But she moves past it.
I prowl after her. You really are intent on torturing me, aren’t you?
If she’s still shocked about hearing me in her mind, her expression doesn’t show it. Only a flicker of concentration, then I hear: Being desired by you isn’t as flattering as you think it is.
I cut off her path, and she nearly bumps into me. “Now, what could that mean?”
“You want what belongs to Kel. You delight in tormenting him.”
“I do.” My control falters, and I grip her around the waist, slamming her against the dresser. “But I could learn to delight in tormenting you too, Princess.”
She gives a sharp gasp as I dip my head, lips hovering right over her neck, then down to her breasts. Her pulse quickens. My words are lies. I don’t think I could ever torment her in the way she does to me; being in her presence is agony.
Satisfying my lust and watching my lovers appear before Keldarion, seeing the brief flash of emotion in his eyes, has been great amusement these last twenty-five years. But it doesn’t bring the same joy with her. I can still hear her voice in my mind from the party when I was fucking the fae on the dais: Stop or I’ll die. I’m not even sure if she realized the gravity of her words. And now even the brief relief I’d found in the Below is lost to me. I shake my head, angry. She doesn’t control me. I am at no one’s mercy, I remind myself. But the longer I spend around her, the harder and harder it is to believe.
“What do you want to know, Rosalina?” I whisper.
She blinks up at me then gently guides my hand behind her to touch the brambles snaking up the wall.
“Your thorns,” she says softly. “They’re not sapping Castletree’s magic, are they? They’re keeping it standing.”
7
Rosalina
Caspian’s violet-flecked eyes widen. “Now, why would you say something like that?”
“Because I can feel them.” I started to piece it together when the princes were away, when it was just Castletree and me. These briars aren’t the source of its sickness; they’re like a second layer of foundation keeping everything standing.
The Prince of Thorns only lowers his hand from the briars, swallows, stays silent.
“I’m right, I know I am. From my first day in this place, I always knew these briars weren’t evil. So why are you letting everyone believe you’re taking the magic? If anything, it’s taking your magic.”
I study him. He’s still stupidly gorgeous, of course. But there are dark circles beneath his eyes, and he’s got a limp he’s been trying to hide. Not to mention the way he’d disappeared on the Autumn Realm’s battlefield, hacking up blackness; I haven’t puzzled that out. “Caspian, why are you letting everyone believe you’re the villain?”
“Who says I’m not?” he snarls.
“Because!” I spread my arms wide. “These thorns—you—are the only thing stopping Castletree from falling.”
The flash in his eyes confirms my suspicions. The briars aren’t evil, yet he attacked the Autumn Realm. But then he was fighting in disguise to help it. Or at least help me.
“Maybe there are things within these walls even a monster from the Below can’t stand to lose.”
I touch his arm. “I’m not sure what happened between you and the other princes, between you and Kel, but if you were to just tell them then—”
He pulls his arm away and snarls, “If you want me to keep my thorns here, you will not breathe a word of this to anyone. Do you understand?” And it’s not anger flashing in his eyes …
“Caspian,” I say, cupping his cheek, and this time, he lets me touch him, “what are you afraid of?”
Something sharp cuts across my vision, and a ringing reverberates in my ears. I’m no longer seeing the world through my own eyes. Flashes of moments tear through my mind. There’s a torturous sting along my back, my arms, the crack of a whip and a scream. A scream that sounds like Caspian. Then a haunting woman’s voice: My darling boy. Tall pillars of green gems, her kneeling before them, long dark hair blowing as emerald flames erupt around her.
I gasp, pulling away from Caspian. And for a second, it isn’t flecks of purple dancing in his eyes, but flames of green. Did he see the same vision I did?
My heart beats wildly, and I realize this is the first time I’ve felt fear since Caspian has come into my room. Even when I awoke to him prowling around, the only emotion I’d felt was mild annoyance. And … other things I wish I hadn’t.