Page 69 of Healing Elixirs & Wicked Crows

She looked up, and for a moment I saw past the warrior facade to the sister who'd just awakened from a century of sleep."What if I'm not the sister she remembers?What if a hundred years of watching her suffer alone has changed me too much?What if we can't go back to how we were?"

"Then you build something new," I said."Something stronger."

Our approach to the castle was fraught with tension.Twice, we had to duck behind crumbling walls as patrols passed closer than expected.Once, a guard's torch beam swept within inches of where Briar crouched.

"Someone knows we're coming," Darius whispered as we waited for another patrol to pass."The guard rotations have doubled."

"Maybe," I replied, "or maybe Mother's just being extra cautious with her prize."

But as we reached the outer walls, Darius’s suspicions were confirmed.A line of guards stood at attention, far more than usual.And they weren't just watching outward.They were scanning the forest, searching.

"She knows," Briar breathed."Somehow, she knows we're here."

"Then we make this count," I said grimly."One chance.If we fail?—"

"We won't fail," Darius said with conviction."We can't."

The signal came, a massive plume of crimson smoke curling into the air and the crack of thunder splitting through the night.Battle cries erupted from multiple directions as our allies launched their coordinated assault.

"Now," I said, and we ran for the walls, knowing that our princess's life, and the fate of all the realms, hung in the balance.

The Brink of War

ELIAS

My steel gray gaze locked onto my brother’s.Our pasts flashing behind just that look.All the horrors we had witnessed, the abuse we’d both faced at our mother’s hands, and the hope we’d thought lost forever.It was always going to come to this.

Briar, Darius, and I made our way through the last of the forest, running the last several feet between the Everland Forest and the dilapidated wall running the perimeter of the main unseelie village.Vines encroached the entire length of dark bricks, which provided each of us with plenty of handholds to climb.The entire line of waiting soldiers had been pulled away by Briar’s seelie army.That would be a distraction all right.

Darius offered his bent knee for Briar to step up onto, but she scoffed at his offer, pulling herself up the vines with little effort.

Briar, unlike the rest of us, had been suspended in time, unchanging still on the cusp of youth, making her as strong as the day she had been cursed.

The nearest houses seemed rundown and out of use.Their windows shattered, their doors boarded up, and no light flickering within their depths.Aside from the sound of distant battle, everything sat eerily silent, and I ran my fingers through my hair, tucking the longer strands behind my pointed ears.I needed to be hyper aware of our surroundings now.Hints of dimmed light brightened houses closer to the castle gate, but we didn’t need to go that far into town to get to where we needed to go.

My nose wrinkled at the stench permeating the air as we turned down an alleyway, heading toward the massive iron grate leading to the tunnels.In the early days of the unseelie court, these tunnels had been erected as secret escape tunnels.Over the years, they were repurposed for refuse, and as I neared the gated entrance, I tugged the hem of my tunic up to cover my nose.

“I think I’m going to vomit,” Briar complained, her pale skin a sickly shade of green.

“Breathe through your mouth, my love,” Darius said to her, his fingers wrapping around the grate.He tugged it open, and it screeched on its hinges as he held it open for Briar to duck into.

I followed them in, rubbing my hands together and using the energy created to hang a floating ball of light around our heads.The light was dim, though I doubted any of my mother’s soldiers patrolled this deeply into the tunnels.

Briar gagged.“I’m not sure that’s much better.Now, I can taste it!”

I shouldered past her, my brow furrowed.“Don’t think about it.We don’t have time to worry about your delicate sensibilities when Rosemary is in trouble.She faced the risks of the dark enchanted forest, a wild dance gathering of pixies, and a pack of bloodthirsty wolf shifters to save you.Surely, you can handle a bad odor.”

Her boots squelched in the grime, and she groaned.“I beg your pardon,” she snapped at my back.I glanced over my shoulder, noticing how similar she looked to Rosemary with her chin tilted up stubbornly like that.“I want to get her as much as you do!”

“Then suck it up and keep moving.”

I didn’t care that she growled at my back.Maybe that anger would propel her forward faster.My only focus was getting to Rosemary.I ignored my brother’s whispered reassurances, his smooth words of comfort.Instead, I marched forward, slowing down at every bend to peer around the edge with as little light as possible before deeming the way clear enough for us to continue.

Darius’s shoulder nudged mine as I paused, checking the fork that yawned open before us.“You’re being a little harsh on her, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” I replied, checking the darkness for any sign of movement, sound, anything.“She can chew me out about it later… after we get her sister back.”

Darius pulled me aside, his hand closing around my shoulder until I lowered my gaze to meet his.“She really means that much to you?”