Page 109 of Crowned By Roses

“And who will need to die, exactly? I’m sure you’ve got a list.” I keep my voice light.

Birdy’s a few steps ahead of me, barely even panting as she walks up a rocky path trod into a grass-covered hill. This particular route looks well used, I think until her voice interrupts the thought.

“Sira. If this is to ever truly end, she’ll need to die. You know that, right?”

I don’t answer, breathing heavier so I can give the illusion I’m too winded to speak. Of course, she’s right. Of course, I know that. But am I prepared for it?

“The one thing about our mother is she is persistent to the end,” I concede. “Even if we defeat her entire army, she’ll crawl back to the Below and start planning again.”

Birdy keeps looking straight ahead. “That’s the point. It’s why she has to die, Cas.”

“The Vale will always be in danger unless she’s gone.”

“Sure, whatever. I mean, maybe in a hundred years when she has her new plan, the Vale will be stronger, and she’ll never get a foothold. But as long as she slithers back down Below, the people there don’t have a chance.”

I quicken my pace to walk at her side and search her face. She may as well be wearing her Nightingale mask for all I can tell in her eyes. “You’re concerned about the Below? I thought you always said it was a horrid, dreary, dark place.”

“Yeah, well, I guess some good things grow in the dark.”

She stops and turns to me. Short, curly hair. Large eyes, as blue as the sky above us. Small nose, thin lips. Round face flushed from the hill. I’m tempted to compare her to the child I watched grow up in the shadows of Cryptgarden. But she doesn’t remind me of that little girl. Not anymore. Nor is she the Nightingale.

My adopted sister is someone new. Someone I look forward to getting to know when the Vale has peace.

If that isn’t enough reason to fight. To win. I want the chance to get to know this person you’ve grown into.

Another image flashes into my mind. A boy, covered in sand, sitting by a fire in the middle of the desert. In his hands, he whittles a camel.

Wrenley raises a brow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I throw an arm around her and continue walking. “Was just thinking about myself as a little kid. How differently I see the world now.”

She shrugs out from under me. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I realize she’ll have to die before this is all over,” I say, my voice lowering. “The idea should bring me peace, shouldn’t it? But it doesn’t.”

Wrenley crosses her arms as she walks, hugging herself. “I get it.”

“She’s still our mother.”

“More a mother to me than Aurelia,” Wrenley says. “Even though she was a bad one, she was still mine.”

I don’t know what to tell Birdy because I don’t know what to tell myself. I’d had an opportunity to end this all when we fought inside the fires of Mount Rhuvenmark. But I hadn’t been able to deliver the killing blow.

“I feel guilty,” Wrenley whispers. “I should want to kill her. I should be itching for the chance to shoot a bolt through her black heart. After all the things she made me do…all the ways she hurt you…”

I focus my gaze straight ahead, not able to look at Birdy, lest I too closely see my own emotions on her face. “Maybe it’s not so simple. We can hate her. Want the Vale to recover in her absence. Let justice play its role.” I stop walking and touch Birdy’s shoulder. “And we can still grieve.”

Birdy’s eyes shine. “It makes us different from her.”

“Exactly.” I cup Birdy’s face and take a step closer. “So if and when the time comes, you find me, okay? And I’ll find you.”

“Like we always have.” She nestles against me.

I wrap my arms around her, resting my cheek on the top of her head. “Like we always have.”

We stay there, golden light basking over us. My little villain and me.

“Do you hear that?” she whispers.