“Even if I fall out there?—”
“You won’t.”
“But if I do…”
“I’m with you.” His voice was fierce. “My life is yours. Always.”
I stepped forward, slipped my arm around his neck, and pulled his head down toward mine. Our foreheads met, and theveyremagic between us finally eased. I sucked in air as his arms came around my waist.
No matter the magic, this was real. This feeling between us was undeniably, inescapably real. It had preceded all the bullshit; I’d felt it the first night in the Eldermaze, when he’d wrapped himself around me.
His breath came fast as our heads pressed together, his voice soft,almost breaking. “Come back. In whatever way you’re able—whether that means winning or bending the knee—come back to me.”
No one had ever said that to me. For now, Caustrix’s voice had gone quiet, and we were just Eury and Dorian.
My eyes stung. I nodded.
He stepped back. One step, two, back and back without turning away, until he stood with Haskel.
I turned toward the Fields. Wiped at my eyes until they were clear. Slowed my breathing.
Above me, the sun nearly sat atop the pillar. Almost there, moment by moment rising, rising.
I set my hand on the grip of my sword. Saw a ghost of myself stepping out, summoning the storm, and then doing whatever the fuck I had to do to get Maeronyx and Iseris into it—even if that meant kicking their bony fae asses across the line. The act wasn’t foreign to a daughter of the Dip.
The heat rose as the great ball sat atop the high point, and dawn became day. The sun had crested the pillar.
Now, now, now.
I stepped into the bloody grass.
My foot passed through a veil of power as tangible as gauze and into a morass of feralis. Here, magic surged, sparked, swirled. I had thought I could feel it in the air in Sylvanwild, but this…
This was ferocious. Almost suffocating.
It begged to be tapped into. Longed for it. I took another step, another, each one bringing me deeper into the deep end of magic in Sylvanwild.
To my right, Liora had stepped into the Fields. To my left, Maeronyx had done the same.
Iseris stood somewhere out of view. I still couldn’t see her fromhere—the pillar rose between us like a stone spine, ancient and milk-white, at the place where all four magics bled together.
The dagger hummed against my back. A low, greedy thrum that answered the surge around us, as if this place remembered what the blade was, what it had drunk from. I pressed my palm flat against its hilt through the leather; it shuddered beneath my touch. Not yet.
Four queens in four quadrants. The Killing Fields stretched between us like a sea of death.
Without turning my head, I searched for Liora. Found her in my periphery—golden armor, chin high, solaire rippling around her like a second skin. She was supposed to look at me. A nod. A signal.Now, it would say, and the whole terrible business would end without bloodshed.
But she wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking at the sky.
Something cold slithered through my chest. Not magic—something older than magic. The instinct that had told me when to duck and when to run and when to put my back against a wall. The instinct that had kept me alive.
She was just watching her god, I told myself. Steadying herself. This was the Killing Fields; everyone was afraid.
But Liora hadn’t looked afraid once since I’d met her.
I readied my hand over the dagger. Waited for the signal.