by Kaylin Lee
“The knife broke.” That was Cole’s voice, coming from somewhere at my feet. “The dress is magic. It won’t be separated from the bed.”
“Get her out of it, then!”
“I’m trying.” Mom’s hands shook as she pushed my hair away from my neck and chest. “It’s hard to tell, there are so many burns and scars … but I think …”
“What? What is it?” Dad’s face joined Mom’s just above me.
“It’s attached to her skin.” Mom’s voice was hollow. “It’s coming out of her.”
There was a chilling, slithering noise from somewhere next to my bed.
“What was that?” Cole whispered.
“Roses,” said Deacon, somewhere to my right, his voice tense. “And vines. They’re growing all over the room. Just started. Marco, watch it—”
Marco screamed, a tortured, wordless cry, and then his scream was cut short.
“Zel! Look—”
Mom’s face disappeared, whipped away from my line of sight by something I couldn’t see. She shrieked, then fell silent.
A man hollered in pain. It sounded like Dad, but I couldn’t see him anymore, and his voice, too, was cut short.
“Commander’s down!” Was that Eugene? “Should we retreat? I can’t separate him from the vines!”
A cacophony of screams and pained groans filled the ballroom. Shadows whipped overhead as magical vines writhed throughout the room.
“Let me try something.” A new shadow appeared over me, moving too fast for me to see his features.
Something warm and soft brushed my lips.
The curse, which had been silent and satisfied ever since its fulfillment, suddenly began to hiss and growl. No, it snarled. no, no, no—
There was another touch on my lips, this time firmer, more insistent. Desperate, even. “Bri …”
The curse shrieked, shooting pain through my body, and then it disappeared.
I jerked awake with a loud gasp that seared my burned lungs. I sat up instinctively, though the movement made my burns crack with such pain I could barely breathe. What had just happened?
“She’s awake! He did it.”
I looked around, skin aflame with every motion. I wore a silver dress with a skirt so long, it pooled on the ground beneath the bed. Three Sentinels beside the bed fought glowing, silver vines that whipped around me like a many-headed snake. Between dodges, they pulled at my dress, ripping it free from the bed in frantic pulls. Corbin and Eugene, I recognized. And Tavar.
The dark ballroom was lit up by a mass of writhing vines, each one with a black-uniformed Sentinel in its grip. Some groaned in pain, but most were limp and silent, the rise and fall of their breathing the only indication that they were still alive.
A long, blonde braid caught my eye. “Mom?” My lips formed the words, but no sound came from my throat.
She was unconscious at the edge of the ballroom, a huge vine wrapped around her legs and upper body like a snake. Dad was asleep beside her, one hand on the vine that dug into her, the other on his own, like the curse had taken him as he fought to free them both.
“Got it.” Eugene sliced the vine closest to me just as Corbin pulled the last of my dress free from the bed.
“Grab her,” said Corbin. “We need to run, and it doesn’t look like she can even move.”
The ballroom went sideways. My skin burned as Tavar hefted me into a tight, crossways hold and turned from the bed.
“Side door.” Corbin’s whisper chilled my skin. “Mage coming in.”
“Get them!” The cry was unmistakably Elektra’s.
There was a blast to our left as Tavar sprinted toward the broken ballroom wall. Another curse.
“Go on ahead.” Corbin’s voice came from behind me. “I’ll follow.”
The dark, cold world continued to shake and burn as Tavar barreled toward the edge of the crater, clutching me in his arms.
Elektra screamed—not in rage this time. Pain.
“You hit her!” Eugene laughed incredulously.
“That felt good,” Corbin said, panting as he sprinted alongside us.
“Go ahead, run!” Elektra’s scream followed us out as we raced across the crater to the edge with the tunnel. “It doesn’t matter, Briar Rose! We’ve already won!”
At the wall, Tavar rolled me to his back and crawled through the tunnel at record speed as I clung to his shoulders, every brush of the rocky tunnel wall agony on my skin.
“Tav,” I tried to say, but the scars in my throat and mouth garbled the word.
