Today's Reading
THE RUINED PRINCE
The events of that afternoon along the riverbank was seared onto Bastien's memory like a brand. He returned to the scene as if it were a daguerreotype brought to life.
Chaos reigned around him, silver-tipped bullets flying through the twilit sky. The fog from Sunan's illusion began lifting, and a pack of werewolves emerged from the tree line near the bridge linking the wintry land of the Sylvan Wyld to its summery nemesis, the Sylvan Vale.
Bastien watched the wolves prowl from the frosted woods, intent on severing the last threads of truce and crossing into the Vale unchecked. His feet moved. He felt an irrepressible desire to strike out at them. To act, rather than remain neutral.
From his experience, werewolves brought nothing but disaster. Striking them down would be justified. But Bastien forced his feet to remain still. Celine was on that bridge. If he acted from a place of recklessness, the wolves' retribution would be swift. So he stood immobile, caught between action and indecision.
The next memory caused Bastien to press his eyes shut, his chest tightening like a drum.
The daguerreotype in his mind flickered to life. Philippa Montrose darted through the confusion, fighting to make her way over that same bridge to Arjun Desai, without care or consideration to anything around her. Bastien knew she saw only Arjun.
The werewolf who struck Pippa first was missing a front paw. Just like Bastien's sister, Émilie Saint Germain. The one he had banished to the frozen wastelands in a foolish attempt at mercy.
In his mind's eye, Bastien watched himself race toward the bridge. He could no longer stand idle along the shore, hoping to remain above the fray. Impossible choices enclosed him on all sides. Left him tangled in a thick web of uncertainty.
It was not Bastien's place to embroil himself in fey politics. Nor was it his job to defend the downtrodden remains of the Winter Court against the aggressions of the Summer Court.
But he would protect those he loved—his family—with everything he possessed.
Pippa Montrose had become family. She was the treasured friend of Bastien's true love, Celine Rousseau. The cherished wife of his brother Arjun Desai.
His heart in his throat, Bastien bent his head. In his mind, he watched the consequences of his failure. That cursed second of indecision.
Without flinching, he bore witness to the final moments of Pippa Montrose.
Bastien refused to turn away when the first of Pippa's screams tore through the air, her blood staining the white snow and splashing against the mossy stone along the bridge. He listened to her thrash and flail as the pack of wolves dragged her dripping body back toward the icy tree line. As their howls faded to silence, the last of her cries ringing through the darkness.
He would not look away from the sight of an inconsolable Celine being hauled from the bridge by her mother's grey-cloaked soldiers. Nor from the horror fixed on Arjun Desai's face as he fell to his knees and raged against his captors, his anguish echoing in Bastien's ears.
Now Bastien sat in the hollows of the cavern, his face covered by his crimson-stained hands. His cowardice cocooned around him like a wet cloak. Cold fury raked across his skin. He lingered deep in the heart of the mountain fortress that had once been the stronghold of his vampire ancestors. Around him lay the bodies of the fallen, along with the Sylvan Wyld's wounded and the dying. The wretched souls fated to stand along the wintry embankment, there to witness what was meant to be a peaceful exchange.
Until some worthless fool loosed an arrow on the Lady of the Vale. Bedlam had followed the sight of Lady Silla being felled by her enemy.
The Summer Court's forces had unleashed hell upon the bedraggled gathering of winter fey waiting on the opposing riverbank. Though a healer had been summoned, the injuries inflicted upon the winter fey by the summer fey's newfangled weapons were grave, the silver-tipped bullets ripping through wings and embedding themselves beneath skin, fur, and scales to fester and rot.
Bastien grimaced when he recalled the way the arrow had struck Celine's mother. The way it had sailed through the sky—undeniably fired from the Sylvan Wyld's icy reaches—before slamming into its mark, who had collapsed on the bridge upon impact.
His expression hardened. Try as he might, Bastien could not overlook the obvious. The last time his world had been turned upside down, his sister, Émilie, had been the orchestrator of its destruction. It could not be mere coincidence that she was there that day, waiting in the shadows beyond the river, ready to pounce on Pippa Montrose.
...
