I reached for the sliding glass door, but Nyfain got there first and slid it open for me. He waited for me to go inside before following me and letting the door shut behind us. He didn’t stop when I did, though, instead walking on to the center of the room.
Stopping in front of the enchanted rosebush coming up out of the floor, he said, “Look at this,” his voice rough.
My stomach flipped, and unease rolled through me. It felt like fear drove holes through my center.
I stopped opposite him and stared down without seeing.
“What do you see?” he prodded.
I shook my head, willing myself to focus, but it felt like waiting for a guilty verdict. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“Finley, look,” he barked, power riding his command.
I stepped back and wiped my forehead with my forearm, pushing back on his command. If he kept it up, I’d give him one of my own, and we both know mine landed a helluva lot harder.
“Please,” he said softly. “Look at the rosebush.”
Gritting my teeth, hating all the unsaid words hovering between us, I did as he said.
“What do you see?” he repeated.
“The enchanted rosebush, Nyfain, I don’t know. What am I supposed to see?”
He pointed at the trunk, sparkling with color. Then a branch that supported five full blooms with little specks of pixie light floating around them.
“This is your village, I now realize.” He kept pointing. “For a long time, it was the only branch with any blooms. The rest had wilting flowers or outright dead. But this…” He pointed to a different branch. The wilting roses were magically lifting back into full blooms. The branch was turning from a cracked, weather-beaten brown into a vibrant, new-growth green. “This is the village we recently helped. This…” He pointed at the base, where the stem was changing color. “This is the castle, I think. I’m not sure what it means, since we don’t get sick, but it looks like life is resurging here, too. Your everlass elixir is changing the fate of the kingdom. It’s showing in the rosebush.”
I stared at it in wonder.
“This is great news, obviously,” Nyfain said, his voice subdued, “but now we enter the race.”
“What race? What do you mean?”
“The demon king monitors the progress of his efforts. We’re going to need to heal as many as we can, as fast as we can, before he shows up and attempts to find a way to stop us.”
“But…” I stared at him, not comprehending. “Do you really think he cares? We were worried about Jedrek, and nothing seems to have come of that. And now this… He hasn’t been here in how long?”
“When the curse was fresh, he used to show up for progress updates every few months. While he was here, he’d do whatever he could to make it harder for us. He’d kill anyone who angered him. He’d battle wills with me when I tried to stop it. Then, as we began to deteriorate, it was twice a year. Then once a year. We haven’t seen him in over three years, I think. The kingdom is fading, and he’s happy to let it. But now, suddenly…”
He looked at the rosebush.
Anger rose, an easier emotion than the fear and uncertainty and now dread firing within me. “You’re using the threat of the demon king to hurry me up? Because you assume you’ll lose your healer when he comes, right? I better get it all done before you sacrifice me to your cause.”
A line formed between his eyebrows.
I heaved a sigh. “I’m sick of hearing that he might show up. Might being the operative word. I’m sick of you hinting or outright saying that I’ll need to make a deal with him—meaning I’ll obviously need to leave. I’m sick of letting demons rule my life. Just sick to hell of it. Let him come. Fuck him. In the meantime, yeah, I’ll heal everyone I can. That was always the end game. I don’t need a rose and a curse and the threat of the demon king to do it as quickly as possible. I’ll do it to save lives.”
I turned to go.
“Finley, wait.”
“Nah.” I pushed out through the sliding glass door.
“What’s happening?” Hadriel asked. The others looked up too, then quickly looked away. From the way Hadriel’s mouth snapped shut, I presumed Nyfain had followed me out.
“Finley, stop,” he commanded.
I pushed through the urge to do just that, shaking off his power. I’d come a long way since I was first dragged to this castle.
Past the garden wall, I felt his hand wrap around my upper arm. He swung me around, his expression terrifying to behold. If you weren’t past caring about his scariness, obviously.
“Finley, would you wait?” he said in a low voice, his eyes roaming my face. “I didn’t mean… You wouldn’t be sacrificed to the demon king. It’ll be your choice. You’ll see what he’s like when he comes. I want—”