Page 155 of Cursed Crowns

Rose rolled her eyes and swatted her sister on the knee.

Outside, the main street was lined with crowds of people all dressed in their finest clothes. Some of the children were even wearing paper crowns. They were waving flowers and flags and calling out to the sisters by name.

“Queen Rose! We love you! You’re so brave!”

“Over here, Queen Wren! Please wave at me!”

“Did you see that, Marcel? I swear she looked right at me!”

“Lena, look, there’s Queen Rose! Blow her a kiss!”

Rose turned back to Wren, raising her voice over the clamorous welcome. “Why don’t we show them a little magic?”

Wren smirked. “I like your thinking.”

She clicked her fingers, drawing a flicker of lightning that soon erupted into a ball of fire. A chorus of gasps rang out as she tossed it back and forth between her hands. Rose removed a pinch of earth from the pouch at her waist and uttered a spell she had been working on all night. She would always be a healer at heart, but after a little practice, she had taken to the enchantment strand of her magic with remarkable quickness. Perhaps it was because her mother had been an enchanter, too.

Within minutes, a hundred flaming wrens were flying in circles above the carriage. The children surged forward to get a closer look. Wren laughed as she blew the birds over the rooftops and into the clouds, while Rose crafted an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies from one of the bouquets in the carriage. Red and yellow, pink and violet petals all took flight and fluttered into the crowd, the children hollering in delight as they landed on their shoulders.

Wren chuckled as she watched the floral butterflies. “You know,in all my years as an enchanter, I never once thought to do that.” She spotted a teenager rudely jostling his way through the crowds, and idly sent out a gust of wind to knock him over.

Rose pursed her lips. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

They rode on through the streets of Ellendale, where the air was buzzing with excitement. There wasn’t a single arrow in sight. As another bouquet of butterflies fluttered their way through the town, Rose felt a gentle peace stirring around her, and took it as a sign of good things to come.

Beside her, Wren was blowing kisses with gusto, basking in that same ray of hope for the future. In a rare moment of quiet, when the carriage was trundling between one winding street and the next, she turned to say something to Rose.

Rose watched the smile on her sister’s face falter as the world dimmed around its edges. She reached for Wren’s hand. And then everything went black.

Rose blinked to find herself floating above the world, on the wings of an ancient hawk. Below her sprawled a white mountain range glistening with ice. She was in Gevra. The bird swooped, and Rose went with it, until she hovered above a sparse pine forest.

There was a woman standing in the middle of it. For a heartbeat, Rose swore it was Wren, but then the woman smiled, revealing her bloodied teeth. A gasp stuck in Rose’s throat.

She knew with sudden chilling certainty that it was Oonagh Starcrest.

Oonagh flung her arms wide. The ground began to rumble. Trees cleaved in two and crashed to the earth, while beasts howled from the snowy mountains. Oonagh spat a glob of blood onto the earth, and arotting hand burst up from the ground, as if to catch it.

Rose screamed as the rest of the corpse emerged, but the hawk was carrying her away. The wind whipped up, and in its howl, she heard Glenna the seer’s voice. “You broke the ice and freed the curse. Now kill one twin to save the other.”

A rousing cheer brought Rose back to herself. She was on a street in Ellendale, listening to the whoops and hollers of its townspeople. She turned to Wren to find her staring, her eyes so wide Rose could see her own reflection in them.

“Did you see that, too?” Wren whispered.

Rose nodded, suddenly too frightened to speak.

“Oonaghwillreturn to Eana.” Wren turned her face north, her eyes darting. “This was her kingdom, Rose. Her throne. I don’t think she’s done with it.”

In the absence of her voice, Rose squeezed her sister’s hand. Wren squeezed back. And for the rest of their tour of Ellendale neither of them uttered another word, though Rose knew they were both thinking the same thing.

They would do whatever it took to protect Eana and each other. No matter what the seer said. They would defy the stars themselves if they had to.

And they would do it together.