Page 83 of When Roses Burn

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Marina’s a woman who sees love as the greatest weakness of all; she won’t see the power in it. She thinks Briar is a disgrace because of you and what she considers her daughter’s downfall. What she doesn’t realize is that her daughter is far stronger than she’ll ever be.”

“So, you think because Briar fell in love with Knox as a child, she was able to withstand the call of her Needing?” Dromon asked.

“Briar knows what her kind does isn’t right. Whereas the other casters see the harem as their way of being, she sees it as wrong.”

Bertie might be on to something with that, but… “That doesn’t explain how her mother knew our plans to run away,” I bit out through my teeth.

“Marina is one of the most powerful sorceresses to exist. Did you ever stop to think maybe she used some of her magic to find out what her daughter was doing? She must have, at some point, realized Briar was sneaking off. Yes, Briar must have made a mistake for this to happen, but I don’t think it was intentional. For all we know, Marina might have put a spell on her, and Briar was the one who told her mother. Marina might have ensured she doesn’t remember it.”

I stared at Bertie as I processed her words. Something like that had never occurred to me. Is that because I want to believe the worst in Briar?

No, that wasn’t true. At first, I refused to consider it, but as time passed and Marina whispered more to me, I began to believe her. It was easy to become warped and twisted in that place.

And I was definitely warped and twisted.

“Look at what she did to this kingdom,” Bertie continued. “Look at the power that woman possesses.”

“But it took all the night casters to create this curse,” Lyra said. “Marina couldn’t do it alone.”

“True,” Bertie agreed. “But there’s nothing she won’t do to punish everyone she deems worthy of it.”

“No one else in this kingdom had anything to do with me and Briar,” I said.

“Do you think that matters to Marina?”

“Not at all,” Dromon muttered.

“Do you think Briar’s telling the truth?” Lyra asked. “About the curse and Knox.”

“I do,” Bertie said.

“If she is, then we have no hope of breaking this curse,” Pierce said.

“We’ll find a way,” I vowed.

Maybe Briar wasn’t the key to undoing this as I’d hoped, but I would free my kingdom, even if it meant destroying Nightshade to do so.

“What about Briar?” Dromon asked.

His question snapped me out of my ruminations. “What do you mean?”

“If she didn’t choose a night or day caster side, and she isn’t going to bind herself to one of their gods, what will she become? Is she still a caster? Is she something else? Or is she something more?”

I didn’t have the answer to those first two questions, but something inside me whispered, More. She’s something more.

But what exactly was she turning into… or had she already become it?

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Briar

“I wish she’d wake up. Hey. Hey you. Wake up. Are you okay?”

I groaned and rolled over as an incessant little voice pecked at my brain. A dull throb pounded in my temples, and my body felt like it had been tied to a horse and dragged for miles. I was still exhausted, but that voice wouldn’t stop.

“You’re moving! You’re alive!”