“Seeing you die?” She frowns, biting her bottom lip.
My chest deflates, and again I find myself torn between two worlds. The one where my family is here and alive and the one where Elora is dead and may never breathe again.
But I have to try.
I know that I’ll never be able to live with myself if I do not try to get her back. If there is magick in the world strong enough to trade our deaths, surely there is magick strong enough to bring her back to me.
My stomach swirls at the thought, drifting to Galen. To his sister, long dead and burned and yet he still fights for her. A sick and twisted thought turns over in my mind, making my already empty stomach churn.
Grief will drive you to depths you weren’t sure existed. And he has lived with his far longer than I have. Long enough to drive him to madness.
Sliding down from Amis, I cup my sister's face, forcing her to look at me. “You will go to Onyx. You will convince the members of the Guilds to wait for my arrival. You will see to it that no harm comes to our people when I am gone?—”
“Sorin, I can’t.”
“You can,” I whisper.
Her fiery eyes flicker, a beacon of warmth in the otherwise dreary forest.
“You can and you will because there is no one more capable than you.”
She doesn’t smile as she wraps me tightly in a hug.
“I’m sorry for what you had to see,” I say, and her body tenses. “But let me try and make this right. I have to.”
She takes a step backward, nods, and by the time Jarek steps forward to grab her, Agnes joins us.
“Mum? You should have left hours ago,” Sam says, gesturing her forward. “Elora?—”
“I know, Sam,” Agnes says. Her gaze slides to me, and the memory of her on the ground, struggling to breathe makes my throat tighten. “That's why I stayed.”
I’m abandoning them when they’re hurting the most.
“Follow the path as the crow flies,” Agnes says and at my puzzled look she raises her hand. “In order to get her back, follow the path as the crow flies. There you’ll find that of which you seek.”
“I know how to get to the Wicked Wood,” I say through a sigh, exhaustion seeping into my bones.
“Yes,” Sam says, cutting me a scowl. “He’s been there two too many times.”
Agnes steps forward, placing herself between Sam and myself. Her hands tremble as I wrap them in my own. “Follow the path as the crow flies, there you’ll find what you seek. The crones always come in threes, it’s only with them the bargain can truly be broken.”
“The crones?” Jarek steps forward and wraps his arm around Samaria.
Agnes nods, her honey eyes blazing against the dimming light. “The Fates, Sorin. You must find the Fates. If there’s any chance at saving Elora from the Wicked Wood, any chance of you ending the blight, they’ll give you the answers you need.”
Shaking my head, I run a hand through my hair. The Fates have not been seen since the founding king and queen died. They are more myth than anything. “What makes you so certain they’ll show themselves to me?”
“Because, son.” Agnes smiles, her eyes crinkling. “They’ve met you before.”
My gaze snaps to Sam and then to Jarek, their wide-eyed stares match my own.
“What do you?—”
“Be safe,” Agnes says, reaching out her hand. I take it I look at Sam again.
“Be swift,” Sam says. “Be bold.” She wraps me in a hug. “I know you are a Rudhek by blood,” she says quietly, “but you were raised a Trednik. So act like one and let that unrelenting stubbornness guide you until she’s back.”
When she pulls away, it feels as though miles are stretched between us. Her sobs as she held me on the ground echo in my mind, but the wolves step next to me, distracting me from my racing thoughts.
