Page 102 of Crowned By Roses

Farron

The Emberwood is being torn apart.

The great forest that lies on the outskirts of Coppershire looks like a picked-over corpse. Most of the trees, once bursting with leaves every color of the sunset, now lie in stacked rows, ready to be chopped into pieces and transported to whatever part of the war machine Sira needs to feed. Carts amble through the destruction, pulled by grinjaws, the horrible hyena-like creatures that serve the Below. Goblins strut around, shouting cruel orders to the laborers.

The laborers…my people. Forced to toil with saws and axes, destroying their own home. Have they water? Food? Shelter from the sun during the afternoon or the cold at night? With every tree they fell, they’re faced with more of the elements.

The steady rhythm of Thrand’s breath below me is the only thing tethering me to the earth. My giant elk snorts and paces, as agitated as I am. We stand atop a hill overlooking the forest. The rolling hills of heather have turned ashen, and every crop field along the way smelled of rot. Autumn may celebrate the passing of life, but this is something far beyond that. What they have done to my realm is perverse.

After leaving the Celestial Landing and saying goodbye to Kel and Rosalina, who carried on to Frostfang, Dayton had blown his horn, and we’d been found by the Huntresses of Aura. One of the fliers had taken me to the outskirts of Autumn. I’d run most of the way as a wolf, keeping away from cities now under Sira’s rule and avoiding the many goblin camps that have sprung up in what were once fields and farmland.

I don’t know how, but he’d found me. Thrand, my giant elk. It was as natural as breathing; one moment, I’d been running by myself, and the next, he was cantering beside me. That, above all else, was a sign that things were bleak in my homeland. Thrand had always been free to wander, but he preferred to stay close to the keep.

I’d let him choose where to take me. And now it’s obvious why.

I’m supposed to rally an army in Autumn. But every soldier, every baker, every tradesman, is forced to turn our home into lumber.

The Emberwood isn’t just a forest. It’s where the will-o’-wisps live. Where Rosalina and I broke my curse. It’s home to hundreds of animals.

I watch them now, fleeing the destruction. Every creature from deer to wolves to squirrels races out of what remains of the forest, tramping across the black-ash hills. Flocks of birds cry overhead. There’s nowhere to go, I want to scream at them. There’s nowhere safe in Autumn anymore.

The thought makes my hands ball into fists in Thrand’s fur. How easily I’d done it before—destroyed goblin camps with no bigger numbers than what I see before me. The Green Flame had fed off my anger and molded it into destruction.

But I’d given that up. For him.

A gust of dry leaves blows around me, and my little brother’s face forms in my mind. Billagin.

I won’t forget the promise I made you. And I won’t let the same fate befall our family.

At that moment, something catches my eye. A worker, laboring alone on a giant oak tree, looks up at the hill where I stand. His frenzied red hair and beard catch the dying light of sunset.

“Stay here,” I say to Thrand as I slip from his back. I wrap the dark cloak I’d taken from Airaleth tighter around me, then call forth a burst of wind to blow up the dirt and leaves that litter the ground. Within its cover, I creep down the hill into the work camp.

Careful to avoid the grinjaw carts and patrolling goblins, I hide behind stumps and stacked logs, picking my way through the devastation.

Laborers barely look at me as I pass. My heart squeezes. There’s the chef who made my sister’s favorite pies, his arms nearly giving out as he attempts to swing an axe. And in this quadrant is a mother with two children who can’t be older than ten, all three of them working a crosscut saw. A goblin sneers at them as he passes. “Quicken the pace or we’ll use your legs for timber!”

I grit my jaw. Not yet.

I’m nearing the edge of the felled trees and the remaining standing forest when I catch sight of it again: that flash of red hair.

He’s alone, giant arms rippling with each swing of his axe. A grimace mars his usually smiling face, and sweat drips over his brow. My ribs feel like they’re suffocating my lungs and heart. My mouth trembles into a cry, but I refuse to let it go.

Whatever they’ve done, they haven’t broken Padraig, my father. He’s still alive. Still strong.

It’s painful waiting for the goblin patrolling this sector to saunter away, but as soon as he’s out of earshot, I dart forward.

My father raises his axe for another swing. I touch his arm. He turns toward me, lip curled, anger flaring in his gaze⁠—

Then recognition.

The axe falls to the ground.

I’m gathered in my father’s arms, and he squeezes me so tight, the breath rushes from my lungs. And for that moment, he is not a prisoner, and I am not a prince. I’m a boy, sheltered in the arms of my dad.

“What are you doing here, lad?” my father says, pulling away and then looking left and right. “Here, behind the oak, quickly.”

We dart into the tree cover. My father’s grip never leaves my shoulders. His eyes search my face, looking me over.