Page 132 of Cursed Crowns

“Perhaps if I was selfless.” He smiled ruefully. “But I am a selfish man, Wren.”

Wren nodded. The trouble was, she was selfish, too. She didn’t care what Banba would have wanted. All she cared about was seeing her grandmother open her eyes, her cheeks flush with color once more.

Alarik raised his chin to the mountains, in the direction Oonagh had disappeared. “If you do it, won’t it make you more like her?”

“I’m already like her,” said Wren bitterly. “Why not make it count?”

He inhaled through his teeth.

Wren snorted. “What? Are you afraid of me now?”

“No. But aren’t you a little afraid of yourself?”

Wren’s hands twitched in and out of fists. An old magic was risinginside her, desperate to be used. To be twisted to her every whim. The trouble was, she knew it would twist her soul, too. It had already begun to.

She stepped away from her grandmother’s body, trying to fight it.

Banba would hate it. And she would hate me for doing it.

And worse than that.I would hate myself.

“Wren?” Alarik interrupted her thoughts. The sun had set, and now darkness was yawning across the skies of Gevra. “What do you want to do with the body?”

Wren loosed a breath and, with it, two soul-wrenching words. “Burn it.”

Back in Ortha, whenever one of their own died, the witches would burn their body in a glorious bonfire, dancing and drinking and singing all night to celebrate the fullness of their lives. Banba would brew a fierce wind, making it roar with their collective grief as it carried the spirit back to the Mother Tree.

The pyre in Grinstad was higher than Wren was expecting, piled in the gardens beside the pond, where Banba’s body lay, wrapped in fur blankets. Wren watched the flames take hold of her grandmother and prayed she would find her peace. They were a long way from the Mother Tree now.

The courtyard was deserted. Even the beasts had been taken in. There was only Wren, standing alone before the flames. She flicked her wrist, turning them a bright, blazing silver. They roared as they grew, climbing higher and higher, as if to lick the moon.

Wren’s chest heaved, tears streaming down her face until the world turned to streaks of silver and black. “Goodbye, Banba,” she whispered,as she sent out one final gust of wind. It curled around her grandmother’s body, lifting her spirit away from the earth and carrying it off into the night, like a silver ribbon. Back home, to the Mother Tree.

Wren stood at the pyre until the flames burned out. And when it was done, and Banba was at peace, she turned back to the palace. Alarik was standing out on his balcony, his hands braced on the balustrade as he watched her trudge across the courtyard. She pulled her hood up and pretended not to see him.

There were others, too, watching the spectacle of her grief from the windows. The dowager queen was standing in the atrium. She held her hand out to Wren as she passed, squeezing once before letting go. Wren drifted onward, up the stairs to the fourth floor and on down the hallway, where a new fire crackled in her bedroom. She put it out with a gust of wind, then crawled underneath the covers and cried herself to sleep.

52

Rose

Rose stood on the balcony of Anadawn Palace, where barely one moon ago, she and her sister had waved to thousands of well-wishers who had come to celebrate their royal coronation. Now a sea of soldiers swarmed the courtyard, building barricades to enforce the outer walls while Barron’s army marched toward the palace.

Beside her, Thea worried the edge of her eye patch. It was a nervous habit Rose had noticed more and more in recent days. “They’ll be here within the hour.”

“Are the tempests—”

“On the way out to the ramparts, with the enchanters.”

“Good,” said Rose. “Any word from Celeste?”

“Not yet. But with any luck, she got your letter.”

“Or maybe all my starcrests have drowned in the Sunless Sea,” muttered Rose.

“Celeste is a seer,” said Thea. “Letter or not, she’ll figure something out.”

“I hope you’re right, Thea.”

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