Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “So, you live here?”
“Yes.”
“Do … Do you like it?”
“No.”
Okay, this has transitioned from awkward to super awkward. At least in front of the tapestry, we could talk about the artwork.
I glance over my shoulder. “At least your view was nice?”
A heavy exhale sounds from beneath his helm. “I suppose there are certain benefits to residing in this place.”
“Oh yeah? Good food? Comfy bed?”
The elevator shudders to a stop, and Kairyn grabs my elbow, steadying me before I pitch forward. The doors creak open. “My brother doesn’t live here.” Then he stomps out on to the floor.
Let it go, Rosalina, I chide myself. But I guess becoming fae didn’t make me smarter. “You don’t like being around Ez?”
Kairyn stops walking. “Ez…” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Ez. You sound like that fool Keldarion.”
We’re now in a narrow stone hallway. I look out of a small arched window to my right, and my legs nearly give way. The horizon is long-gone; only clouds are visible. I have never been this high up in my life.
Kairyn swings around, black cape swishing behind him. “Even you. They call you the Golden Rose after what you pulled in Autumn. Fated mate to High Prince Farron. And even you…”
I cross my arms. “Even I what?”
His words are slow, as if speaking to a child. “Even you don’t see it. No one ever has.” He turns and storms down the hallway. “Until I make them see.”
“Wait!” I pull up the hem of my skirt and run after him. The narrow hallway opens up on one side, overlooking a courtyard. I gasp; hundreds of soldiers are training in perfect unison, their movements fluid as a dance.
Kairyn stands above them, watching.
“What can’t I see?” I pant to catch my breath.
He sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Then tell me the rest of the story.” I touch his forearm. The act seems to startle him, and he looks down on my fingers upon his armor.
There’s something almost innocent in his apprehension. I try to hold his gaze through the visor. Ezryn was like this when I first met him: stern yet skittish. Maybe I can show Kairyn that things have changed at Castletree, that he and Ezryn could rebuild the bonds that were broken.
Kairyn’s helmet tilts, and he seems to look lower, below my eyes. “There was still more blood to be shed. And the Queen was quick to spill it.”
He pulls away from me and continues down the hall. I scurry to keep up. “Not only acolytes and clerics live here, but also the Queen’s Army, an elite army that the Queen would call on in times of war. And she would call on the High Rulers, too. The first High Prince of Spring forged five divine weapons, one for each of the rulers of the realms: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and the Queen’s Realm.”
The Queen’s Realm. The home of Castletree, what we now call the Briar. It must have looked so different back then.
“When wielded together,” Kairyn continues, “the five weapons were said to be able to summon an impossible magic. Some legends even say they could open a way to the remnants of the Above.”
Kairyn leads me up a winding staircase. My heart beats at a frantic pace, the story like electricity. I can barely breathe, let alone speak.
“Though war raged for many years, Sira and her creations were eventually defeated. They slunk back into the Below … at least for a time. Queen Aurelia decreed that in periods of peace, there was no need to wield weapons of such immense strength. The monastery had just been created, and so they were kept here, at the very top, for safekeeping.”
“Isn’t that dangerous? Anyone could come up and take one.”
“It is not so simple. Aurelia was clever. She enchanted each of the weapons so that they could only be wielded by one who wore her token.”
“No one else could pick them up?” I breathe.
Kairyn gives another dark laugh. “Oh, anyone could pick them up. It would just drain their life and corrupt their blood until they were nothing but shallow husks.”
“Heck of a system,” I mumble.
We reach a door at the end of the stairwell, and Kairyn stops walking. He’s looking at me again. Not at my eyes. Further down.
At my moonstone necklace.
I quickly slip it beneath my dress.
Kairyn turns away and throws open the door. We come to a small, circular room. Wind whips through the open arched windows. Five pedestals arc around the space, all except one gilded with a beautiful weapon. There’s a massive hammer carved with steel vines, a glowing teal trident, a copper lance sparkling in the sun, and…