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

by Elizabeth Helen

Angry briars fly from my wrists. “The princes were supposed to be back today!” As soon as the words leave my mouth, something sparks inside my chest. A warmth like fire, a feeling that glows and shimmers all at once. The door to Castletree opens, and a crisp breeze blows through, bringing with it the scent of maple leaves and an apple orchard. And standing there is Farron, High Prince of Autumn. My mate.

Kel only sneers in his direction before turning to me. My breath catches in my throat. That feeling in my heart when I saw Farron bursts to life again, but it’s different: not a fire, but the glow of the moon off a frozen lake, the twinkle of stars fighting against a storm-covered sky. The phantom of a feeling, now that I know the true depths of what I’m missing.

“Wait. Before you go—” My heart lurches. Ask me to stay. But instead, she scrunches up her face and says: “Anon caria mirel baelorin. Yavanthy caeotin. Darisfeli em onore. Ezryn.” The words are choppy, labored. But I’d know them anywhere. “That is a language of Spring,” I tell her. She places her palm flat on my chest plate and stares at her spread fingers. “I know. You said that to me down in Cryptgarden.” “You remembered?” She reaches up to caress my helm. Her brown eyes shine as she holds my gaze. “The mountains told me your name. The forest sang your song. My heart has been searching for you since the first dawn.” Of course, the first thing Rosalina would do upon hearing a new language is find a way to translate it. I can picture her in the library, poring over a dictionary. My chest tenses. Those were words I meant to keep secret … “My heart searches for you, too, Ez,” she whispers. “Let me find you.”

“I could pass a thousand seasons staring at you and never have my fill of your beauty. I want you when the cherry blossoms fall in spring, and during the balmy nights of summer. I want you on a forest floor filled with autumn leaves and shivering in winter’s snow.”

I whisper, “I can’t do it again, Ez. Can’t keep hurting people. Everything felt so alive in my heart when Dayton and I made love. But it didn’t matter. The curse didn’t break. We’re not mates.” A choked cry escapes his lips. “What does it matter if you’re not mates? Why can’t I love you?” Heavy silence thunders through the room. Did he say… Ezryn looks to the side, fists clenching. “Why can’t he love you … I meant why can’t Dayton love you.”

My sweet baby Ezryn 😭🌸

She kisses the side of my face. “I love you, Farron.” “In the starlight way,” I whisper back.

She tilts her head to look outside. “It’s beautiful, Kel.” Figuring enough time has passed to be safe, I gather her against me, and she molds perfectly into my arms. “Promise me something,” she whispers. “One day, you will show me your realm. Not just the ballroom or through these dreams. I want to see it all for real.” Sweeping the wet hair from her brow, I smile down at her. “I would love nothing more, my Rose. But I cannot promise you that. I do not even know when I will return.” Her smile falls, sadness flickering across her features. “I have to finish getting ready.” “Promise me something.” “Of course.” “Tonight, when you dance, look at the stars. Know that I’ll be looking at them, too, thinking of you.” She grazes my jaw with her fingertips. “Goodbye, Kel.” I blink and she’s gone, only rose-scented bubbles swirling around me.

Ughhh 😭😩

Rosalina looks at me. The question wavers in the sweet-scented air. What about us? There hasn’t been a single moment that’s passed where I haven’t thought of how it felt to be inside her. Mate out there or not, there’s no fucking way I can have Rosalina only once. “What about it, Blossom?” I ask. “I played your game. Socialized. Maybe there’s someone out there I belong to. But in here, all I want is you. Stars above, in this damned flower, let me belong to you.”

I love him so much and I hate that they aren’t mates yet 😭😩🐚

There’s silence and then, “When she passed on Spring’s Blessing to you. Eldy said that the act can be very dangerous. I’m so sorry that happened to her. To you.” I run a hand over the large bud and squeeze my eyes shut. “That’s what everyone thinks. What all of Spring thinks. What even Farron and Dayton think. The only ones who know the truth are me, Kel, and Kairyn.” Her hand presses on my shoulder. “I will never judge your past, Ez. I know who you are now, and I see who you are becoming. You can tell me anything.” And I feel it … The threads inside of me untangling, spreading out like petals on a breeze. I can trust her with my darkness, and she will shelter me.