“Hold on,” he whispered. “Almost there.”
Darkness seeped into my vision despite the bit of moonlight that lit the end of the tunnel. Sleep called to me, an escape from the pain. It seemed like the burns were spreading. How was that possible?
Eternal sleep—had the curse’s power to keep me immobilized also kept Elektra’s torture from fully killing me?
The sudden feel of hard, cold ground beneath my back jolted me out of the encroaching darkness.
“She’s dying!”
“Oh, sis, I’m here, I’m here.”
I opened my eyes—fully, at last. It was still dark, but I could make out Alba’s features as she hovered over me, her hands brushing my forehead and cheeks.
I felt a burn spread across my cheek, then another on my chest.
“It’s getting worse as we speak. I can see the burns spreading!” Alba’s voice shook. “Didn’t you break her curse?”
“I did,” Tavar said bleakly. “But I think it was keeping her alive.”
Chapter 20
Warm, golden magic poured out of Alba’s hands and spread across my skin, soothing the burns immediately. “Hold on, sis,” she whispered urgently. “Hold on, because I’m going to fix everything.”
Alba’s magic felt warm, comforting. I felt it reach for me even as a tide of pain sucked me away.
“She has burns and cuts everywhere, inside and out,” I heard her say, the sound of her voice like a distant, gentle whisper. Magic poured through me. “Those monsters—”
“—you can fix her, can’t you? It’s not too—” Tavar’s voice was different. Not soft or comforting. Insistent, painful. Alba’s voice made me want to curl up and sleep, but Tavar’s frustration hurt, filling me with a painful mix of shame, longing, and regret.
The healing magic rushed faster through my body. “Hush,” Alba said. “I have to hurry, before—”
Darkness swept me along, tugging, urging, reminding me of when the curse had reached its fulfillment in the ballroom. I waited for the curse to smirk, to jab, to chase me into sleep, but there was nothing—only the echoing memory of the mocking laughter I’d lived with for so long.
“Oh, no.” Alba’s magic concentrated over my heart in a sudden, hot rush.
“What is it?”
“There’s something here. Just over her heart. A stitch …” Her magic surged through my chest, then dissipated. “There. I got it. That must have been how—”
“Her heart.” The anger in Tavar’s voice nearly sent my consciousness fleeing back into the darkness. “All along, it was inside her, and we never—”
“Sleep.” I felt Alba’s fingers brush my closed eyelids as her magic nudged my body into sleep. “You’re healed, Bri. Completely healed. Sleep. Everything is going to be fine.”
~
When I woke, I flailed so wildly Tavar dropped me onto the forest floor.
“Bri!” Alba rushed to my side. “You’re awake! How do you feel?”
The sky was too bright—a piercing, unnaturally shiny white. I squinted at Alba from the ground. “I’m freezing,” I blurted out, the first intelligible words I’d managed since the curse’s fulfillment.
Tavar leaned down beside Alba and scooped a black Sentinels jacket from the ground, then brushed dirt and leaves from it and handed it to me. “Here,” he said quietly. “Wear mine.”
I slid my bare arms into it, dimly noting that I was still wearing the silver dress Elektra had created wit
h the curse. “Thank you.” I couldn’t quite look at him. My thoughts raced along with my pulse. My body and mind felt all wrong, like a toy that had broken apart and no longer fit together properly.
Eugene and Corbin hovered behind Alba and Tavar, and beside them stood a brawny, unfamiliar man dressed like a Badlander.
I lurched clumsily to my feet, leaning on Alba as the forest swayed around me. “Where is everyone? What happened?”
“We walked all night. The fomewagons are at the base of the mountain, a few more hours from here.” Tavar watched me warily. “We’re the only ones who made it out.”
I squeezed Alba’s arm and rubbed my eyes with my other hand. “They’re all—” I broke off at the fuzzy memory of seeing Mom and Dad sprawled out in the ballroom, silver-glowing vines wrapped around their sleeping bodies. We’ve already won, Elektra had screamed as we ran.
