81. Farron
Farron
Irun.
The halls of Castletree split apart around me. The roots groan and stone screams as it cracks. I leap over a fallen beam and duck under a tangle of vines and broken masonry. Magic hangs heavy in the air, wild, raw, and wrong. My lungs burn with smoke and dust.
Most of the staff are evacuated. I led them to Caspian, who has wrapped them in shadows so they can hide in the back gardens.
But two are missing.
Mandaria. Paavak.
Where are they?
I turn, boot skidding on loose stone as I barrel into the Autumn wing. The temperature shifts. It’s warmer, like the heat of a long-burning hearth. My chest tightens. No—
My feet carry me faster until I burst through the double doors into the library.
Gods.
The library is falling apart.
Golden light streams through fractured windows, dancing across the leaves that gust up from felled trees.
Books tumble off shelves. The floor is littered with torn pages.
The fireplace still burns somehow, casting a soft orange glow over the worn velvet couch in the corner of the room.
Half the tables are overturned, stools broken under fallen branches.
“Mandaria!” I shout, voice raw. “Paavak!”
A cough. Then another.
I rush toward the sound, dropping to my knees and peering beneath the splintered remains of a table. Two figures huddle there, covered in dust, eyes wide.
“There you are,” I breathe. Relief crashes into me.
“High Prince Farron,” Mandaria whispers. “We didn’t know where to go—”
“Come now.” I haul them both out. “Straight through those doors. Caspian’s leading everyone to safety. He’ll get you out.”
Paavak hesitates. “What about you?”
“Run!”
They do.
I make to follow but hesitate. How can I leave my library like this?
The ceiling groans, then cracks, caving in dust and debris from floors above, right in front of me.
A shadow falls across the floor as the redwood bookshelf, one of the tallest—the one I used to climb to reach the poetry on the top shelf when I was only a kid visiting here—splinters free from the wall and crashes to the ground.
I stagger back, coughing, arms raised as the air explodes in dust and falling pages.
I can see the exit, but I can’t make myself leave.
When I return, it won’t be the same. What if it’s all gone?
“No.” My fingers brush the shelf’s shattered edge. The wood is warm, still alive. But only just.
What if saving our home is too much, even for Rosalina?
Another crack splits the ceiling. A beam falls. The leaves on the remaining trees curl inward, blackening at the edges. Flames lick higher in the fireplace, and the reading couch catches.
I stand there, frozen, helpless.
This place, this room…it’s mine. The heart of the Autumn wing. Where I learned to read. Where I first heard stories of heroes and fools, gods and monsters. Where I found peace.
It contains all the histories, every story, every legend, every encyclopedia. It is lives upon lives upon lives within the pages.
And now it’s dying.
The grief comes so fast I can’t stop it. I press a hand to my chest, trying to catch my breath, trying to—
Trying to do something.
But all I can do is watch as the place I love most in the world crumbles before my eyes.
“Farron!” a booming voice yells. “Farron!”
Then a monstrous shape leaps over the broken beams and lands before me. Dayton, the High Prince of Summer, the golden wolf.
“Day—” I say, breaking into a sob.
He gives a little whimper and nudges his wet nose against my cheek. “We need to get out of here, Fare.”
“I can’t.” My face burrows into his neck, tears sticking to his fur. “I can’t lose this too. All the stories, the knowledge… I’ve lost so much—”
“I know you have, my love,” Dayton says. “Your life is worth more than this. The great thing about stories is we can tell them again. They live in the hearts of people.”
My fingers wrap tight in his fur, and I blink through my tears. A shelf has fallen in front of the fire, and it’s catching the books.
I sat by the window and looked at the gardens with my siblings and read them stories. Nori, Dom…Billy. They loved the library.
And Day—we made love on that couch, surrounded by the smell of woodsmoke and the sea. I thought I was going to die of happiness.
And I fell in love with Rosalina between the pages of these books where we first saw each other’s souls, our twin flames of curiosity.
“I can’t lose this place,” I sob. “This is our home.”
There’s a flicker of magic, and my arms are grasping cold armor. Dayton sits as a fae before me.
He gasps, surprised, and looks down at himself. “What happened? I didn’t mean to change.”
We stare at each other.
Dayton’s teal eyes widen. “Fare… I can’t feel my magic anymore. Or my wolf.”
A hollowness echoes through me, like a piece of my very being has been stripped away. I hold out my palm, but the idea of a flame forming there feels as impossible as flying.
“Our roses,” Dayton gasps.
“They’re dying,” I say. “Like Castletree.”