Forged by Malice (Beasts of the Briar, #3)

by Elizabeth Helen

arms filled with beautiful red flowers.

He’s a cartographer in the Summer Realm. Travels a lot, making maps.”

The words come out of me like a prayer and a plea, born from something deep, buried underneath the rest of my magic: “Fly. Fly away.” His body shifts beneath my fingers. Skin grows feathers, arms shrink to wings, and then I’m careening down the river, hands held aloft, cradling a tiny bird. Fear overtakes reason as I toss the bird into the air. It beats its wings above me. The eyes… The eyes are the same.

She brought me back to life. And for the first time in centuries, I’ve found something worth losing everything for.

There is no one more deserving of breath. And it will be the honor of my life to give her mine.

“Your word is ‘mercy’. Unless you say it or mouth it, I will give you none.”

“For you, Rosalina, I will be better,” he breathes. “For you, I would do anything.”

“You will leave this place,” Rosalina says, her voice like a thunderclap, “and tell no one of what you saw. I am the Golden Rose. I will crack your bones with fire if you so much as move against him.”

“Everything I am belongs to her, anyway. Take it.”

“The realms were crafted of the four seasons to keep the Vale in balance, but the world has been anything but balanced lately.” He shrugs. “Maybe her magic found a way back to us.”

“Ezryn broke their sacred creed. The law states that power passes to the steward in such cases,” Farron explains.

Now, like me, Sira knows exactly who Rosalina is.

Because if Farron succeeds at what I asked him to do, would that shatter what’s between us? Stars, stars. Every sane part of me hopes so. And all the other parts pray it doesn’t.

“Wr—Wait.”

I have received my sentence. I have lost my honor. I am not fit to be High Prince. By all rights, it must go to Kairyn.

Ugh ur so annoying

“I have been reborn,” he calls out. Two green vines crack through the dais, seizing my wrists to my side. Kairyn laughs.

Though two things still linger quietly, hiding beneath my heart. A whimpering beast… And her.

“Guards!” Kairyn roars. “Remove his armor!”

What the effffff

“All who look upon you henceforth will know you as creedbreaker.”

I hate this guy

Lines of black magic surge from his palm up his forearm.

“How can you control the briars?” She tilts her head. “The same reason as you.”

“Your death will quell the nightmares,” she says softly. “Your death will finally bring me peace.”

“He’s not right. I can do this—”

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my hair. “I’ve got you, my Queen.”

“I believe,” I say, running my fingers along the golden grip, light shimmering beneath my touch, “that my mother was the Queen.”

“Enough talking.” His voice is low, steps thundering. “I’m taking back what is mine.” “The Blessing?” Kairyn snarls. “You wouldn’t—” Ezryn releases a roar that seems to shake the very hall and charges.

There’s a smile on Wrenley’s face, one I’ve never seen on her before, but for some reason it’s familiar. A laugh bubbles out of her. “I can’t believe I did that. How did I do that?”

Caspian isn’t looking at me, or even Kel or Rosalina. He’s looking at my father.

This time it’s not an eruption of fire. No force or power surging through me. It is a release. I bloom. Human daughter of George and Anya O’Connell. Fae daughter of Queen Aurelia—the Enchantress who cursed the High Princes.

I am the Golden Rose.

Idiot

“Though there is no strike of a blade, you have cut through our brotherhood. It is no more.”

The light … It’s coming from my chest, glowing like the goddamn sun itself. The light of a mate bond. Slowly, I turn, following the line of light, so bright and true, to see its origin. Wrenley stands in the middle of the field of flowers, brown hair blowing around her face. One of the will-o’-wisps is spread across her chest, causing her bond to awaken the light that leads her directly to her mate. And like an arrow of gold, it strikes me in the chest. “Dayton,” Wrenley says, “we’re mates.”

The Enchanted Vale is not only my home, it’s my legacy. I won’t let it fall.

I can always hear them as they rise through cracks in the pit. But today they filled my whole cell with the agonizing sound.

“How?” He turns slightly, just to display that he’s rolling his eyes. “Oh, maybe that’s what happens when you bind someone’s life force to a dying tree.” “Create more thorns!” I snap. “That won’t help. They keep the structure intact, but they don’t give the magic back. The Briar has already given what life it can. My thorns are cursed. I knew even as a child when you gave me this stupid power.”

“Not for much longer. And if Castletree dies, so does your husband.”

“Castletree is the source of all magic in the Vale. It’s eternal. So should he be,” I murmur. “Besides, I didn’t make myself human. I—never mind. I suppose we’re both fools when it comes to magic and love.”

I could change fae into animal, myself into a beast, but I cannot make myself human any more than I can make him human.

“I know you will never let any harm come to Rosalina. Caspian, you have always been a worthy mate for my daughter.”

Knew ittttt UGH BUT WHAT ABOUT DAYTON