By the time the sun sets, my mind is made up. I may not leave the palace alive, but my family will.
Giving myself up to the wizard terrifies me, but I see no other recourse, no other way to keep my city and my family safe.
He's coming for me—if I go willingly, it will buy them time to escape.
Enough people have suffered because of me, first due to the cursed deal, and now because of my attempts to play with forces I should never have touched.
It ends now. I will go with the wizard, whatever that may mean. Whether I live or die, I will not let any more people sacrifice themselves in my name.
I rise from my bed, feeling lighter than I expected. A hollow spot opens in my chest and steadily expands.
I may never see Mama and Papa and Delia again. I may never see Ren again. I cling to their images in my mind, hoping that whatever happens, they're imprinted deeply enough on my heart to endure into the next life or into death.
My nightgown won't do for this endeavor. I select a pale rose-colored gown and dress myself in the mirror. A few cuts mar my face, making me less ladylike than usual.
It doesn't matter tonight.
I take a slip of paper, a pen, and some wax from my desk and sit down to write my final words to my family. My final words to Ren.
Dear Mama and Papa,
Run. Flee Bryre and seek the safety of another country until the wizard is far away from our home. I know you will not approve of what I am doing, but I have made up my mind. Like you told me, Mama, sometimes queens have to make the hard decisions. I may not be a queen yet, but I understand what you meant.
Giving myself up to the wizard is the only way to ensure your safety and the safety of our entire city, and that is more important to me than my own. I cannot sit idly by in my tower while you sacrifice yourselves. There is no point. He will win either way. But this way, you at least have a chance.
Please, go, and do not let my sacrifice be in vain.
Your loving daughter,
Rosabel
Dear Delia,
Forgive me if I have neglected you these past few months. You are one of the dearest people in the world to me. I must leave to keep you, Mama, and Papa safe. If there were any other way, please know I would remain here and be the older sister you deserve.
Be brave, sister. You will rule the city one day, and I know you will be a kind queen. Ren will help you. I'm so sorry I won't be here to see it.
Love,
Rosabel
Dear Ren,
By the time you read this letter, I will already be gone. Please do not despair for me. I do this willingly and to keep everyone I love safe. I must put duty before everything else, and this instance is no exception.
You have always been my best friend and confidant, and as close to me as my own kin. You are as dear to me as I am to you.
Please watch over my mother and father, and especially Delia, when I am gone. And my garden.
Yours,
Rosabel
I fold each letter carefully, wrapping a tiny piece of my heart in each one. I melt the wax and seal the letters with the personal stamp Father gave me when I was just a child—a perfect rose, imprinted in red wax.
Now I only have to find a way to deliver them.
* * *
From the window, I see it happen. First the guards walking along the ramparts crumple to the ground. The forest quakes in its frenzied attempt to reach the castle, but meets invisible resistance that prevents it from breaching the walls. Then a man with silver hair down to his jaw walks through the gates.
Horror freezes me to the floor. He found a loophole. But how? The wards should protect against anyone intending Bryre harm. How could he hurt the guards?
Unless he didn't. Some of the men move a little, as though they're only sleeping . . . Outside the door of my room, I hear a gasp, and then a thud. The guard.
Whatever the wizard did to the guards at the gate, must have affected all guards throughout the city. Only one thing can be so specific and travel so quickly to do its work.
Magic.
The enchanted forest. The trees have been trying to get through the walls all day. Could their attack have weakened the wards enough that he was able to slip through? I can only guess at exactly how he's doing it, but if the wizard found a way around his wards, he must be intent on something other than hurting Bryre.
I shiver.
He could only be that focused on one thing: me. Claiming what was promised him. If he gets his promised reward, he won't be able to use that loophole again; the wards will hold against his malice in the future.
It's time for me to go.
I set about picking the lock on my bedroom door. If I had a secret passage in my room this would be much simpler. I pore over my jewelry case until I find a brooch with a pin thin enough to work. Mama took all the hairpins that I used the last time. It takes a fair amount of jiggering, but after several minutes I'm finally rewarded with a click.
I collect my letters and open the door to my fate.
The castle sleeps, which serves my purposes well. I go to Delia first, slipping into her chambers. She's curled on her bed in a pool of moonlight, blond hair spilling over the pillows. She looks serene and utterly unaware of the terror that creeps outside our gates.
A wave of sadness crashes over me. She won't be serene for long after tonight. I'm sorry for it.
I gently press my lips to her forehead and whisper, "Good-bye, sister." I place the letter on the pillow next to her so she'll find it when she wakes. I close her door with a heavy heart, then lock it. The wizard may not know about my sister, and if she wakes up too soon, I can't risk her wandering the halls in search of me.
Ren's note will be trickier. Indeed, I'm not sure where he lives, having never been to his house. But there is one place I know he'll check.
My garden.
With no time to waste, I run soundlessly through the halls in my slippers and take the stairs two at time. In minutes I'm outside, the cool night breeze wrapping around me as if to say farewell. When I reach my hidden garden plot, I'm greeted by the familiar shapes of the rosebushes on either side, the lone surviving sunflower, and the barren patch where the Crown-of-Roses seeds are planted. Sadness plucks at the backs of my eyes. I'd hoped to see what they looked like. Ren will have to care for them for me. I tuck the letter into a rosebush, then hurry back to the palace.
When I enter through the wide double doors of the solarium, a scream reaches my ears and squeezes my heart. Am I too late? Did I spend too much time saying good-bye? I run through the halls, searching for the person who screamed, still clutching the letter to my parents. I stop short in the main hallway. Two guards sprawl unconscious on the floor, and a maid and a butler hover over them.
