Page 98 of When Ashes Fall

“I don’t know him anymore. I will always love the man he was, but the one he is now is… infuriating. He’s always so quick to believe the worst of me because I’m a caster, but I’m not like the others. I believed he realized that when we were children, but I think he always doubted me, even then.”

“I don’t,” Lyra said. “I think he has complete faith in you, but he’s broken, and you’re not. You can run from him; he can’t run from you.”

“So that excuses his behavior?”

“Absolutely not, but it makes it more understandable… for me, at least. He’s scared.”

“Knox isn’t scared of anything.”

“Except for you. You terrify him.”

“That doesn’t mean I should have to put up with the way he treats me and talks to me.”

“Of course not. If he’d done to me what he did to you today, I’d wear his balls as a necklace.”

I grinned at the imagery. “Believe me, if I were stronger, I would have bounced his balls off his head.”

Lyra laughed. “You know, I never considered it possible to be near a caster without trying to bash their brains in, let alone liking one, but I like you. I see you.”

“What do you mean?”

She kept her hands behind her back as she turned to face me. “We all see you. Knox is choosing to remain blind, but the rest of us see what you’re doing, including Dromon and Pierce. And believe me when I tell you they can be obtuse.”

I was more confused by her words. “I don’t understand. You see me do what?”

“You love the plants and roses. When you’re with them, you light up. You shine. It’s as if they’re a part of your soul. You’d never harm them; you wouldn’t do such a thing.”

My mouth went dry at her words. She did see me. She really did.

The plants were a part of my soul, a part that was still weeping for the destruction wrought on them.

I rubbed my fingers together as I recalled the misery emanating from the rose when I touched it. It was so weak, all I felt was its faint, dull agony as the petal fell off in my fingers. The rose knew it was dying, and so did I.

I tried to rid myself of the memory but couldn’t. It would haunt me forever.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I whispered. “I don’t understand why they’re so sick.”

“What do you think might have happened?”

Tears burned my eyes. “I have no idea. Even if Zephyr made the potion completely wrong, which I know he didn’t, it still wouldn’t have caused this kind of destruction. There’s nothing any of us could have done to cause that, short of pouring poison on them, and who would do that?”

Lyra pondered this before shaking her head. “No one in this castle.”

“And there’s no way for anyone else to get in?”

“No.”

She sounded so confident, I didn’t push her on it. “My mother would do it, but she can’t get in here.”

“She’d be dead if she did.”

“What about the shadow dragon’s despair? Could that have polluted them somehow?”

“It never has before, and the dragon has never unleashed his ability on the roses. Besides, I’ve seen his despair hit trees and other plants before; it didn’t affect them.”

I bit my lip as I pondered her words. “I have no other ideas.”

Lyra rocked back and forth again as she stared out the window. “Could it be their time? They’ve been trapped like this for ten years, maybe that’s all the casters gave them.”