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“Rosalina.” Ezryn steadies me with a firm grip. He casts one last look back at his brother, but Kairyn is lost to the fray.

“I’m alright.” My voice is rough with pain. “Keep moving.”

We step onto the bridge of thorns. Into our home, this storm of shadow and memories that Sira’s corrupted.

And I am not afraid.

Not with my mates beside me.

Not with the entire world in danger. But something greater grows in my chest.

Our love sharpened into a blade.

One by one, we cross to the other side of the chasm. The moment our boots hit the ground, the earth shudders. A deep rumble groans through the ruined bones of Castletree, the once-beautiful castle now a cathedral of shadows. Smoke coils from cracks in the stone and broken branches.

I feel it building inside me, a tempest of grief and rage. This is where she took everything. My father. My home. My hope.

But none of those things are truly gone. My father lives in my sister and me. Home is wherever my family is.

And she can never take my hope again. Not when I have witnessed all the Vale come to defend it.

My wings spread behind me as I rise above the ruin. Smoke curls around my legs as I land in a crouch atop the crumbled remnants of the central spire. Wind sends my hair thrashing. I stare across the broken entrance hall.

And there she is.

Sira.

Roots and shadows crawl up her arms. There, dangling at her hip, attached by a chain, is the dark rose in its glass bell jar. Sira’s eyes widen, lips parting.

“Aurelia,” she breathes. “It cannot be…”

“No,” I say, standing from my crouch. “I am not my mother.”

The wind rises, catching on my wings and lifting me high in the air.

“I am Rosalina O’Connell, heir to the Enchanted Vale.” I lift my bow, nock a briar arrow. “And I’ve come to end you.”

Sira laughs. Soft at first, almost a whisper. Then louder and louder until it roars across the ruined walls, a storm that echoes off broken stone and splintered branches.

“You’re too late,” she hisses through the cackle. “Far too late.”

I fire, but a root rises, blocking the arrow. I nock another one. I can’t use the Bow of Radiance to its full potential until I get the rose, or I risk destroying it.

Gritting my teeth, I raise a thatch of sharpened thorns. Find the rose, I command. My golden briars spear toward her.

Sira lifts her arms, but they’re too long, now blackened roots. Shadows whip out, incinerating all my briars.

The earth splits.

Vines tear through the remains of the stone floor. The rubble of Castletree groans like it’s alive—because it is. Did it ever die? Is she bringing it back to life?

Everything Sira ever created is rotten.

Now she’s doing it to Castletree.

Roots coil through the ground like snakes. Sira’s skin twists, hardens, splinters, turning to bark and shadow and rot. The pale flesh beneath flakes away in dry, blackened patches.

Her limbs twist at impossible angles, bones snapping, elongating. Her feet sink into the earth, and then the earth splits open, welcoming her. Roots burst upward, gnarled and oozing with sap the color of old blood. Her spine arches as pieces of wood fuse to her. Like she’s a part of the tree itself.