Page 139 of Cursed Crowns

Rose whipped her head around, looking for Banba, but it was just the three of them inside the clearing. Somehow, the storm had come from Wren.

“You’re supposed to be an enchanter,” said Barron, looking between them. For the first time since Rose had met the unflappable leader of the Arrows, she noticed, with a sliver of satisfaction, that he looked frightened.

“And you’re supposed to be behaving yourself,” Wren countered. “But since you’re here trying to murder my sister, do you want to see another demonstration of my new power?”

“No!” said Barron.

“Yes!” said Rose.

Wren swept her arm around, creating a roaring wind. It thundered toward Barron, lifting him off the forest floor and casting him into the air, where he was flung like a twig over the burned treetops. He screamed as he flew, but Wren didn’t stand still to watch him go.

She whirled on Rose, removing a dagger from up her sleeve as she fell to her knees. She made quick work of the binds around her wrists and the rope at her waist. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I came as soon as—”

Rose flung herself at Wren, throwing her arms around her sister and squeezing her so tightly, Wren fell out of her sentence. “You’re here now,” she said, pressing her face into her shoulder. “That’s all that matters.”

Rose was so lost in the joy of her reunion, she didn’t realize her fingers were tingling until she pulled back from Wren. A strange warmth was spreading out inside her. No, not warmth. This was magic, and somehow, it felt both new and ancient.

Rose looked up at her sister. “Something’s happening to me.”

Wren smiled. “It’s the twins’ curse, Rose,” she said, reaching for her hand. The heat inside Rose flared. “Now that we’re together again, Ithink it’s finally breaking. The five strands of witchcraft are reuniting. Our power is returning.”

With those words came a flood of power so warm and bright, Rose felt like her blood had caught fire. By the time she stood up, her fingers were crackling. She could feel a storm brewing inside her and was seized by the urge to fling her hands out and set it loose. “Goodness,” she said breathlessly. She felt somehow as though her soul had swelled, that the parts of herself she had yet to learn were creeping out of her bones and knitting themselves together. “Now what?”

Wren took her hand, pulling Rose away from the woods. “Now we fight.”

55

Wren

Wren had never felt as close to Rose as she did then, both of them leaving the shelter of the forest and marching back toward Anadawn Palace, where chaos and bloodshed awaited them. But they were not the same people they had been barely one moon ago. The witches’ curse was breaking, the five strands of Eana’s magic flowing from Wren into Rose and mending a thousand-year-old wrong.

And yet, deep down, there was a part of Wren that feared her sister would sense the darkness inside her, the broken strand of healing magic that refused to work. She would have to tell Rose about Oonagh sooner or later, confess what she had accidentally set loose in the bowels of Grinstad Palace, and what it had cost them. Or, rather, who.

“Wren, you’re trembling.” Rose squeezed her hand. “Do you need a moment?”

Wren shook her nerves off. “No.” The sun was setting, the last of its golden rays bleeding across the white towers of Anadawn. Darkness was sweeping in, and, with it, a pale and distant moon. “Let’s show these Arrows who they’re up against.”

The twins stalked across the battlefield, bringing a howling gale with them. There were hundreds of soldiers lying on the grass, somegroaning, while others were still. The barricades around the palace walls had been destroyed, and the golden gates were beginning to cave in.

Wren channeled her rage into her magic, summoning the fullness of her power from the very depths of her soul. Beside her, she could tell Rose was doing the same. The wind shrieked around them, the earth trembling at their feet, as they bore down on the Arrows.

“Shields up!” yelled one of the rebels. “It’s only wind! Advance and seize the queens.”

As one, the Arrows charged.

Rose tensed. “I didn’t wait eighteen years to go to war. I waited eighteen years to lead my people in peace and prosperity.”

“Then let’s end this.” Wren balled her fist until it crackled with lightning. The sky above Anadawn Palace split open, and a fork of lightning leaped down from the clouds, burning a jagged line into the earth.

The Arrows froze mid-charge.

“THERE WILL BE PEACE!” cried Rose, as Wren pulled down another bolt, singeing the earth around them. “PLEASE, JUST LET THERE BE PEACE!”

Across the battlefield, Wren spied Rowena in the fray. Rowena picked up a discarded sword and spun it in the air, before catching it by the blade tip. She flung it, with expert aim, into the back of an axe-wielding Arrow. Then she looked at her hands, as if she had never seen them before, and began to laugh. “The curse! It’s broken!”

Tilda leaped off the ramparts and landed in her own whorl of wind. “Look! I have tempest powers now!”

The Arrows whipped their heads around, horror-stricken, as morewitches poured out of Anadawn Palace, flinging their hands to the sky and finding new power rising inside themselves. The twins stalked on, bringing the lightning with them.

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