Light floods my vision, and he appears in a flash. Grand and imposing, sitting on a massive throne with a sword of green flame and eyes the same color. Oh, hello Father. Don’t mind me, just going to use this corrosive magic to save the one fae who might have a chance at stopping you from ever making it into the Vale.

I LOVE MY MORALLY GREY PRINCE IF THORNS 🥀

I’m not sure Birdy will ever forgive me for this. As for Rosalina… This will only confirm for her the villain I am. But I told her I’d be her darkness, and if only a villain can save her, then so be it.

I sink into Kel, my lips falling to the crook of his neck. “Wouldn’t it be worth it, though? One woman to save your entire realm?” “It wouldn’t be worth it for me.” Keldarion grips my chin and makes me look at him. “If that brands me as a terrible leader, then so be it. But there is nothing I would not do for you. There is nothing in this world I would not sacrifice for you.”

“We know he wants her. It’s only a matter of time.” “I won’t let that happen,” I growl. “You can’t stop this!” Farron cries. “What are you going to do, Day? You haven’t even broken your curse. And when you do, Rosie won’t matter to you anymore. I won’t matter to you anymore.” I lurch forward and wrap my arms around Farron, holding him tight. “Listen to me, and listen to me well, Pup. You are mine. I am yours. And she is ours. Until either of you say otherwise or force me away.” Farron takes in a shaky breath, his body quivering against mine. I keep my arms like a vice around him. “I know I haven’t always been good to you, Fare. I took your love for granted. It wasn’t right, and I’m a bastard for doing that to you. But everything changed when Rosalina walked through those damned doors. She taught me there are things worth fighting for. And no mate bond, no curse, not even Caspian himself, will stop me from fighting for you.” Farron’s voice is a shaky breath. “I would rip it apart—the cosmos, the threads of life—if I could bind you to us.”

My babies 😭

“That Rosie and I aren’t mates. She was… disappointed, I think. But you haven’t said anything.” “Who says you’re not mates?” He gives a humorless chuckle. “If there was a bond there, it would have awoken already with how much we’ve been through. With how much I—” His voice cracks. “With how much I love her.”

Dayton! My sweet summer child please just wait 😭

“No, Daytonales, it doesn’t matter to me.” He shakes his head. “Why not?” “Because this is something I can actually prove. When we make love, when we made love with Rosie, when Rosie speaks of being with you—it’s different than anything I’ve experienced before. It’s magic. It’s enchanted. It’s golden.”

“You’ve always been mine. Mine to chase. Mine to love. Mine to lose.” I kiss him softly. “And I’m not going to let that happen. I’m never going to lose you.” “Fare,” he says, “we can’t control the fate of the stars.” “Who says we can’t?” A growl ripples through my words. “I know in my heart, in everything I am, that you belong with Rosie and me. And damn, I hope the stars are watching because I’m going to show them how much.”

“I do not doubt it.” He rises, takes my face between his palms. “I have always and will forever be yours, my Rose.” I drop the thorns and kiss him lightly. “I’m yours, Kel. You know I’m yours.” He grips me around the waist and tugs me over his hips. “Then hold on to the headboard and sit on my face.”

“You’re holding yourself up.” Kel’s rough stubble scratches the inside of my thigh. “I mean for you to use the headboard to push yourself down.” “I’ll suffocate you,” I whisper. He makes a dissatisfied sound. “What need do I have for air with your thighs around my head?”

“I know, Ez,” I say, tears flying down my face. “I know because I know you.” “Rosalina O’Connell,” he says, lips trembling, “you are my mate.” A smile breaks across my face like the first rays of dawn. “And you, Ezryn, High Prince of Spring, are mine.”

AHHHH I KNEW IT

“You love me?” “Isn’t it completely obvious? Of course I love you, Ez. You stood by me from the very first day we met. You trust me when I doubt myself. You watch out for your family no matter what. And when there seems to be not enough hope to even stand, you raise us up and keep us going.” I’m crying again, quiet tears dripping over my lips. I’m smiling too. I can see in his face, he can’t believe what I’m saying. “You might not trust it now, but that’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll spend every day proving it to you if I have to. And you know how stubborn I can be.” That at least gets a little smile out of him. “You love me,” he whispers. “I do.” I trace the curve of his nose, the lines of his lips. “Trust what I say. You know me.” I say the words like an offering. “I know you,” he repeats. Then his eyes lower, taking in my wet dress, hugging tight to my body. “My mate…” “Yours.”

