Page 141 of Crowned By Roses

Rosalina

Sira is surprisingly light in my arms. Her unconscious form is limp, her breathing labored. Her usually pale face is ashen. I can’t see the green eyes that so often bore into mine. The ones I stared into when I promised she would pay for what she did to me.

My wingbeats slow as I land. My mind is quiet—the energy poured into me has flowed back to its sources. Carefully, I set her down before the fallen remains of Castletree, then cast a look at the battlefield. I need to act fast. The ice imprisoning her army has begun to crack and shatter. Even with Sira unconscious, her minions are still under her command to destroy us. As soon as they break free, they’ll return to slaughtering.

My heart is a steady, thundering presence in my chest. It feels as if there is only my body right now, acting on instinct, and my thoughts are far away, fleeing from the chance that I will think too much about everything and not be able to act.

The rose. Nothing else matters but the rose. I summon a golden briar to slip into my armor and hold the rose before me.

It is as beautiful as I remember and as strange. Living and not, part rose, part glass, part mythkarite, the object gleams with its own internal light. I hold out my hand to grasp its stem but hesitate. There’s a wrongness to touching an object that can steal the will of other creatures.

Screams and the clang of metal break the hush. Sira’s army has broken free.

There is no other option.

I clutch the rose tight.

My vision tunnels and my mind whirs as if reality is being sucked up through a vacuum. Something slippery caresses my brain. I cringe against its touch, but an oil-slick wave follows, coating me inside and out, rose petals covered in slime.

I turn in a circle. I can see them, feel them, their hearts all beating with mine. Children. Goblins and gargoyles and hags and harpies. Trolls and ogres and the sweetest of all…the fallen fae. Each one pulses, the threads of their life twisting toward me.

And I can pluck them all. Wrap them around my finger. How easy it would be… Command the underfae to slaughter the goblins. Slam the harpies into walls. Have the trolls walk straight into the river to drown.

Or I could will them all to drive their blades into Sira’s sadistic skull.

I can end this right here with a simple tug. And I must. These creatures have only ever known darkness. Will only ever know darkness.

And yet…

I’ve known a goblin who loved flowers above all.

An underfae who cried because she missed the stars.

A warlord who sacrificed himself for a home he’d never live in.

An emperor who passed on his great magic so the love of his life wouldn’t die in the dark.

A night bird with broken wings who still tries to fly.

My vision stops whirling, and I focus on the ground beneath my feet, the stretch of horizon beyond the battlefield. There’s a sliver of dawn light breaking. Not enough to chase away the moon or stars. But enough.

I know four princes who never thought the world could forgive them, and I fell in love with their souls and their beasts.

And I know a villain who never thought he could save himself, let alone all those that he loves.

And above all else, I know a girl who never believed she was brave or strong or smart enough to do anything. Who let the world tear her down. But she took those shattered pieces and formed something new. Something beautiful and broken and free.

Just because we’ve known the darkness doesn’t mean we cannot know the light.

I’m sorry, Papa. I know how hard you worked to put this back together. But if you were here, I think you’d trust me.

A wind ripples by, lifting my hair off my shoulders, and it doesn’t smell of blood. It smells of roses and fresh soil.

It took the combined magic of two princes to destroy this before, and now my father has reinforced it with mythkarite. What will break it?

Something shimmers in my free hand. I toss the terrible rose into the air, using the strength of the wind to blow it high.

Finally, it feels right to draw the Bow of Radiance, reforged by my mate. A brilliant arrow of light forms. “Let all the Enchanted Vale be free!”