“I’m helping them.” Why is my voice so weak?
“Are you?” He sweeps one of my tears away with a long fingernail. “Or do you hope for more? Come now, dear one. Has it never occurred to you that one of them could want you? Love you?”
“No,” I whisper, and I mean it. Because no one ever has loved me in the way mates are described in the books, in the starlight-way. No one ever could. Keldarion joking about feeling that for me was the cruelest thing he could have done.
Because in my deepest, most hidden fantasies during my time in the Vale… I have wished for that.
“How did you picture this ending, little human?” His voice slithers across my mind. “One of them would mate you? Imagine. You are but a maggot to an oak. One is enduring. The other is a disgusting, crawling creature who is barely alive from dawn to dusk.”
He steps closer, and I pull away from him, tripping and falling onto the fountain. He leans down to me, hands on either side of my body. “The Winter Realm is on a knife’s edge of all-out rebellion. Your presence is disturbing the order of things. You know what I’m saying is true.” He puts his stained mouth next to my ear. “There is no future for you in the Enchanted Vale.”
Every ounce of energy saps from me. There’s no escaping this. I’m right back to Lucas’s bedroom, crying as he carves up my wrist. I’m under the water, sinking into the depths. The dance I’d shared with Keldarion is a distant fantasy.This is how the story goes for people like me.
I close my eyes and wait for it to be over.
Perth’s breath smells like meat and bitter alcohol as it drifts over my face. “Now that we’re clear, I will arrange your departure back to the human realm. Don’t worry. I will make sure you are fairly compensated for your time here.” He laughs darkly. “I always make sure to pay the whores.”
Just as a flood of tears pours down my face, a breeze whispers over my skin. I fling my eyes open and see Perth Quellos being ripped away from me and thrown to the ground.
And standing before me, body rigid and breath heavy, is the Spring Prince.
47
Rosalina
“Ezryn!”Icry.
But he stalks over to where he’s thrown Perth Quellos on the frosty ground. He grabs the vizier by the collar and heaves him up.
“I don’t care who you are, Quellos,” Ezryn’s voice sounds like how steel feels, “but if you speak to her like that again, I will rip your forked tongue from your mouth.”
“Ah, Spring Prince,” Perth says in a high-pitched voice. His feet fight for purchase, but Ezryn holds him aloft like he’s nothing but the white robes he wears. “I didn’t hear you approach.”
“Nor will you the next time you speak down to the Lady of Castletree,” Ezryn growls. “Because your head will be gone before you know I’m there.”
Perth’s face scrunches up. “When Keldarion hears how you’ve threatened the royal vizier—”
“If Keldarion heard you,” Ezryn snarls, “you’d be dead.”
With a heave, Ezryn chucks the fae man to the ground. The vizier scrambles up and backs away. “Run to your guards and your courtiers,” the Spring Prince says and steps in front of me. “Be sure to keep yourself from our sight.”
With a glower, the vizier straightens his robes and marches back into the castle.
It’s like I can breathe for the first time since going outside. “Ezryn…”
There’s a great clatter, and Ezryn’s armored body sits beside mine on the edge of the fountain. “Are you alright?”
Tears sting my eyes. “Y-yes—”
Ezryn grabs my trembling hand. “You can say no.”
I stare into his dark helm. Although his face is hidden, the black glass of the visor too dark for me to see his eyes, it’s like I can feel the compassion of his expression. A sense of safety rushes through me. “N-no, I’m not.” I give a half-sob, half-laugh. “He was really mean!”
Ezryn reaches for my face, almost as if to wipe my tears away, but pulls back. “Trust me, I understand. I’ve been on the other side of one of Quellos’s tirades before. He takes issue with anyone close to Keldarion besides himself.”
A small smile perks my lips. “I can hardly see you letting him lecture you.”
Ezryn shifts in his seat. “When I first inherited the rule—and the magic that accompanies it—from my mother, I had no control over it. Keldarion never saw me as evil for my transgressions. But Quellos made sure to let me know what a danger I was to Kel. To my realm. To my family.”