A hot mixture of anger and shame swelled in Elyria’s gut as a brilliant burst of green light swept across her memory—feathers bursting from Zephyr’s skin, her form shifting and shimmering andchangingwith the ancient ability she’d kept hidden from them all.
“The crown does belong to someone. And I have no choice but to bring it to him.”
Him.
Varyth Malchior, leader of the Cult of Malakar, descendant of the Great Betrayer himself. The reason so much went wrong within the Celestial Sanctum. Why so much could still go wrong now.
Images continued washing across Elyria’s mind—unbidden, unwelcome. The same ones that plagued her days and haunted her sleepless nights. Evander’s vein-stricken face, his shredded, ashen wings. The sound Kit had made when that dark, twisted, corrupted version of her beloved brother had shoved his darksteel blade into her back. Then, the sound that came from Evander when Elyria had pierced his heart with her own shadowblade.
Another memory surfaced. One she couldn’t stop, could never keep out. One she never consciously permitted herself to think about, but that consumed far too much of her daily mind anyway. A scorching kiss under an aurora-filled sky. A different blade piercing a different heart.
A thread snapping.
Elyria blinked—once, twice. Steeling herself, she pushed the thoughts aside, relegating the memories to the depths of her mind where they belonged. This wasn’t productive. Dwelling on all that had happened during the Crucible, and her immense failure to keep the crown at the end of it, only ever ended one way—in a pool of self-pity so deep there wasn’t enough cider in all Nyrundelle for her to drink her way out of it.
Unproductive. Pointless.
She could still fix this.
Elyria dared a look at Kit, only to find her mismatched blue andgreen eyes narrowed, probing. As though she knew exactly where Elyria’s thoughts had gone.
“Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Elyria placed a purposeful pout on her lips as she slipped a light chemise over her head, one of the thin straps catching on the pointed tip of her ear.
Kit’s suspicious gaze broke as she rolled her eyes. She retreated to a nearby settee, flopping down onto it with a sigh. “Because without my uncle’s official sanction, your dreams of hunting down Varyth Malchior and recovering your half of the crown will be over before they can begin.”
“It’s notmyhalf of the crown,” Elyria protested, stamping out the urge to smash something at the sound of Malchior’s name. “And I am aware. It still doesn’t explain why King Lachlandris requires I be trussed up like a prized pig in order to be granted said sanction.”
“Because theVictor of Nyrundelleis indeed the biggest prize”—Kit’s lips twitched at Elyria’s obvious displeasure—“and you makesucha pretty pig.” She plucked a handful of grapes from a nearby bowl, popping a few into her mouth. A thoughtful expression furrowed her brow as she chewed. “And because my uncle isnota stupid king, despite what you might wish to believe about him.”
Elyria smirked at her friend before pulling on a pair of tight-fitting leather breeches. “Not stupid, maybe. But not the smartest either. Look at how he lets Tartanis and his criminal rats run amuck in Coralith.” She ran a hand over the scars on her right thigh. “You’d think Lord Corlyn had all but ceded complete control of the city to the bastard.”
“The king has his sights set much farther from home these days,” Kit said with a shrug, “and he wants to put our best foot forward with the humans, so to speak. Make the right kind of impression after so long. This delegation is a rather big deal, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Exactly. The fae are setting foot in Havensreach for the first time?—”
“Officially speaking,” interjected Kit.
“—in over two hundred years. This is a momentous occasion in and of itself. I cannot imagine thatmyappearance will be the thing to make or break this visit.”
“You clearly have no idea what you look like in that dress, then.”
Elyria gave Kit a pointed look before sinking onto the settee besideher. Her eyes fell to the intricately embellished staff leaning against the opposite wall. With appreciation, she took in the intermixed metal and wood that comprised her new weapon, a much fancier replacement for the one she lost during the Crucible. She still had yet to properly thank Duchess Laeliana for the gift.
Elyria let her eyes drift to the floor. “I am a soldier, not a mannequin.”
“Who says you can’t be both?”
Kit yelped in protest as the grapes in her hand suddenly sprouted, thin vines rapidly winding out from the tiny seeds within, ruining them as anything edible. She glared at Elyria, who pasted an innocent expression on her face even as her hand remained outstretched, fingers still twitching with wild magic.
“Touchy.” Kit sighed, pinching a small grapevine between her thumb and pointer finger and discarding it. “Oh, try to look on the bright side, won’t you? You’ve been complaining about all this waiting formonths, whining about howboredyou’ve been, champing at the bit to get moving. It may have taken some time for the pieces to fall into place, but things are finally happening.”
Elyria huffed a breath out of her nose but said nothing. She rubbed idly at a spot in the center of her chest, as though she might reach the shadows that lay deep within. They’d been quiet ever since she left the Lost City of Luminaria—tangled, knotted, tense. Inaccessible.
Not that she’d really tried to wield them. She didn’t want to. Didn’t deserve to, considering the last true act she’d used them for was to rip the love of her life from this world. Because corrupted or not, that’s what Evander was. Had been. And when Elyria killed him, even if it was in defense—of Kit, of her fellow champions, ofhim—a little part of her died too. She would never stop hearing Evander’s final goodbye.
“Going to Kingshelm means the beginning of a whole new kind of game,” Kit continued, and Elyria was grateful to be torn from the memory. She shook her head, as though it might shake loose the part of herself that was still stuck in the Crucible.
“Especially where the Victor of Nyrundelle is concerned,” Kit added with a small smile.
