“Leave.” Keldarion’s eyes flash with dark promise.
I stand at the same moment Caspian pushes out of his grip. He lands gracefully and snatches Kel’s wrist. “I had to come. I was getting impatient.”
His eyes flick to me, and something crawls around my head. Slowly, I stare at my reflection in the icy wall. A crown of thorns weaves across my brow.
“It looks better on her,” Caspian says.
Kel freezes, and I feel like I’m trapped in a strange little bubble with them. Caspian stands on his toes, bringing his lips to Kel’s ear. “Just how long before you break, and she belongs to me?”
It’s the movement of Caspian’s hand that catches my gaze: his thumb brushing over Kel’s wrist in a strangely intimate gesture. Brushing over a dark line right above the bargain tattoo I created with Kel.What is that?
“Never,” Keldarion snarls. With a roar, he throws Caspian across the ballroom.
Keldarion stands before me, hunched and panting. Frost crackles beneath his feet, and the tips of his fingers shimmer blue with ice magic. If his rage gets the better of him, it will reveal his secret to all the nobles of the Winter Realm.
Caspian picks himself up from the floor and dusts off his jacket, looking positively unbothered. A rush of wind blows my dress and hair as Dayton, Farron, and Ez all sprint to Keldarion’s side.
“Even now, you can’t bear to hurt me, can you?” A positively cruel smile carves up Caspian’s handsome face.
“You. Are. Not. Welcome!” Keldarion howls, and a series of huge icicles, tips sharpened to deadly points, erupt out of the floor, surging toward the Prince of Thorns.
Caspian raises his hands, and the ground splits with huge purple briars, wrapping around his legs and lifting him out of the way of the ice daggers. “When will you get it through your head?” Caspian yells. “You arenotin control.”
More thorns explode out of the walls, the ground, even the dais. Guests scream and stampede from the ballroom. The briars shove over the tables of food. Ice sculptures smash to the ground, splintering into millions of pieces. Kel’s throne is wrapped in a thornbush until only a glimmer of blue is visible beneath.
The thorns rise Caspian even higher into the air. “Ah, I do love a little chaos.” His black eyes settle on me, and he winks. “Goodbye, princess.” The briars wrap tighter and tighter around him and then—
He’s gone.
A sigh of relief is nearly out of my throat… But a murmur shivers through the panicked crowd.
“He brought the Prince of Thorns here.”
“Once a traitor, always a traitor.”
“Keldarion allies again with the Below! He’s brought the thorns back to Winter!”
“It’s Keldarion’s fault for trusting him at all.”
I stand on shaky legs. The princes have formed a circle, all staring outward.
Something is wrong.
A nobleman steps forward from his hiding place behind a table crowded with briars. “Look at this! Prince Keldarion returns after years of abandonment, only to have the Prince of Thorns ambush us! He is still in alliance with the Below—here is the proof!”
“No,” Kel growls. “My allegiance is to the Queen.”
A fae woman screams from the crowd, “Then why do you not carry the Sword of the Protector? Why didn’t you kill Caspian while he was here?”
“I didn’t…” Kel stutters.
Oh no. The rebellions Perth Quellos kept mentioning. Is this the making of one? I turn in a circle and catch sight of the vizier skulking in a doorway. Why isn’t he doing anything?
Something sails through the air and lands upon Kel’s fine tunic. A pomegranate. Purple juice slides down his chest.
“Down with the Prince!” a young noble shouts. “Let us take back our realm from the traitor!”
“I’m not a traitor,” Kel roars. “Stop this—”