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With a shadow. She’s tall and soft-figured, her hair long and wavy. And she’s strong. So much stronger than I ever give her credit for.

Shadow Rosalina snatches my throat between her hands and squeezes.

Sira’s laughter echoes through my head as the breath is choked out of me. “Everything Aurelia has ever touched will turn to rot!”

I try to gasp in air, but the shadow impression of me is too strong. Within the void of her face, a smirk appears. My vision blackens at the edges, but I don’t stop pounding on the arms holding me down.

I grasp at my back, trying to pull out my bow, but my limbs are going weak. Her grip is too strong⁠—

Shadow Rosalina lets out a voiceless scream and lurches forward, her hands limp beside me. Her body shakes like a rag doll. I blink. There’s something stabbed through her void chest.

A briar. Not golden or purple.

Luminescent. Like the rainbow that appears on spilled gasoline.

The briar yanks Shadow Rosalina back and dumps her unceremoniously to the ground. And behind her, I notice the young woman standing there, her face in that typical unimpressed glower.

Wrenley stalks forward, grabs my arm, and hauls me to my feet.

“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my throat, but Wrenley’s already turned away.

That’s when I see the wave of light crashing over us. Soldier after soldier, dressed in white gold, runs across the bridge and falls on the shadows like moonlight cresting over a dark lake. Above the chaos, I spot Kairyn’s dark armor as he snatches a cable hanging from Flutterwing and is hauled overboard.

Kairyn held back the army until our reinforcements arrived, and Wrenley succeeded. A laugh bubbles out of me, and I snatch Wrenley in my arms. “You did it! You convinced the Queen’s Army to join us!”

She yanks away from me, and her lip curls. “They wouldn’t listen to me. Laughed in my face. Told me to get lost, just like I said they would.” She lets loose a sigh. “But I went and got someone they would listen to.”

Luminescent briars spring from the ground nearby us and unfurl like petals, revealing a woman. A human woman.

My mother steps out, wearing a pink Orca Cove hoodie and my old sweatpants. Yet as she takes in the surroundings, then smiles, she looks more beautiful and youthful than I’ve ever seen.

“Hello, daughters,” the first queen of the Vale says. “Let’s see what kind of trouble we O’Connell women can cause.”

58

Rosalina

“Mom.”

I run to her, and she envelops me in her arms. So many questions rush through my mind. What made her decide to come? What did Wrenley say to her? Wrenley had discovered her own way to Orca Cove before; she must have done so again.

But there’s no time. The world around us is a flash of black and gold as the Queen’s Army falls upon the shadows.

“Rosalina, you’re okay.” Mom holds me close. Even though we don’t know each other that well, it feels so natural. Then she pulls away and looks me up and down, expression unreadable. “Wings…”

“I’ve seen your home,” I say softly. “It’s beautiful.”

Mom gives a laugh-sob of disbelief. “Our home, Rosalina.” Joy sparkles in her eyes. “It’s where the Vale began.”

“If you two are done catching up, I could use some help,” Wrenley snarls. Her luminescent briars erupt from the ground with frenzied speed, slicing through countless shadow warriors. At the same time, she whips out her crossbow, firing bolt after bolt into the fray.

“We have to stop Sira at the source,” I say to them both, then point upward. “I’m going to go up there and face her.”

“But you’ll have to get up there,” Mom says. Her eyes follow the vicious path Sira’s tree limbs hew: they slash back and forth across the ground, no mind for hitting her own shadow warriors.

I look to the princes in the midst of the battle. Kel is still blow to blow with his double, neither able to press the advantage. Farron’s taken to the skies, his body engulfed in flame, pelting the shadow warriors with fire. Ezryn’s sprinting through the battlefield, trying to keep pace with Sira’s giant limbs, tearing up rock mounds from the ground to protect the soldiers from Sira’s blows.

Dayton is still engaged with the shadows of himself and his brother…and a third has joined the attack. His mother, Sabine. She was once the High Princess of Summer and lived in Castletree. The one silver lining is it seems these shadows can’t wield their original magic, though they’re still deadly.