90. Caspian
90
Caspian
A fter all these years, I still haven’t figured out if the citizens of Winter enjoy their realm being this damned cold, or if they’ve all just lost feeling after ages of serving under the iciest bastard in the Vale.
I breathe hot air into my palms and rub them together, but it does little to chase away the chill in my bones. Ah, well. Won’t be here long.
I’m never long on the surface these days.
My feet thud on the hard stone floor of Frostfang’s dungeon. Several guards squirm and press against my thorns, which bind them to the wall. I wave a hand and the thorns grow to cover their heads, saving me from listening to their bothersome cries.
A shame, really. I don’t get much time up here nowadays, and I hate to spend it in this frozen vault. Hate spending it running errands for her .
She walks in front of me, long black hair swaying behind her like a cape. Each step radiates with the command she asserts over everything, whether it be stone tile or fae. She’s beautiful and terrible in the way a lightning storm is beautiful and terrible.
Sira, Queen of the Below.
My mother.
“I don’t want to be here anymore than you do.”
I shiver at the smoothness of her voice.
“Don’t you think I have better things to do than free idiots from this freezing wasteland?” she continues, not even deigning to look back at me. “It was the perfect opportunity for you to take Autumn. You could have swept in while they were in turmoil. You already forced your brothers and sisters to fight the night of your little party—”
“The goblins,” I snarl, “are not my brothers and sisters.”
She snorts, then finally turns to look at me. I’m caught in the serpentine green of her eyes, the sly smirk. “My perfect boy,” she murmurs. “My perfect, pathetic boy.”
She turns on her heel and we continue down the hall. Instinctively, I reach into the folds of my tunic for the book, but it’s not there. Of course it’s not there. Because Rosalina took it. My only solace is I doubt she understands the magnitude of what she possesses.
Not that it’s of particular importance to anyone but me. The only fae that could change her form, truly transform herself…
Ah, well. I’ll retrieve it soon enough. It’s always fun to pay my little Rose a visit. And I haven’t yet beheld her now that she’s unleashed her true form.
At least a part of it.
Sira stops before a cell and snaps her fingers, drawing me back to the present. I sigh and send a surge of thorns cracking through the ice, ripping the door from its hinges.
Huddled in a corner is the withered shape of Perth Quellos. His defeat has left him a husk of a man.
“Who are you?” he breathes, backing further against the wall. “Caspian? The Below has come to kill me—”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.” Sira examines her fingernails, filed to talons. “I saw a lot of potential in you, ice sorcerer. I thought you could be of assistance to me. Who did you think delivered those crowns to your doorstep, after all?”
Quellos blinks. “T-they were gifts from the Below?”
Sira steps toward the fallen vizier and studies him with a cold gaze. “I have use of your talents. But you’ll need to be educated so as not to fail me again.” She offers me a sweet smile. “I don’t take kindly to failure, do I, pet?”
“No, Mother,” I respond flatly.
“I won’t serve a master,” Quellos hisses, and I’m almost impressed by the passion left in him. “Especially one of the Below.”
Sira sniffs. “Come now. We all answer to someone.”
A shudder passes through me as I think of who my mother answers to. The Green Flame.
With a sudden spin and flick of her raven-black hair, Sira walks back toward the broken door of the cell. “Offer your allegiance and services to me, and in return, you shall have revenge against those who shamed you. I will gift you power greater than even that of the crown. Or…” She narrows her eyes. “Stay here. Rot in this cell, knowing that brute Keldarion rules over what should be yours.”
Quellos’s chest heaves. Sira waves for me to follow her out of the cell. We start to exit—
“I’ll do it. I’ll serve you,” Quellos cries. “And then I will have my retribution against the beast prince.”
I nearly laugh, imagining this pitiful old man enacting any sort of justice upon Kel. Instead, I smirk. “You’ll have to get in line.”
Sira raises her chin to me. “Send him to my sanctum. I’ll begin his re-education when I return Below.”
I swallow my anger as I weave my briars around Quellos, who sobs and struggles against their touch. With a rough hand, I direct the thorns spiraling down through the earth, taking Quellos deep Below.
“Where to now, Mother?” I drawl with mock sweetness. She knows the more magic I use on the surface, the more it drains me. Already, I feel the thick wave turning my blood to sludge.
“We need to check on your sister.”
“She’s not my—”
Sira snatches my jaw, nearly piercing the skin with her sharp nails. “I let you disparage my sweet babies, but do not speak ill of my adopted daughter. She’s accomplished more in twenty-five years than you have in centuries.” She flicks my jaw away and mutters to herself, “Ungrateful boy. Thankless wretch.”
I rub my face and summon the thorns. Thankfully, it’s not far to Spring.
I think I’ll make it before the black rot takes me.
The thorns carry Sira and I quickly beneath the surface, and I maneuver us up to the vast cavernous Hall of Vernalion, the throne room of the Spring Realm.
We erupt into the hall. I stagger out of the briars and collapse on the floor, gagging up sludge. Trails of black drip from my eyes and nose. I need to get back to the Below…
Sira steps over me, heels clicking. “Well, well, well. Things seem to be going swimmingly here.”
I look up, fighting to see through the film covering my eyes.
Prince Thalionor, Ezryn’s father and steward of Spring, has collapsed to his knees, head hung low, hands in chains behind his back.
And dressed in armor of blackest night, wearing an eerie helm with sharp metal crests on the brow resembling a great horned owl, is Kairyn, Prince of Spring. Ezryn’s younger brother. And he’s currently crushing the head of a princeguard beneath his boot.
The rest of Prince Thalionor’s princeguard lay in pools of their own blood, their skulls all caved in.
My stomach turns, and I struggle to my feet.
That’s when I see her lounging across the massive metal throne made of various helms. Her body is angled to the side, one leg draped over the arm of the throne, a silver goblet in her hand.
The Nightingale smiles at me, blue eyes flashing with mirth. “Recovered from your party, big brother?”
I say nothing.
Kairyn’s chest heaves as the man dies beneath his boot, and he staggers over to stand beside my sister, like a dog returning to the foot of its master.
The Nightingale runs an idle hand down Kairyn’s arm, eyes never leaving mine. “I heard your little goblin assault on Autumn was practically useless. I tried to help you that night, but you wouldn’t listen. Now here I am, right on track to deliver the Spring Realm.”
Something twists in my chest, and I unconsciously grab my wrist, fingers drifting over the mark there.
“Come on, Caspian, why the long face? You should be delighted.” The Nightingale gives a lilting laugh. “We’re going to kill the High Princes. And their,” her blue gaze meets mine, “thorny little princess, too.”
Her threat doesn’t go unnoticed. She knows of Rosalina’s power. Her price will be high to keep that from our mother.
But as the pull of the Below finally becomes too much to take, I sink within my briars and fall down into the deep.
I’m going to have to be very careful about my next moves.
Betrayal is a dangerous game.
And I haven’t quite decided who I’m going to betray yet.