"What happened?" I demand, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.
"Barnabas—the wizard—he—" The woman shakes so hard, she can't complete the sentence.
"The wizard is here," the butler says. "How did he get through the wards? I don't understand."
I fist my hands in my skirt. "Which way did he go?"
The maid points in the direction of the stairs. This is my one chance to reason with him. To convince him to take me and leave my family alone. I fly up the stairs the same way I took them down—two at a time. Muffled shouts come from the far end of the palace. The wing where my parents' chambers are.
And where mine was when I was a child.
I launch myself in that direction. They insisted Delia and I live in the opposite wing once we were both old enough to walk. I never considered why, but now I understand. The wizard had been invited into their home when he was protecting them from the Belladomans. He knew their habits, and the layout of the palace.
He'd know exactly where his promised prize was supposed to sleep.
Another scream.
Mama.
My parents' chambers lie just ahead, the door to their sitting room swung wide open. All the candles are lit and the glow reaches into the hall, along with their voices.
"Where is my payment?" an unfamiliar man's voice growls. "She is mine—you must give her to me."
The voice slices through me on a cold blade, rending my heart in two and stealing my breath.
"We will give you anything you could possibly want. Money, jewels," Papa says. His voice trembles. "I would even give you the throne and my kingdom instead."
Their moment of hope hangs in the air like a tangible force. The low voice laughs harshly.
"I have named my price, and the deal is binding. You must concede."
I tiptoe closer, heart thundering in my chest. Through the doorway, I see Mama sink to her knees, pleading with the silver-haired man I saw enter the gates less than an hour earlier.
"Please. Please don't take our daughter. Anything but her."
I'm so stunned, I can't move. Never in my life have I seen Mama beg. She's always been the kind, constant backbone of our family. Seeing her grovel like this—for me—shatters my already sundered heart to pieces.
"If you do not hand her over I will tear this place apart brick by brick until I find her."
"I do not know how you managed to get past the wards," Papa says, "but please take our gold and jewels and leave in peace. Have mercy, and spare our daughter."
The wizard laughs. "The wards did not affect me because I did not enter the city with the intent to harm. I came only to collect. I have spent years learning to focus on that one thing so thoroughly that the wards have a hard time detecting what lies beneath. Besides, the more magic with ill intent the wards have to hold off at once, the weaker they get. I am sure you noticed that even the forest has turned on your kingdom. And now that I am inside the walls, the wards cannot stop me. Anything that gets in my way is collateral damage. I have no need for mercy."
"Have you no heart?" Mama pleads. "I know you were not always so cold. Please, spare her."
The floor quakes under my feet and I brace myself on the doorframe. "You squashed any semblance of warm feelings from my heart, my dear Aria. You made the wrong choice. And now you will pay for it." The chill in the wizard's voice turns my innards to ice.
I step through the doorway into my parents' sitting room. The shock on their faces at my sudden appearance gives them away. A crafty grin spreads over the wizard's face. Now that I'm inside the room and closer to him, I see what I could not before.
Angry, magic heat rolls of the wizard in waves. The floor beneath his feet smokes. A faint crackling sparks from his hands every few seconds, like a barely contained lightning storm.
"Rosabel?" he says.
I nod. "I'll go with you. Just promise you'll leave them alone." I clasp my hands behind my back so that he won't see them quivering.
"No!" Mama cries.
"Please, Rose, don't do this. Run, hide, while you still can," Papa says.
I smile sadly. "There's nowhere to hide. Nowhere is safe from him. Not forever."
"You are a bright one. But what makes you think I will leave your parents alone? Am I not owed interest on my uncollected debt for all these years?"
"Then I won't go willingly."
He steps forward and the air around him sizzles. His silver hair rises from the static charge, lending him a crazed appearance.
"That matters not to me. Besides, you stole something from me too. Who do you think the Bane you found in the volcano belonged to?" He narrows his eyes. "I was furious at first when all that magic was released from my Bane. Though I admit, you did provide an excellent distraction and the perfect way to weaken my wards around the city."
"It was yours?" Shock drains all the color from my face.
"Of course it was. They"—he points to my parents—"denied me what I needed to take the magic from the realm in one spell, so I've had to improvise. Wizard's Banes drain magic, not just wizards. I turned it on the realm itself, and it's been slowly draining magic for years. It was almost full, too, until you stupidly released it."
Horror makes my knees feel like fragile flower stems in a hurricane.
"Please," Mama begs, "please take our jewels and leave."
Mustering all the bravery I have, I step between them. "No, take me. Let them be."
"I will consider it," the man says. I brace myself when he reaches for me, but Mama throws herself at him.
He shoves her off with a bright light and bang, sending her tumbling to the floor and knocking over a vase of our best blush roses in the process. She lies very still, her back to me amid the falling petals. Her blue silk skirts spread out on the marble floor like flowing water, and sparks of magic flicker over her. Blood pools from where she hit her head on the corner of the table.
The world stands still. Everything is blue and red and her golden hair. I barely register Papa reaching for me and or the second blast that sends him flailing.
Mama is dead. An awful certainty takes hold of my insides, making me numb.
Then cold hands grab my arms. Shockingly cold, given the amount of heat those hands burned at my parents. The cooling touch creeps over my skin like thousands of tiny insects, prickling and numbing, and cracking my skin in places. Rivulets of blood trickle down my arms, but I cannot feel a thing. I cannot struggle. I cannot scream. I can only stare at the face of the silver-haired man as his hands wind around my neck and squeeze.
One long, black flash of cold, then oblivion.