Four Lords.
Four realms.
Four bonds that have changed the shape of Nightfall.
And beneath us, the realm itself trembles.
“Very well,” Alaric says at last, his voice steel. “We bring them.”
“We’ll leave at dusk,” Kael adds. “Castletide can spare us that long. The tides will carry us faster then.”
Thorne just nods, once. “I must drive them back for now. I will join you as soon as the Plains are secured.”
The mirror’s surface ripples as they each withdraw, one by one, their images dissolving into shifting reflections of stone and sky.
I stand alone on the balcony again, the morning finally breaking—sunlight bleeding into the edges of the moon, shadows thinning across the terraces.
Below, the Marches murmur their unrest.
Inside, in the fortress that has never questioned me, the crown of the fallen Prime sits buried in my deepest vault, wrapped in layer upon layer of spell and root.
And somewhere between those two weights—the sorrow of the land and the burden of legacy—is her.
My Oona.
I lay my palm flat against the railing, feeling The Barrow’s pulse answer mine.
“Send word,” I tell the stone, the roots, the network that runs through every field and village I own. “Prepare the halls. Ready the wards. Nightfall’s Lords and their viyellas come to ground here.”
The earth hums acknowledgment.
For the first time in a very long time, I am not sure if that comforts me.
Bringing Alina to Nightfall was already a risk.
Inviting all of them here—with the crown, with Idris’ eyes fixed on us—is madness.
But standing alone has never been enough.
Not for us.
Not for Nightfall.
I turn away from the balcony and head back inside, toward the chambers where my mate waits.
If the SoulTakers think they can take my world, my crown, or my viyella from me, they will learn the truth that is carved into the bones of this realm.
The earth does not yield.
Not while I still stand.
Chapter 16
Alina
The Barrow
Seeing the four Lords of Nightfall and their mates gathered in The Barrow under the Glowworm Moon is like walking into a storybook.
