Page 42 of Crowned By Roses

“Why did you come back? It’s dangerous, you know. She’s searching for you. Oh, but I’m so happy to see you! There’s so much to tell. Like Tilla’s forging me my own suit of armor, and I got this letter from Dom right before Coppershire fell and it’s making me feel all sorts of⁠—”

Before I can respond, Tilla snags me by the arm and pulls me roughly down the hall. “Let’s go. Princes and…other strange companions of Rosalina’s, come too.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To the council room,” Tilla responds. “You’ve got a resistance to lead.”

12

Keldarion

What more could there be?

Labor camps in Autumn. Mines blown up with strange explosives in Spring. Nets filled with harpooned sirens in Summer.

And no word in or out of Winter. I can only hope Faustrius shows my people the mercy he showed me.

Sira has felled Castletree and built a war camp on its bones. And she won’t stop until she demolishes the rest of the Vale so she can grow her own perverse life in its ashes.

Keep Hammergarden’s council room seems to close in around me, the stone walls too cloistered, the moss crawling along the edges absorbing all the sound. With every report Tilla, Justus, or Delphia outlines, the more despair creeps into my heart. I know it’s creeping into theirs too, because Rosalina, Caspian, Ezryn, Dayton, and Farron haven’t said a word since we sat down. To render those five silent is a miracle indeed.

Or whatever the opposite of a miracle is.

Justus begins a report about oil seeping through the watersheds to Summer from another of Sira’s war camps, but I can’t take it anymore.

I pound a fist on the table, making everyone jump. Slowly, I rise from my seat. “I think it’s clear that Sira’s list of sins grows longer with every passing day. Now the question is: what do we do about it?”

Tilla crosses her arms. “That’s why you returned, isn’t it? You’re supposed to tell us.”

My ribs tighten around my heart. Because I have no idea what to do. How to fight back against this evil. I am the Sworn Protector of the Realms, and I can barely protect my own family.

I don’t even have a sword.

“Justus, do you still have our tokens?” Before we left for Orca Cove, he’d asked to hold on to them. It seemed a waste to take them to the human realm when perhaps they could serve a purpose here, so we’d given them to the first High Prince of Summer for safekeeping.

“Yes. I keep them with me at all times.” Justus reaches beneath the collar of his tunic and pulls out five necklaces, each with a dangling trinket. With a reverence that only one who has wielded his own blessing could exude, Justus presents the tokens to us one by one.

When he hands the moonstone rose to Rosalina, she immediately passes it to Caspian. “You keep it,” she says to him. “My mother had it made for my father. It’s supposed to be given as a gift.”

Caspian’s eyes shimmer in that way that means his mind is racing, but he takes it and slips it around his neck. “I suppose no one else can pull off moonstone armor like I can.”

Justus places the snowflake token in my palm. The moment it touches my skin, a current runs through me, as familiar as my own heartbeat. Magic.

“They still have power,” I breathe.

“For now. Castletree is the source of their magic, so use these tokens too much, and they’ll be drained, with no way to recharge,” Justus says. “But there’s still magic in them yet. Go ahead. Try them.”

The princes stand with me. We bring our hands to our sternums. Then in unison, we stretch our arms out and unfurl our palms. Light arcs above us, a rainbow of glowing colors. Sapphire plates enwrap my body until I’m clad in armor more magnificent than any that could be forged in Draconhold. As the light dims, I look around to see the other princes in their glorious armor. Caspian shimmering in moonstone, Farron in brilliant orange, Dayton in teal and gold, and Ez in silver threaded with green vines.

Dayton, Farron, and Ez are different from Cas and me though. They each hold their divine weapon. I stare down at my empty hands.

Faustrius’s sword, the only blade I’ve ever seen crafted of pure mythkarite, had shattered both the Sword of the Protector and the Bow of Radiance. Without my sword…

“Oh yeah, now I feel more like myself,” Dayton says, stepping away from the table and giving the trident a few test swings. “Let me at Sira’s strongholds and see how they stand up.”

Farron's mouth thins as he looks between me and Rosalina. “I don’t know if we can reclaim the realms with only three divine weapons.”

Silence stretches across the table. Everyone seems to avert their gazes, not wanting to be the first to speak the helpless words.