Page 141 of Cursed Crowns

“You’re the know-it-all, Wren,” he sneered. “Did you know you can drown in just a cup of water?”

Wren rasped a laugh. “All the better for me to kill you.”

“Arrogant as ever, witch. Even at the hour of your death.”

There were Arrows all around them now, every leering face more hostile than the last. Rose tried to fight her way through, but she was hauled away by Davers, her hands pinned behind her back. And then Celeste was there, only she didn’t try to push her way through. Her gaze met Wren’s in the crowd, and just as a guard came to capture her, too, she drew her arm back and flung a red rose into the fountain. It landed in the water, beside Wren.

Barron saw it and laughed. “A flower for your grave. Even your allies know there is no hope for you.” A lone petal floated toward Wren, and she closed her fist around it.

“You die today, witch, and your sister will be next.”

Wren curled the petal in her fist as Barron grabbed the back of her hair and shoved her face-first into the water. He held her there, his grip twined in her hair as she flailed for a new breath.

Wren heard him laugh as she fell still, heard the Arrows cheer his name. After three long minutes, Barron released her, so bloated by his own triumph that he didn’t notice the enchantment working its way through her body, nor the merrow gills in her neck.

He stood up in the fountain and summoned Rose. She was dragged toward him, kicking and shouting. Wren caught the moment her sister saw her floating lifelessly in the fountain, Rose’s primal scream so heart-wrenching that Wren almost raised her head.

Barron stepped over her. This time, he called for his bow and arrow. Someone scurried out of the crowd to hand it to him. His garbled words echoed in the water as Wren reached, ever so slowly, for her dagger.

“Your sister is dead. It is time for you to join her.” Wren heard him nock his arrow to his bow and pictured him aiming it at Rose’s heart. “Here we find ourselves under the Great Protector’s eye. There is no truer arrow than this one,” he announced. “No better death than yours.”

Wren struck, driving her dagger into Barron’s calf. He fell to his knees with a ragged shout as she leaped up from the water.

With her hair plastered to her face, she could just make out her sister struggling in Davers’s grasp. Rose seized upon the captain’s shock, slamming her elbow into his side and bounding away from him. She lunged for Wren, but Barron intercepted her. He pulled Rose against him, ripping Wren’s dagger from his calf and holding it to her neck.

“Don’t move another muscle,” he said through gritted teeth. Wren froze, her frightened gaze meeting Rose’s across the water. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

Dread rippled down Wren’s spine. She had failed her sister. She hadn’t been quick enough, or smart enough, to save her. To save any of them. And now here it was—the moment that would separate them forever. And to make it worse, Rose would die first.

I’m sorry,she mouthed.

Rose smiled, forgiving Wren. Forgiving herself.I love you.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, readying herself for death. Wren shut her eyes, too, but instead of the sinking sound of steel meeting skin and bone, she heard the unmistakable whistle of flying steel.

And then a telltalethwack.

Rose cried out.

Wren’s eyes flew open. Over her sister’s shoulder, Barron’s face had frozen in mid-grin, the hilt of a familiar golden dagger sticking out of his neck. His fingers slackened, the knife tumbling from his grasp. He fell backward, landing with an almighty splash.

“Sorry we’re late,” came a voice from above. “We were dusting off our weapons.”

Wren and Rose looked up at the same time to see Shen Lo standing on the ramparts. He was wearing his golden crown and brandishing the biggest saber Wren had ever seen. Lei Fan stood on one side of him, holding her own gilded bow and arrow, with Grandmother Lu on the other, spinning her staff. All along the rest of the ramparts, as far as Wren could see, stood an unbroken line of witches dressed in glittering black armor and brandishing their own menacing weapons.

“All you witch-hating cowards probably haven’t heard of the Sunkissed Kingdom,” said Shen Lo as he stepped off the wall, dropped twenty feet, and landed in a perfect crouch. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves?”

With a rallying cry, the rest of the Sunkissed army leaped off the wall and descended on the Arrows.

56

Rose

Moonlight bounced off the weapons of Shen’s army as they roared into battle, swarming the courtyard in a mass of steel. The Arrows relinquished their hold on the Ortha witches and ran for the gates, but they were no match for the strength and speed of the Sunkissed Kingdom. They flung gusts like throwing knives, their bodies spinning through the air with deadly grace.

The soldiers who had betrayed Wren and Rose raised their weapons, only to have them kicked from their trembling hands. They took one look at each other and ran for the river. Wren joined the Sunkissed witches and ran after them, trying to stop as many as she could.

Rose stood up in the fountain, sopping wet from head to toe, and watched them all flee.Let them run, she thought, an unfamiliar bitterness coursing through her. After eighteen years, her own guards had turned on her. Even Captain Davers, whom she had known all her life, had been so afraid of her magic that he had bound her hands and tried to drag her to her death.

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