I gasp. He was the one who told the acolyte to stick them in my room… “Kairyn’s been trying to kill me all along.”
“Well, he doesn’t have the balls to kill his brother,” she says sharply. “But unhelming him and cutting up his ears was pretty good, wasn’t it? And since you’re still alive, I get to have you all to myself.”
No, no, this isn’t good. There has to be a way to stop all this. Has to be something that can get me out of here. “That’s it, then? You didn’t grow a flower with nice magic at all?” I say in as snarky a tone as I can manage. “What about the yellow flower?”
The Nightingale plucks it from the bouquet and laughs. “Oh, this is as far from nice as you can get. It’s not used for a quick puff of pollen or in a potion. You grind the petals for this one, you see. Put it in food or tea. Can’t even taste it. And slowly, bit by bit, your mind weakens. Your muscles, too. Turns you feeble. You think you’re getting sick, but truly you’re becoming … better.” A crazed gleam flashes in your eye. “It can turn a simple rat into a monstrous beast of vine and teeth. Or a fae into a … Well, we’re not sure yet. But we’ll see soon enough.”
“You’re the monster,” I spit.
“So Mother likes to tell me.”
Fear sends my whole body shaking. “Where are the princes?”
She sets down the vase. “Alive, if that’s what you’re so concerned about. I’ve left Ezryn to wander and die in whatever shameful way he sees fit, an idiotic requirement of his brother.”
“Kairyn is a fucking traitor!” I spit.
She whirls to me, glaring. The briars tighten, thorns pricking into my flesh. “And he’s the only reason that mate of yours is still alive. You should thank him. If it were up to me, the former High Prince of Spring would be dead.”
I match her glare, refusing to show my pain. She sighs and releases the hold slightly. “The High Princes of Summer and Winter are being held in Keep Hammergarden. Or are you actually asking about my brother? Wouldn’t that be interesting if you were? In which case, yes, he’s alive. Mostly.”
Panic rears through me and my mind screams, Caspian! Caspian? But there’s nothing. “Where is he?”
“He was a very bad boy,” she purrs. “Letting all those princes and you escape, lying to Mother.”
“He saved your stupid life, and he took the blame for that rat monster you set free.”
“Then he’s forgotten every lesson he taught me about surviving in the Below,” she says. “It’s your fault. You’re making my brother soft.”
“Like I have any influence over the Prince of Thorns.”
“You really have no idea, do you?” Her gaze narrows to slits resembling a cat’s. She doesn’t look much like Caspian, but her mannerisms, the tilt of her head, even the cadence of her speech are eerily similar. “Well, he’s being punished. Don’t worry. Painful as it is, he’s used to it.”
Horrors pass through my mind at what Sira could be inflicting on him in the Below. But she wouldn’t kill him, would she? Not her own son.
“Mother is very interested in you, Lady of Castletree. My brother made me promise to keep all your secrets from Mother, but who knows? Maybe I’ll tell her. He left me without my Dreadknights after all. Though I am curious—do you know why you can create the thorns?”
I stare at her. The way she worded it, like she knows, and I don’t understand at all. Caspian knows, too. His words from his birthday party when I questioned him on the shared power come back to me: ‘Gift or legacy, the magic is the same, wouldn’t you agree?’ He’d flashed a golden bracelet inlaid with roses. “How can you control the briars?”
She tilts her head. “The same reason as you.”
Her thorns fall away, and I rub at my arms, scratched up and down. “What do you want with me?”
“Kairyn said you wore a moonstone rose necklace, but all Cas retrieved from you was this.” From beneath her armor, she pulls out a golden leaf necklace, the one I was gifted from Farron’s father.
“That belongs to me,” I snarl.
She shakes her head, tucking it away. “It is pretty, even if it’s not magical. The only thing I care about is the location of the moonstone. The one that belonged to your mother.”
They’ll just try to take it from you again, Caspian had told me. He was right. Though I’m certainly not going to tell her that. Lie. I have to lie to her.