79. Keldarion
Keldarion
So the fight has come to Castletree. As we always knew it would.
I fight, as there is nothing else to do.
To my left, Dayton moves like a dancer, teal armor glowing, trident loose in his hand, each swipe creating a wall of water that sends goblins scattering to the floor.
I’ve created two long swords of ice and freeze a dozen that pile through the door, causing another group to trip and fall over.
A shriek sounds overhead, and a flock of harpies soars through the roof. I toss one of my swords in the air, and it explodes around them in a shower of ice, piercing their bodies.
“Kel!” Dayton cries.
Another wave pushes through Castletree’s entrance. They don’t stop coming.
Summoning a second blade, I dash beside him. We stand back-to-back, Dayton concentrating on the opening, me on finishing the stragglers that make it through.
Mostly goblins form this assault. Sira’s outfitted them in crude armor and jagged swords. Their eyes are pure black, revealing they’re all thralls to the rose.
The rose we never had.
Behind us, Justus and Ezryn have created a perimeter around Rosalina, Aurelia, George, and Cas. No goblin can break it.
Rosalina is on all fours, hair wild, hands digging into the ground. I can feel more than see the magic radiating from her. She’s making a connection with Castletree.
“We have to push out the door,” I say to Dayton. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Dayton and I fight our way through the splintered entrance, blades flashing, monsters falling at our feet. The air reeks of rot and burning bark. Behind us, Castletree groans.
We burst outside.
“Fuck,” I say.
The bridge is swarmed. Goblins, trolls, harpies, grinjaws—every nightmarish creature Sira could summon is crawling toward our home like ants over a carcass. And beyond…
Armies.
Tents and siege towers stretch as far as the eye can see, all camped along the edge of the briars. Or what’s left of them. There’s a hazy mist in the air, but it’s just Caspian’s briars fading away.
Dayton slows beside me, his trident dripping with dark blood. “How are we ever going to fight them all?”
I turn, and my chest clenches.
Castletree.
The great trunk groans, its bark splitting open with a sound like thunder.
Towers crack and spiral downward, crashing into the earth with bone-rattling force.
Vines shrivel to ash as they tumble from the heights.
Stone walls, once cradled in living wood, shear away and plunge into the roots below. The whole structure is coming undone.
Without Caspian’s briars, without the queen’s magic…there’s nothing holding it together anymore.
It’s dying.
Rosalina is truly our only hope. She must tap into the magic of her birthright, but she’s so young, so new to the Vale. My Rose has only just begun to understand the depths of her power… and to save Castletree she’ll need to descend further than before.
And I need to give her the time to do this.
I grit my teeth, the wind howling through the ruins behind me.
“We fight them,” I say, turning back to the horde, “one at a time.”
Then I shift.
Bones crack. Fur bursts. The cold surges through me, glorious and wild. The wolf takes hold.
And I charge into the fray.