Woven by Gold

On the battlefield, Farron fights alongside Dayton and his mother, Ezryn commands the western flank. Farron observes that the wraiths continuously reanimate, identifying the crown as the source of his power and concluding they must destroy it to take down Quellos as commander—“Something about that crown is changing Quellos’s magic. It’s letting him bring the dead back to life” (571). Dayton vows to cut off the head of the snake, and Niamh declares Farron will send Quellos to the pyre. Farron, Niamh, and Dayton fight their way through the wraith army, advancing toward the hill where Quellos directs his forces.

Billy and Dominic protect Rosalina as they move across the battlefield, but they are forced to hold off a giant wraith. As Rosalina continues across the battlefield alone, she’s confronted by a crowned, cloaked figure who reveals himself to be a reanimated Lucas, her abusive ex-fiancé, now transformed into a powerful wraith by Quellos. Before he or another wraith can attack her, she’s saved by Caspian who is disguised as an Autumn soldier.

Caspian pulls Rosalina to safety and offers her a bargain: He will give her magical thorn bracelets that allow her to command the briars in exchange for a kiss. Needing the power to survive and help her mates, Rosalina agrees. She receives the bracelets and immediately feels their magic. However, she exploits a loophole in their deal, stating that she promised to kiss him but didn’t specify when or where. Amused by her cleverness, Caspian laughs before coughing up a black substance and vanishing into the thorns, leaving Rosalina with her new power.

Farron, Dayton, and Niamh finally reach Quellos. Quellos declares his intent to bring peace to the realms by covering them in an endless, static frost. Farron’s fire magic proves useless against him. Niamh drives her lance through Quellos’s chest, but the vizier heals instantly and yanks the weapon out. Frost explodes from his hands, overtaking the lance and elongating it into a hideous spire of jagged ice, which he hurls through Niamh’s chest plate, killing her. Devastated, Farron collapses and cradles his mother’s body as she dies.

Using her new briar magic, Rosalina fights her way across the battlefield, rallying a few Autumn soldiers to her side. As Niamh dies, Rosalina feels the full force of Farron’s agonizing grief through their mate bond. The pain nearly incapacitates her, but she channels her anguish into determination, using her thorns to clear a path toward him.

Rosalina finds Farron paralyzed by grief over his mother’s body. She gives him the scroll and urges him to embrace his role as the High Prince of Autumn—the embodiment of death and endings. Reciting the death spell from the scroll, Farron peacefully lays the wraiths to rest by freeing their souls. His army destroyed, Quellos reanimates the fallen Autumn soldiers by using his remaining magic, turning them against their own. Just as hope seems lost, Keldarion arrives with a Winter cavalry force.

Keldarion and his riders charge into the battle, providing important reinforcements. He and Ezryn reunite before locating the others. Rosalina uses a thorn vine from her wrist bracelet to pull Quellos’s crown from his head, then crushes it under her boot, breaking his power. Farron notes there is also a second crown—one he and Rosalina saw at the war camp—still unaccounted for. The undead Autumn soldiers advance, but Farron’s magic depleted by the powerful death spell, and he’s unable to cast it again.

To give Farron the power to recast the spell, Dayton proposes a formal bargain. He pledges his magic to Farron, asking in return that Farron “never forget this moment. Who we are now. When you loved me. And when I fucking loved you” (607). Farron accepts, and a magical cuff appears on both their arms, sealing the pact. Drawing on Dayton’s magic, Farron successfully recasts the death spell, finally returning all the undead soldiers to their eternal rest.

Though the battle is won, Quellos taunts them, revealing that he’s trained an apprentice. Lucas’s reanimated corpse appears from behind Farron and encases him in dark ice. Keldarion attacks next but his sword freezes on contact and the ice rapidly consumes him. Ezryn then charges with fire, but it fails. Lucas’s ice claws rake his chest and freeze him too. Dayton pushes Rosalina away before ice crawls up from the ground and encases him. Lucas traps Rosalina inside a wall of ice with the frozen princes. He grabs her, freezing her arms. As she tries desperately to find a solution, Rosalina remembers Caspian’s words to her: “You are no mere human. Trapped in that human skin” (618), and realizes her mother wasn’t human—she was fae. Rosalina finally embraces the power she has long suppressed. She unleashes a massive burst of white fire and golden-rose briars: One briar shatters Lucas’s crown, huge thorns then pin and kill Lucas, and the white fire shatters the ice freeing the princes.

Rosalina awakens from a vision of a beautiful, familiar fae woman with pointed ears, whose identity she cannot name. She is surrounded by the freed princes. She feels fundamentally changed and discovers her ears are now pointed. Keldarion confesses he had suspected her fae lineage but believed she needed to discover it herself. The battle is finally over, and the five of them share a heartfelt embrace.

Back at Keep Oakheart, Farron presides over his mother Niamh’s funeral. During the subsequent feast, future plans are made. Farron’s father, Padraig, will serve as steward of Autumn while Farron and the others return to Castletree. Keldarion needs to find a new vizier for Winter, and Ezryn is concerned after receiving no word from his ailing father in Spring. Rosalina’s father, George, is setting out with Billy and Dom to search for her fae mother, Anya. Farron accepts his new responsibilities, content to face them with Rosalina, who is now radiant in her true half-fae form.

While packing to leave for Castletree, Rosalina says a hopeful goodbye to her father, Billy, and Dom as they begin their quest. She reflects on the grimoire she secretly stole from Caspian by switching it with a different book while he was distracted over their bargain. 

Keldarion takes Rosalina and Farron aside and reaffirms his devotion to them, but remains resolute in not breaking his own curse. Before they depart, Padraig officially names Rosalina the Princess of the Autumn Realm, and Farron adds a golden leaf charm to her necklace. The five companions link hands and step through the door back to Castletree.

Caspian travels to Winter’s dungeon with his mother, Sira, the Queen of the Below. Sira frees Quellos, revealing she provided him with the magical crowns to declare war on the realms. She offers him greater power in exchange for his allegiance, which Quellos accepts to get revenge on Keldarion. Sira and a weakened Caspian travel to the Spring Realm. There, they find Ezryn’s father, Thalionor, on his knees in chains. Ezryn’s younger brother Kairyn has seized control of the Spring throne, with the Nightingale—a woman Caspian calls his sister—lounging on the throne and commanding Kairyn like a subordinate. The Nightingale taunts Caspian over his failures and reaffirms their shared aim to kill the high princes and their “thorny little princess” (644), Rosalina. As he retreats to the Below, Caspian contemplates his next move, uncertain of who he will ultimately betray.