64. Rosalina
Rosalina
The wooden stairs are slick as tree bark beneath my bare feet as I ascend the winding staircase up to the High Tower. It’s deep into the night, and the castle is quiet besides the soft swish of my dressing gown.
I’d been unable to sleep, tossing and turning alone in my bed.
Farron and Dayton are escorting Dom to Autumn where Billy’s body will be laid to rest. Kel, Caspian, and Ezryn had all said they’d come to bed soon, but I’d heard them in the dining hall, laughing and reminiscing like three old friends in a bar.
Reuniting with my friends was sweeter than even walking the familiar halls or eating the delicious food here. Seeing Astrid for the first time since I broke my mate bond with Kel, freed from her curse, filled my heart until it was overflowing. They’re all free, everyone in Castletree.
My mother faded into sleep after we brought Dayton back, and Papa carried her himself to the medical ward. Last I saw them, she was sleeping peacefully, looking like a princess from a fairy tale, while Papa sat vigil at her side.
Even the staff have settled down. Our return has sent them all into a fit.
I’m not sure any of them recognize my mother, having been too young to have served during her reign, but Marigold couldn’t take her eyes off her.
Thankfully, she seemed distracted by her newest charge: Heidigog.
I asked her and Astrid to take the little goblin under their wing.
I’d overheard Heidigog going off about the bloomies in the Spring Wing, so her memories must have returned after we broke the crystals, as have mine.
The moonlight drifting through the slanted windows reflects off my ring. Kel’s vows sing through my mind, and I can practically smell the cranberry and fir boughs from the wreaths that decorated our arch.
For now, we’re safe. We’re home.
Yet I could not sleep. Just like that fateful night after the winter solstice ball when I felt called to the High Tower, I feel a similar tug.
I picture myself looking something of a ghost, white nightgown wafting in the breeze that sneaks through the windows, drifting up the stairs, drawn by a secret purpose.
I crack open the door and step into the circular room at the top of the High Tower. It’s cool up here. Golden briars flush with flowers surround four blooming roses: dark blue, pink, turquoise, and orange. They have never looked so beautiful—
There’s someone standing in the middle of the room, amid the roses. She could be my ghost’s twin: long waves of dark hair, brown eyes, white nightgown, bare feet. Except she feels different.
Power rolls off her like the warmth of the sun as it breaks through the clouds: radiant, warm, and very, very ancient.
My mother.
I try to take her in, to truly soak in the fact that she’s here before me. But even though I know she’s real, it’s like looking at a painting in a museum I don’t comprehend the meaning behind.
Who is she?
Aurelia? Anya? A queen, an anthropologist, a wife, a leader, a coward, a deserter?
A mother?
Questions so endless I could fill a book with them have tumbled through my mind all the years I’ve been alive—so many things I wish to ask her, to understand about her life. But now that she’s right before me, my throat is tight.
“Hi,” I whisper. The word feels like an enormous feat.
“Hi,” she whispers back.
“You’re supposed to be in the medical ward resting.”
She shrugs. The creator of the Enchanted Vale, shrugging. “I woke up.”
“Where’s Papa?”
“He fell asleep. I’m sure he’ll find me here soon enough.”
My brain doesn’t seem capable of any more words, so I attempt a smile, then knot my hands in my nightgown, swishing it idly.
Over two and a half decades of missing her, and now she’s right here.
Yet I still feel like my feet have sunken into the earth, and I’m staring up at the sky, trying to speak with a star.
Needing something to do, I shuffle over to the four colored roses. I bend down, pretending to examine them, though I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She opens her mouth, closes it. Knots her hands in her nightgown and swishes it.
“So, uh, do you—” I begin.
“Rosalina, I—” she says at the same time.
A beat of awkward silence follows, then we both laugh.
“The Good Lord in high leather boots,” she mumbles under her breath. “I am a mess of a mother, aren’t I?”
“Well, you didn’t have much of an opportunity.”
She wrings her hands together, gazes down at her feet. “I’m sorry about that. The bargain debacle with Sira. I’m sure you heard about it. One grand bungle after another, really.”
I shrug. Guess shrugging is no more a princess thing than a queen thing, but I’m not sure what else to do.
“And the whole ‘cursing your mates’ bit. That was a tad impulsive on my part…” She chews on her bottom lip.
“I’m starting to learn impulsivity is kind of a you thing,” I say, avoiding her gaze.
“You’re probably more suited to this than I ever was.” She lets out a sigh and waves her hand as if indicating the castle. “I get the impression you have your father’s patience.”
I stand and wipe my sweaty hands on my nightgown. “Well, as long as I don’t snore like him, I’m okay with it.”
She laughs, and I can’t help but join in. My mother gives a large exhale and laces her fingers behind her neck, pulling on her hair. “Oh, Rosalina, there is so much I want to say to you. So much I want to know about you. And your sister.”
My sister. Wrenley. Where is she? The raw, angry space in my heart cries out, Who cares? But when I close my eyes, draw in a shaky breath, I look at that space, that crying, aching empty space. It’s saying I care. I care.
Because Wrenley is my sister. And I’m here with our parents and with Caspian, who was as good as a brother to her. And she’s all by herself.
I wouldn’t give up on them: Kel, Ez, Farron, Dayton, or Cas. And they never gave up on me.
What if I could show Wrenley there are people who care for her? That there’s a family waiting for her to return? That no one needs to hide away in the darkness?
Isn’t that what this is all for?
I stare into my mother’s eyes, twin flame gazes burning as one.
“We’re going to see this through. The baron is gone.
We have the rose and can control any of Sira’s creations.
The high rulers of Castletree have restored their power.
And you and I are reunited. Let Sira come, bargain or no bargain. We’ll face it.”
My mother quirks her head. “You truly are suited to this.” She glides toward me, and wherever her feet touch the ground, a rainbow of roses arises.
My heart drums in my chest as I let my mother look me over, tracing a finger along the curve of my jaw, examining a piece of my hair. “May I…” she breathes. “May I hug you?”
I smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
For the first time in my remembrance, my mother embraces me. She smells of gardens and the pages of a new book and a beam of sunlight after a storm.
“My girls.”
A warm voice echoes through the chamber.
We both turn to look at Papa, leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, smile crooked on his face.
Despite his salt-and-pepper hair mussed from sleep, clothes still dirty from the road, he looks positively dashing.
And maybe it’s because the four roses are blooming strong, because there’s hope in Castletree’s bones, but he radiates with life.
“George,” my mother whispers.
“Anya.”
“George!” She runs to him, this centuries-old, good-as-a-goddess queen, and leaps into his arms as if she were a girl.
And my father, who has traversed the world looking for her, holds her as if she were the greatest treasure to ever walk the earth. And to him—to us—she is.
I have flown on winged horses, swum with sirens, and created briars with gleaming golden roses.
But witnessing my father hold my mother for the first time in decades?
This is magic.
I slip out of the High Tower, letting my parents have this moment to themselves.
Tomorrow, we will decide the fate of the rose and thus the fate of the Vale. But tonight?
Tonight is for love.
Because that is what this is all for.