22. Chapter 22
twenty-two
I opened my eyes the same instant Rye did, an action that returned us to the here and now—this snowy cliffside in Winkie Country.
Keeping my gaze locked with Rye’s, I crooked my arms between us, showing Rye the bracers like someone might display true shackles. Then, recalling the instructions Gleeah, the tree outside of the Emerald City, had given me when I’d asked how to use my Fairy magic, I funneled my intention into the suppressors.
Morella’s advice about how to undo the locks of the doors that night I’d tried to slip out of the palace swept through my mind too and, mentally, I dove into the interlocking mechanisms of the silver cuffs.
The clasps would not budge.
Stubborn as the one who had fastened them into place, the cuffs bound me still and refused to yield. Infused with magic meant to counteract mine, the bracers even bucked my attempts. But something about their kickback emboldened me, and I shoved my will into the bracers, fighting them as fiercely as I had Morella when Pae had been extracting her from me.
This time, I had no outside help. No inside aid, either. I wasn’t alone, though. That cold blue gaze that both challenged and encouraged kept me company and strengthened me.
Rye did not hate me. And even if it turned out he didn’t love me…
Well…he believed in me.
I formed my hands into fists, and my arms began to tremble with effort. Still, the bracers remained clenched, as frigid and confining as they had been that moment Rye had sealed me into them.
I had to show him I had outgrown them. I had to show him he was right. I had to show myself. That even if it seemed impossible, I was Ozma of Oz, daughter of Pastoria and Lurline, princess…a warrior in my own right and in my own way.
Thisway.
The metal of the bracers began to heat, growing hotter and hotter, though it did not burn me.
The gemstones burst first, the emeralds cracking, transforming back into bloodred rubies as they fell. Heated as the cuffs had become, the gem shards hissed as they pierced the snow. And then, with a final mental push, the bracers gave at last, snapping open at their locked seams before tumbling warped and ruined to Rye’s feet.
Freed, the power I’d been funneling into them coursed through and out of me—rushing past Rye, who withstood the blast, his hair lifting into a frenzy, his cloak flying back.
I gasped as the magic surged the length of my arms and legs—and out—vanquishing the snow even as new grass lept from the craggy earth to replace it. Wildflowers unfurled from uncoiling stalks, bursting into being, sudden as fireworks. Fragrant petals, the same that had wafted from Gleeah upon her awakening—drifted from the sky to tumble around us, beckoned from some phantom plane.
Wooziness overtook me then. I wavered on my feet as the winds that whipped around us died, the buildup of unleashed power having been spent in the blast. Still, even as Rye stepped in to catch and steady me, the summer scene I’d conjured remained, extending in a wide circumference, with Rye and I stationed at the center. Rye, too, remained human throughout this episode—his status sustained by my proximity now, rather than our physical connection.
“It was never true that you cared nothing for me,” I said, leaning into him.
“Morella is gone,” he said. “I have no reason left to lie to you. And so, I swear an oath of truth to you. No more deception. No more lies. I devote to you as well my sword, my life, my fealty. You are the rightful Queen of Oz, and a worthy ruler at that. Let the recognition of your crown start with me.”
I drew a sharp breath, rewarded with a hint of his spiced scent, my hands tightening in the fabric of his coat. Here he had just promised me his all, his everything. He’d named me his queen. Which, until that moment, I’d only been in pretend.
But…why did my status still feel false?
And how, without coming across as wretchedly ungrateful after such a pledge, did I tell him I wished only for his heart?
“Oz needs you,” I whispered, instead. A truth. Another truth. “The land has been desperate without its king.”
Ihave been desperate without the King of Oz.
“I am here,” he assured me, warm knuckles grazing my cheek. “For as long as I need to be. For as long as it takes. To prepare you for—and restore you to—the throne.”
A lonely place if I had learned anything at all about him.
My heart swelled at being held by him like this, even though it didn’t count as the embrace I wanted. Like the one he had given Dorothy.
I had so much to say to him. More than I knew how to voice.
He knew how I felt. About all of this. Oz. The war. Him.
Did I dare repeat it?
“Rye, I—”
“Sebastian lives,” he said, these abrupt words drawing my eyes, now brimming with hope as well as tears, up to his. He gave me a tight smile, his brow pinched as if he couldn’t decide how to feel about my reaction.
Rye nodded, seeming to read the unspoken question in my gaze. Was this really the truth? Could my best friend, the boy who had left his whole life behind to come to Oz to rescue me—to take me back to the home I’d never truly had—have survived the fall of The Emerald City and Langwidere’s takeover?
Rye had already promised me no more lies. But…these words. They were too much to believe.
“He is yet with Langwidere,” said Rye, “held prisoner. Though he remains unharmed.”
“How…how can you know…any of that?” I asked, giving him a light shake—the way Dorothy had yesterday in the dining hall when Rye had at last returned to us.
A strange expression flittered across Rye’s face next, simultaneously rueful, and glad.
“Cahal escaped The Emerald City,” he said, his words sending my heart into another series of almost painful leaps. “This was the true reason Langwidere did not press for an answer regarding the exchange. Cahal has returned to his castle in the Mount Tskien Country and is preparing his forces as well. You and Dorothy were right, Tip, to have hope. But Cahal… He had help from within the Emerald City Palace.”
“H-help?” I asked, unsure if I could take any more from him. Just in case he did rip all of it away—or any one part.
“Someone is waiting for you in Nick’s castle,” Rye said. “Someone who came in the dead of the night to bring this news. Someone who, now that I can allow it, would very much like to speak with you.”
“Who?” I asked.
But Rye…only smiled.