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

by Elizabeth Helen

“My father was a flower merchant and used to bring me a shell every time he returned home from trading in the Summer Realm.”

The seven realms flicker through my mind: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, the Below, the Above, and of course, our home here in the Briar.

“The mountains told me your name. The forest sang your song. My heart has been searching for you since the first dawn.”

“Your thorns,” she says softly. “They’re not sapping Castletree’s magic, are they? They’re keeping it standing.”

“It was Ez’s coronation, decades ago. Rosie, his mother … She died passing her Blessing on to Ez.”

I can’t believe I’m being insulted by this walking hunk of scrap metal.

“Do you think Keldarion just leaves it lying under his bed, discarded and unprotected? It’s not so easy. I heard even Perth’s new pets couldn’t recover it.”