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“What?” I shrug. “I figured you four idiot princes couldn’t do this without me.”

Keldarion, that grumpy, icy bastard, throws his head back and laughs, gaze following Dayton’s torrent, Farron’s stampede, Ezryn’s flurry, before landing on me.

I can’t help but pull him into a kiss. His hands weave into my hair, and for a moment, this is all that exists: a reminder of why we’re doing this.

He pulls away, forehead to mine. “I thought you hated mid-battle kisses.”

“For you, I can make an exception.”

“Alright,” Keldarion says, sword glowing the whitest blue. “Together, my love?”

I never imagined I’d be blushing on the battlefield, but the burn creeps up my cheeks. Thorns crack through the surface. “Let’s see if I can be as great as my mother always promised.”

The battlefield is chaos, and among all the various warriors, I don’t spot a single soldier from the Queen’s Army. No Wrenley. Guilt hangs heavy on the back of my mind. Was I too harsh? Pushed her to hard? No. I believe in her. She’ll come through.

I cut a look toward Castletree, pulsing with foul magic. The distant figure of my mother is covered in roots, her eyes black. For so long, I couldn’t help but feel hope when I looked at her: hope that a part of her love was real, hope that she wasn’t as monstrous as she portrayed. But now I don’t see my mother. All I see is what I feared I’d become. A monster so lost there’s no trace of her left.

Sometimes we fight for the people we love. But sometimes we have to fight for ourselves. You would have drowned me in this darkness too.

“Let’s find Rosalina,” Keldarion says. “Where is she?”

I search the battlefield, and there in the middle, like a star fallen from the Above, a light begins to shine.

Warmth pulses in my chest, burning bright and tugging me forward. “Follow me.”

56

Rosalina

They came.

They’re here. All of them. My mates have arrived.

I heave in a breath, and for the first time since I entered the Vale, it doesn’t taste like rot.

Caspian.

Farron.

Dayton.

Ezryn.

Keldarion.

And all their people.

Each draw of my rapid breath feels like knives ripping through my chest. I can’t help them like this. But they found a way to be here.

So will I.

Falling to my knees, I clutch my fingers into the soaked ground. The presence of my mates, the magic that sings through our mate bonds, pulses through me and into the earth—and the earth pulses back. The roots of Castletree run deep.

Blades of grass sprout between my fingertips. Wounds stitch along my arms. My breath turns from a death rattle to a steady rhythm. I ground myself, hands and knees, in the soil.

But I don’t intend to stay on the ground for long.

The Winter soldiers nearby look to me, expectant and wondering. Once upon a time, this would have caused me fear, caused me to question who I am to lead them. But I know what we must do to win. And I know I’m enough to do it.