A growl rushes out of him, and in one swift movement, I’m on my back with him leaning over me. “My mate,” he says again, and his hand trails down my jaw to lightly land on my throat. “My mate, whom I love.”

AAHHH I LOVE HIM

Keldarion takes Farron’s hand, so we stand in a circle. “You are my mate. Farron is yours, and now Ezryn is as well. I’ve told you both this before, but I will shelter you from this upcoming storm. When Ezryn returns to us, we will not let him go. The four of us belong together.”

I know Keldarion told me not to come, that Ezryn didn’t even want to see us. But I am his mate. As I lay awake in my bed, embraced by both Farron and Kel who slept on either side of me, there was nothing I could do but feel my bond screaming in my chest. I stared up at the ceiling, tears pouring down my cheeks in the dark. It was Kel who made my mind up for me. One minute I was lying on the bed, the next he was lifting me in his arms, sneaking us toward the door so as not to wake Farron. “Take the stairs all the way down as far as you can go. Then follow your nose—the damp air will lead you to solitary confinement,” he whispered as he set me down. Without my touch, he shifted into the icy white wolf. Despite all our fights and secrets, Keldarion’s faith in me is the one thing that never wavers.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the beast rumbles. “I don’t care what I should or shouldn’t do.” My voice is a snarl. “You are my mate. I’m not leaving you.” A whine sounds through the wolf’s chest, and he lowers his head to his paws. “It is a great dishonor to be mated to me. I am sorry you must suffer such shame.” An angry cry rips out of me, and I shake the bars, as useless as that is. “I don’t care what they call you or what they’ve said you’ve done. I will stand by you—now and forever.” The wolf stands and pads over to me. Then he collapses in front of the bars as if even that amount of movement was unbearable. There’s no fight in his voice as he says, “I nearly killed you, Rosalina. It is proof of what I’ve known since I murdered my own mother. There is a darkness in me that cannot be purged.” “Then I will love you in the darkness,” I say.

A curtain of briars around the bed. Yes, she would like that. I craft it, red petals interweaving in a flowing sheet. Perfect. In my mind, my thorns are not blighted purple things, but the bright green vines of a rosebush. I need to keep building this imaginary house bigger, reinforcing the windows, letting nothing of the outside world in. Taller walls, more vines, more roses—

MY HEART I LOVE HIM SO MUCH BUT ALSO AM SO MAD AT HIM FOR SOME IF THE THINGS HE HAS DONE

But it leaves me wide open for the Nightingale. She tilts her head, and her hood shifts slightly. Poking out from beneath her pointed ear is the white petal of a flower. A stardrop. Odd. I wouldn’t think she’d wear anything that isn’t completely practical. She walks toward me, unbothered.

It’s the antidote

“How did you know I was here?” A large hand gently cups my cheek. “I’ll always find you.” Our bond alights between us, warm and welcoming. “How did you get to me?” “There is nothing—nothing—that could keep me from you. No blood nor blade nor judgment cast upon me. I would tear my bones from the grips of death and offer a thousand more in my stead if it means you await me at the end of it all.”

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.”

NOOOOO I DONT ACCEPT

The book has fallen open, and I strain to read the neatly written words. Things that make me smile. Dancing to beautiful music Fine clothing Competitive board games Annoying Keldarion Rosalina, Rosalina, Rosalina

AWWWW I CANT TAKE IT. I just want all them together and happy 😭

“Caspian,” I say, hating the vulnerability in my voice. But his visits are so infrequent, and I need to know. “Please tell me. Are … are my daughters alive?”

DAUGHTERS? Plural? I bet Wrenly is the other one but I still don’t trust her

“Regardless, there’s one thing I know. One thing I’m certain of.” He looks up, reluctantly placing his palm against mine. I offer him a sad smile. “I know you will never let any harm come to Rosalina. Caspian, you have always been a worthy mate for my daughter.”

I FUCKING KNEW IT