than the caverns we woke up in after we were frozen, but now we’re here, even deeper in the gloom.
And that’s not enough to hide me!” She smacks the stream, causing ripples.
“You catch a glimpse of yourself only to be reminded you’re something horrible. ”
I follow her gaze down to the stream, to our reflections beginning to form as the glassy water slows. Who does she see? Something horrible. Is that who I see? Beyond her being one of Sira’s many puppets, I barely know this woman.
Aquila lets out a laugh so riddled with grief, a pang hits my own heart.
“This is what I deserve, isn’t it?” She tears at the strands of hair left on her head.
“I first got ruined when I forsook home. Now, I got this”—she drags a finger across the scarred flesh on her face—“because I helped ruin someone else’s.
That boy didn’t want to become one of us.
Who can blame him? We chose this. He was forced. ”
The boy? Oh. She’s talking about Kairyn.
Aquila looks up at the strange sky above us, nothing but wavering mist, and in that moment, it leaps out at me.
Even with her horns, I recognize her now. The fae from the crystal, the one I saw sitting on white pillars staring up at the stars.
Maybe I know more about her than I think.
“Sira changed you,” I whisper. “The underfae are her creation, like the goblins and harpies.”
“Another one of her monsters,” Aquila whispers in a singsong voice.
Her gaze is still faraway, as if she could pierce the mist. “We followed her down from home. Traded our wings for a new world. Why did we do it? See, I don’t remember.
Don’t remember home.” She squeezes her eyes shut, tears creeping out as she gives a heart-wrenching laugh.
“Isn’t that just the worst thing you’ve ever heard? ”
That memory of her birthplace, trapped within Sira’s crystal… Sira doesn’t stop at stealing from her citizens. Even those she’s in an alliance with are collateral.
I shouldn’t feel pity for Aquila. She and Faustrius tied themselves to Sira’s cause.
But still… I wish I could reach into the crystal and give her back that memory.
It belongs to her, as Heidigog’s bloomies and my wedding belong to us.
If there were more joy, maybe everyone wouldn’t be so content to hide away in the dark.
“Why am I bothering to talk to you? If it’s not about Caspian, you don’t even comprehend it,” Aquila mumbles.
Right. I’m supposed to be a thrall, and though Aquila doesn’t know me well enough to understand the effects of the spell, she knows I’m bound to Caspian. But I can’t stop staring at my left arm, the smooth skin there.
“Look, Aquila,” I say lowly, “I understand better than anyone that when we’re frightened or hurt or sad, we aren’t the people we wish we were. And I’ve seen how powerful a fresh start is.” I reach into my bag and pull out the healing balm. “May I?”
Aquila stares at me intently, then sits cross-legged and shrugs.
I brush the few stray hairs away from her burned skull and cheek, then open the jar.
I bring it to my nose, inhaling the strong smell of honeysuckle and echinacea.
It’s a safe smell, one that reminds me of nights draped in Ezryn’s arms. In those moments, it felt like nothing from the past or future could ever hurt us.
Having used the balm on Kel, I know it’s not powerful enough to heal Aquila’s burn scars. But I held Spring’s blessing inside me. I remember the paths of the flesh—how to knit, how to reform, and most importantly…how to renew.
It is Spring’s calling after all.
With a gentle touch, I dab it over her hot skin. Magic whispers from my fingertips into the ointment, Ezryn’s powerful mixture a conduit. I remember how it felt as the letters carved into my arm faded, giving me my own fresh start.
“A fae of Spring once told me that rebirth is all around us,” I tell her as I work.
“A seed becomes a flower, which lives its season, then breaks down to feed the soil in which a new seed will grow. An egg becomes a bird, which dies and turns into dirt, which houses the worm that feeds the bird. Nothing is ever stagnant. We change, we die, and we are reborn.”
Aquila shivers beneath my touch. Her voice is a raspy breath. “Even now? We can be reborn?”
“Of course. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to do it.” I pull my hand away, magic twinkling from my fingers like pixie dust.
Aquila blinks and hesitantly touches her face. Where once the skin was red and raw, it is now a pale green, smooth and brand-new as a meadow after the rain. She whirls, staring at her reflection in the glassy stream. “You healed me. Why?”
“Someone gave me a fresh start once. And I’ve seen a lot of wonderful things happen from a second chance.” I shrug. “By the way, Sira doesn’t, uh, exactly know I can do that.”
“Our little secret. Besides, Sira won’t notice I look any different. To her, we’re all just one big failure.” Aquila turns to me, her eyes going so big, she reminds me of an adorable frog. “Can you…can you do more? Change me back to how I once was?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Oh.” Aquila runs an absent hand over her horn. “That’s okay. There’s probably nothing good on the surface anyway.”
A pang of guilt hits me. How would things have been different if Thrainn, first High Prince of Winter, had accepted the Elderblood instead of casting them aside, then freezing them for centuries? I wish I could tell her how wrong he was. That none of the current rulers would send them away.
But we’re on two sides of a war. Soldiers hiding in their opposite trenches, guns pointed at the other.
Though right now…
Right now, she’s just a girl, and so am I.
I rummage in my bag and find Dayton’s gift to me. Aeneas, the stuffed winged lion. He told me it would come in handy, and it has, providing me with so much comfort during my lonely nights here.
But I’m okay now. And Aquila seems like she needs someone.
“Here. It’s not to keep, just a loan. He’s been a pretty good friend to me, and, well, you seem like you could use a friend.” I pass her the lion.
Aquila takes him. Carefully, she runs a hand over his mane, along his back, before finally tracing the large white wings. “This reminds me of home,” she murmurs.
“Were there creatures similar in the Above?” I ask.
“Oh yes, that’s one thing I remember,” she says.
“We’d dart through the sky together, sailing through the clouds and sunshine, and at night, we’d—” Aquila shakes her head.
“I thought I was about to remember something, but it popped out of my head.” Her hand goes to her horn again. “I suppose this is how Sira felt.”
“What do you mean?”
Aquila makes the lion fly through the air, flapping his wings, and says in that idle, singsong way, “Oh, you know. With her sickly, little wings. She couldn’t fly, not like the rest of us. Maybe that’s why she wanted us all to fall with her.”
“Sira had wings?” I breathe.
“We all did. But Sira’s never worked. Faustrius told me she ripped them off herself. Plucked them as one would pluck the petals off a flower.”
My breath catches. A fae, born among the clouds, unable to fly.
And when she fell to the earth, she made everyone fall with her.
Someone clears their throat, and Aquila and I both look up, startled.
Faustrius stands over us. Despite his enormous size and the shadows cast by his antlers, I hadn’t heard him approach. How long has he been here?
“Aquila, we’re needed in the tower,” he says lowly. Then he stares at me. I want to turn away, but he holds my gaze in a bone-deep and ancient way.
The stories you could tell, I think.
But I don’t ask him what it was like to know Sira before she tore apart the Above or what it’s like now, to watch her attempt to destroy another world. Instead, I quirk my head to the side, adopting a glassy-eyed look, and chirp, “I must find Caspian.”
He says nothing.
If someone wants to survive Sira’s realm, they either become a monster or play the role of one. From the way he’s looking at me, he knows which one I am.
But I’m not sure which role he’s playing yet.