As Thalia stepped away from me, busying herself with securing our haul from Midna, my gaze caught the glimmer of a knife in the ground beneath the golden tree. Its hilt was wrapped with bracelets featuring a multitude of beads and brightly-colored threads.
It had been a month since I’d stabbed that knife into the ground. A month without the bracelets that had once tempered my powers.
Those bindings had been a necessary evil when I lived in the Above, in the Light realm of Soltaris, hidden away with no understanding of my abilities’ true depth and alignment. My former guardian and mentor, Orin—who was also Thalia’s father, it turned out—had created them to help guide my magic, to keep it from overwhelming me until I was ready to embrace it.
The time for temperance, however, was well behind us.
Of course, putting those bracelets down had been easy enough… resisting the urge to pick them back up was the more difficult thing.
The temptation was there, but I didn’t spare them more than a glance today, instead fixing my eyes on my beloved dog as he leapt to his feet.
(You look terrible), he informed me, his pointed ears twitching as his words entered my mind.
“That’s rude.”
He let out an unapologetic snort.
It was a relatively short walk back to the palace, but he still insisted on shifting into a larger, but still canine-like, form that could carry both Thalia and me with relative ease. I climbed onto his back without protest, happy for the chance to let him pay attention to the path while I let my mind drift to other things. Other problems.
I had no shortage of them, after all.
The world around me now was different than it had been when I first touched down in it months ago. No longer as dark and hopeless as the hell I’d once thought it to be. There were signs of life clawing its way back everywhere we looked—a glowing edge to most of the plants; the occasional chatter of birds; a sky that was easing toward the color of an old, healingbruise, and which sometimes shifted to reveal an almost proper-looking sun.
But life was a fragile thing.
What we’d managed to give back to this world—the magic we’d funneled toward it from the center power source in Midna—had not been enough to fully reverse the centuries’ worth of decaying.
It had only given the struggling survivors of Noctaris a taste of what could be. What had once been.
Which honestly had caused more problems than it had solved so far.
Thalia was silent for most of the ride, focused on keeping her balance while also keeping the overflowing bag properly secured across her body. Once we reached the main courtyard of Rivenholt Palace, she slid from Phantom’s back first. I braced myself before jumping down after her. My head was pounding, my legs shakier than I’d anticipated; they nearly crumpled beneath me as I hit the ground.
Thalia shifted the bag over her shoulder, tapping her fingers against its strap. “You overdid it. You should have told me you were ready to come back sooner.”
“I’m fine.”
Shetsked, but I waved off her concern, even as a rush of dizziness had me reaching for Phantom’s shoulder to steady myself. My fingers clenched into his fur. He leaned closer, placing a paw on my boot, his weight a comforting anchor.
“Fool,” Thalia muttered, with equal parts fondness and exasperation.
I started to protest, but my vision chose that moment to flicker, and my legs again threatened to give out. When I managed to blink back into awareness, Thalia was staring at me, her hand braced against my arm—a testament to how far ourfriendship had come; she didn’t like touching anyone unless she had to.
Slowly, she pulled her fingers from my skin, though her eyes remained fiercely fixed on me.
“Just don’t tell my brother,” I mumbled.
“Don’t tell me what?”
I twisted toward the sound of Bastian’s voice as he appeared on the path just behind us.
Perfect.
The regent of the Rivenholt Kingdom looked tired and troubled—as though the meetings he’d been holding all morning, with various leaders of the surrounding territories, had not gone well.
I stood up straighter, suddenly hellbent on not betraying my own tiredness. Our realm faced so many problems; I was determined not to be another burden for my brother and our advisors to shoulder.
He gave me an appraising glance as he approached, just as he did every time we ran into each other now—checking to make certain I was still in one piece. He was always the first to notice any new bumps or bruises I’d sustained during my training sessions. The first to make sure I was eating enough, sleeping enough,breathingenough.