She was right. She had Mom as her prisoner now, just as she’d planned, and the statue—that horrible device—the end had already begun, hadn’t it?
“They’re all cursed,” Tavar finished for me. “Everyone but us.”
“We have to get to Asylia,” I said numbly, unable to look at him. “I have to tell the prince, or Raven, or someone.” I took a step downhill, then realized I was barefoot. I stared at my bare foot peeking out from the voluminous silver skirt of my dress, my pale toes stark and incongruent beside an exposed root and a collection of frail, dead leaves.
“Tell them what?” Alba edged closer to me, smiling encouragingly, and I made myself meet her eyes, though I couldn’t bear to look at Tavar or the other Sentinels behind her.
“About what’s coming.”
“What is it?” Eugene stepped closer. “What’s coming?”
I kept my focus on Alba, drawing strength from my sister and the way that she seemed so inexplicably glad to see me. “They’re going to kill us all. Everyone on the continent.”
Alba’s smile faded. “How?”
“I don’t know.” That wasn’t quite true. I scrubbed my face, feeling fuzzy and disjointed. “I mean, I think it’s something to do with a statue, and wind, but I don’t know where they put it.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the Badlander for some reason. He frowned but shrugged and jerked his head toward the downward slope of the mountain. “We’ll get back to Asylia, then,” Alba said soothingly. “How’s that? And I’m sure everything will—”
“They’re going to kill us all,” I repeated woodenly. My throat felt tight. “But I should warn them anyway, right?”
Alba’s eyes were wide. “Right,” she whispered after another glance over her shoulder at the Badlander. “Come on.”
Tavar approached, his arm out. “Bri, you’re barefoot—”
I staggered back. “I’ll walk. No one needs to carry me.” Tavar must have been carrying me for hours. The humiliating knowledge singed my insides worse than Elektra’s burns.
“You’re barefoot,” he said again, his accent clipped. Other than the dark shadows under his eyes and the tension in his shoulders, he was as cool and distant as ever. Just standing before me with his hands up, waiting.
“I’ll walk.” My toes curled into the dusty slope. “No one’s carrying me. I’m walking.”
“Bri, come on.” Corbin approached slowly, a placating smile on his face. “You can’t hike with no shoes on. It’s going to be a lot faster—”
“She said she’s walking.” Alba marched to my side, grabbed my hand, and tugged me down the mountain, leaving the others behind. “If I knew how to make you shoes, I’d do it now,” she said to me, shooting me a concerned glance as she pulled me along. “But instead, I’ll just heal your feet as we go. How’s that?”
I heard the rumble of male voices behind us as we walked, too distant to make out the words of their conversation, but I didn’t bother straining to hear. I didn’t want to know what they were saying.
The warmth of Alba’s grip and the affection in her familiar, green eyes stabilized me, even as the world seemed certain to crumble at any moment.
“Thanks.” I squeezed her hand and followed my sister down the hill toward Asylia.
Chapter 21
“And how old were you when this all began?”
“Thirteen.”
Raven tapped her pencil to the paper, her expression stony. “That was a long time ago. Are you sure you’re remembering everything correctly?”
“Yes.” I sat stiffly across from her, the canteen of water untouched on the table before me. “I’ve thought of little else since.”
She studied her notes for a moment. We’d arrived at the city gates just before dawn, and I’d been locked in this tiny, bare room, briefing Raven, ever since. My eyes burned as I blinked at the canteen, waiting for her to speak. It had to be midday by now. I’d never been so exhausted—tired to my bones, to my very soul. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.
“I want you to tell me about this device … this statue again,” she said, flipping to a new page. “Everything you remember.”
“I already—”
“Humor me.” The acid tone of her voice was anything but humorous. “Tell me everything you remember.”
“Of course,” I whispered, unable to look at her. I’d been the reason we’d lost our three best Sentinels teams, not to mention the commander. It was probably hard enough for her to sit in the same room as me, much less talk to me about what I’d done. And it probably didn’t help that I’d come back bearing the news that we’d lost not just the battle but the war.
