I thought of the throne room. Of the moment Aurelia had gone to her knees, ice and death creeping over her skin. Of the sound her breath had made when Heliconia had started to siphon her power.
I’d moved before I’d thought.
Shadows, teeth, rage. The rest was blood and instinct.
Now, in the quiet of the dark woods, the memory crawled under my skin in a different way.
She could have died.
If I’d been one breath slower.
If the naiad hadn’t dragged me from the river. If Talthis hadn’t agreed to shelter me. If I hadn’t gone to Ire, if he hadn’t defied the rules of his treaty and told me what I’d needed to know about the thrones, about Aurelia’s location.
Too many ifs.
I was done with ifs.
And I was done staying away from her.
We pushed deeper. The air cooled. The sounds of the forest changed—less underbrush rustle, more distant, crystalline notes like someone plucking glass strings.
We walked another twenty minutes before I felt it—the faint hum along my spine, the way the shadows around us sharpened, not mine this time but something older.
“Stop,” I said.
Aurelia halted immediately. Callan did not. He took one more step, opened his mouth to say something snide, and ran headfirst into an invisible wall.
He bounced off it with a curse, stumbling backwards. “What in?—”
“Ward line,” I said. “I’ve been looking for it. Congratulations. You found it with your face.”
Aurelia’s mouth twitching told me she’d appreciated that more than she was letting on.
The forest went very still.
Not quiet. Just… listening.
Callan scowled but dropped his hand pointedly away from his dagger.
I stepped forward alone, stopping just shy of the unseenbarrier, and let my shadows slip ahead. They touched the ward—recognizing the taste of it from before—and eased a thin opening.
“Rydian?” Aurelia murmured.
“We’re here,” I said.
Leaves rustled overhead. A soft, melodic whistle cut through the air, as if someone had plucked a note out of the breeze itself.
Then figures stepped out of the trees.
Spring guards, two of them, in green-and-gold leathers that seemed to grow from their bodies rather than be strapped onto them. Bows drawn, arrows nocked, aimed at our chests.
“Identify yourselves,” the taller one said.
Aurelia looked at me uncertainly.
I nodded at her to go ahead.
“Aurelia Valeen, heir to the Summer Court,” Aurelia called out.
