The Secret World of Briar Rose(16)

Corin jumped at a sudden movement from the corner of her vision. Behind a wide tree trunk, a fox appeared. The animal was small and wild, his pointed ears twitching upon sight of her. His tail whipped around as black, beady eyes stared into hers. A lump formed at the base of her throat. Something unsettling swirled in her stomach, a familiar burning sensation at her fingertips. Before she could make sense of it, the fox moved closer.

Corin took a step back. “What are you?” she hissed.

The fox tilted his head.

“I am breakable.” His voice was distorted, as if his lungs had been shattered. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Her hands scorched in response. She reached slowly for his fur, her fingers stroking through hearth-spun browns. Beneath his coat, she felt it: The cracks in his skin. The shards in her hands. The memory cutting into her like a knife.

Then something hit the back of her head, hard and cold. The fox ran away and disappeared behind the trees. She spun around and prepared to defend herself against the attacker until she saw the spikes of black hair and the small silhouette of a young girl. Corin’s heart stopped in her chest. Flecks of snow turned the child hair into a salt-and-pepper halo, and her dark eyes gleamed with recognition. The girl tossed a second snowball in the air, catching it expertly with her palm. A mischievous grin tugged at her lips.

“Took you long enough to get here,” Elly said.

Corin didn’t move, afraid that the slightest movement would make Elly disappear. But her sister stood in front of her, solid as the truth. Every scab and scar that lined her kneecaps and elbows, every dark freckle that stained her cheeks like stars.

“El,” Corin breathed, “what are you—”

A second snowball struck her face. This time Corin fell with her feet kicking off the ground. She shook ice out of her eyes in time to see her sister running through the trees, her laughter fading in the distance.

A strangled sound ripped out of Corin’s throat. “Stop!”

She caught up to Elly and barreled her to the ground. Their bones collided in the snow, her sister’s small frame pinned underneath Corin’s heavy chest. Corin wrapped her arms around Elly so tight their skin could have fused together.

“Don’t ever run away from me again.” Desperation cracked in Corin’s voice, stilling the small body beneath her.

In the silence, she held her sister close. The familiar smell of musk and sweat wafted under Corin’s nose as she buried her face in Elly’s hair and let the short spikes tickle her cheeks. Elly’s breath was warm against her skin, and Corin took comfort in hearing it. These were the sounds she needed to fall asleep back home: the familiar drum of Elly’s heart, the pulse of her veins. Proof that she was still alive, bright and beating.

Elly’s voice was muffled as she said, “You still need to say it.”

“Say what?”

“That I was right and you were wrong.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Elly pushed herself off Corin to stand and place her hands on her hips in indignation.

“I told you the tale of Sleeping Beauty was real. You saw her in the tower and jumped through that portal, didn’t you?”

Corin tilted her head to the sky. The portal of light had closed and disappeared with the clouds. The smell of blood and flowers had already vanished from the air.

“Her godmothers said they were going to cross over to her subconscious,” Elly said. “That must be where we are now.”

“How did you hide from them and find your way here?”

“Because I’m smarter than you, obviously.”

Corin scowled. “No, you ran away just to prove a point.”

“You still haven’t admitted I was right.”

Corin opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. She couldn’t give another explanation for what happened in the castle. She didn’t even understand how Ezran hadn’t found and killed them already. The path had closed after she jumped through. Somehow, no one else could open it again.

Elly had predicted everything. The castle buried underneath Gyldan, the sleeping princess hidden from the world, the moonflowers set to bloom. And yet, even so—

“It doesn’t matter if you were right. That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. You could’ve died, El. That man would’ve killed you. You’re lucky you escaped, or I would’ve found you rotting in the damn ground.”

Corin tried to ignore the ache in her chest and strain in her throat. She didn’t want to picture a stiff body in the tunnels, the limp shape of her sister and her withered skin. How Corin would have had to hold her and feel the weight of her hollow stomach and stiff bones. It was easier to replace this feeling with anger instead, to yell at her sister instead of admitting the gut-wrenching fear of losing her.

Irritation simmered between them, infecting Elly as she jabbed a finger in Corin’s direction.

“If I hadn’t looked for the princess, you wouldn’t have done anything. You’d have stayed exactly where you were, and we would’ve been stuck and miserable in Gyldan. I don’t want to live a life where nothing changes.”

The pit of Corin’s stomach filled with shame. So it was true. Elly had hated her life with Corin. She hated it so much that she ran away to chase after a fairy tale.

Elly stormed off, heading toward the frozen lake. Streaks of light purple tinted the pool, a pastel color that mixed like paint from weak sunlight and pale skies. Corin ran across the ice and grabbed Elly by the wrist. On the lake’s surface, their reflections were a blur, hardly distinguishable as two silhouettes instead of one.