I repeated the events of my final two days in the crater, describing again how Piers had given up his life to activate it and how the statue had disappeared with another curse.
When I was done, Raven stared at her notes for a long, tense moment. Deep lines creased her forehead, I realized for the first time. She’d been a force of nature the entire time I’d been training, but now it hit me that with my father and Cole cursed, she was the senior Sentinel in charge. Her eyes were bloodshot as she studied the pages she’d written.
Finally, she met my eyes. “Go home and get some rest. We’ll get to work on the mission planning first thing in the morning.”
My stomach flip-flopped. “What mission?” I felt myself frowning. Hadn’t I just told her we’d lost?
“We’re going to have to go destroy that device before it reaches full strength. And get our people back, of course.” She waved her pencil. “What did you think I meant?”
I shook my head. “The Masters won,” I said slowly. “They’ve been planning this for hundreds of years, and one of the most powerful Masters just powered the device with his life. There’s no way we can stop alchemy that powerful. We don’t even know where it is.”
Raven set her pencil down. “Never thought my toughest recruit would be the first to give up the fight,” she said quietly.
I held my breath, waiting until understanding settled in her gaze as I’d known it would eventually.
Her eyes widened. “But the curse was driving you all along, wasn’t it?” For the first time in the five years she’d trained me, I heard pity in her voice. “The curse wanted you to become a Sentinel. And it made sure you did what it took to win a place on a team.”
“Yes.” The word was hoarse, and I felt my cheeks heat, shame prickling my skin. It was like I’d just been caught cheating, though it wasn’t as though the curse had helped me with magic. Just a cruel, unyielding motivation. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what I do because we can’t stop them. We can’t win. You don’t know them like I do.”
“Are you resigning from the Sentinels?”
My throat tightened, almost strangling my reply. “I think that’s for the best.”
Raven studied me for a moment, then leaned back. “I don’t buy it.” The hint of a smile tugged at her lips.
My gaze darted away from hers on instinct, and I couldn’t shake a sudden, intense desire to hide my face. “I—”
She faced me and crossed her arms. “You’v
e known for five years that your life would end in eternal sleep a month after your eighteenth birthday, but here you are. Still alive, still awake. Not just awake—free. Free to fight back. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” She stood and strode to the door.
“See what?” I couldn’t help asking.
Raven glanced back, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Who’s the real Briar Rose?”
Chapter 22
The sky outside was bright and cloudy. After half a day spent in a windowless Sentinels meeting room with Raven, the overwhelming white gave me an instant headache. I rubbed my temples as I approached the villa, exhausted but not too numb to be filled with dread at the thought of entering the place that would never hold my mother or father again.
The parlor window was open at the front of the house. The scent of winterdrops and sugar wafted out into the street. Ella must be there. My steps slowed. I didn’t want to face my sisters!
I dragged myself up the steps and opened the door to the sound of quiet feminine voices coming from the kitchen. When the door clicked shut behind me, their voices fell silent.
Alba appeared in the hallway first. “Bri.” She smiled hesitantly. Her eyes were puffy and red, her lips trembling. “You’re home.”
The Sentinels must have made the announcement about the statue and the white, powdery wind while I’d been giving all I knew to Raven. Alba knew the truth now—I hadn’t been simply raving, delusional upon waking. The end was upon us, thanks to the Masters. Our lives were over.
Ella came up beside her, wiping wet hands on an apron that barely tied around her swollen waist. “Hello, Bri.”
The sight of her rounded belly hit me like a slap. I’d known she and Weslan were expecting, but I hadn’t truly seen her growing baby until now. The curse was gone, I supposed, allowing me to see and feel what I’d been afraid to notice while cursed.
Ella followed my gaze and rubbed her bump, her eyes shiny. “He—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “He’s due in a few months.”
Which meant he would never be born. I swallowed and looked away. “I’m sorry about everything,” I said hoarsely, staring at the wall behind her shoulder. “About all the things I said and did the past five years. What happened to Mom and Dad because of me. And what’s coming. Just want you both to know … I’m truly sorry.”
