Page 127 of A Reign of Roses
Beth took in the crowded dining room. The half-melted candles. The spread of steak and cloverbread rolls and rum. She swallowed twice and I debated telling everyone to leave so she wouldn’t have to speak before them all.
But then she said, “Lazarus and his witch…”
“Octavia,” I supplied, though the name was like mold growing over my tongue.
“They’ve cast some kind of spell. Or, they will, soon.”
“What spell?” Briar asked.
“Lumera. The Fae Realm—if Lazarus dies in battle it will be sealed shut. He’s tethered his own lighte to the realm itself to keep it from collapsing. If he is killed…”
Horror threatened to topple me like a lone ship on a windswept sea. I cut my eyes back to Kane, who was still standing in place at the dining table. His glare gave nothing away as he listened.
“If he is killed,” Beth continued, Leigh holding her hand tightly, “the roads and seas that lead to Evendell—theentirechannel—willcrumble…The skies themselves will fall. There will be no way in or out of the realm.”
“And all those people,” I found myself saying.
“They will spend eternity trapped there.”
In that withering realm. I shook my head.
We could not take any more terrible news.Icouldn’t.
“Can the realm be saved somehow?” Leigh asked her friend.
Beth shook her head. “I don’t know. I only know what I saw.”
“With time,” Kane said. “It can be restored with time. We’d need to move at least a third of the Fae population here, to Evendell. Right now there are too many resources being used at once.”
“What about the portals?” Mari tried from the table. “If we kill Lazarus, can the realm still be accessed by portal?”
“Portals are magic,” Briar weighed. “They aren’t tied to the lighte that built the channel.”
I held Briar’s violet eyes. “That’s good, right?”
“But there are very few witches alive who can open portals between realms. Even I have struggled. Sometimes an entire coven can, if they’re incredibly strong. I only know of one.”
The Antler coven. Valery’s family.
Octavia. And Briar.
Briar could do it.
“We need to open one tonight. Begin to get people out,” I said to her, and to Kane.
But Briar shook her head. “Lazarus’s men will be on us immediately. They monitor the most populated cities. If we were to try to funnel people out of them…”
“The war will begin before we’re ready,” Kane said.
“So what do we do?” Griffin finally asked, eyes steadfast on his friend. His king.
“We can’t just win by killing him anymore,” Kane managed. “Now we have to win on our own terms.”
When none of us said anything—Ryder, Mari, even Dagan—silenced by the grim reality expanding before us, Kane continued.
“We beat his army. We defeat Amber and Garnet, too. We end his life without losing our manpower or our witches. Then we free the innocents of Lumera, work with Hart, and start a new era here in Evendell: Fae and mortal alike, living as one. We’ll fight like all the lives in all the realms depend on it, because they do.” Illuminated by the guttering candelabra above and muted stained-glass lamps, Kane pushed his broad shoulders back and shook his head.
“We can’t approach this war with this…fear that’s seized us any longer. We have to fightfor something.” Kane’s eyes found mine and my heart opened up just a little. “We’ll fight armed with hope. Hope for something better than just his death. And when that hope feels out of reach…” Kane studied the quiet, dimly lit dining room. All the faces latched on to his every word. Briar’s small smile. Dagan’s crinkled eyes, Leigh’s youthful ones. All the age and experience and loss and fear and joy and love that we shared, collectively. “We rely on one another.
