Behind it, Dagan told me, the Prime’s crown now rests.
Hidden in the deep vaults of The Barrow, surrounded by wards earth-strong and root-deep.
“Can’t he just, I don’t know, teleport it out or something?” I ask, immediately regretting how dumb that sounds.
Alaric huffs a humorless laugh.
“If he could, he would have done it long ago. The Crown resists direct theft. It chooses its bearer—or refuses all.”
“So right now it’s refusing?” I press.
“Right now,” Dagan says, “it is waiting.”
“For what?” I whisper.
No one answers right away.
Delia breaks the silence first.
“Okay, so Idris is hitting all four fronts. Why here? Why now?”
Thorne’s jaw flexes.
“Because the forges burn hottest when the Glowworm Moon is high. The Dreamwrights work faster. The ore is more receptive. If he can disrupt production now, he can weaken Nightfall’s reach into other worlds when they most need dreams and hope.”
My mind races.
“So his strategy is basically to break the factory that makes hope, then sit back and watch everything crumble,” I say.
“That is the essence,” Kael agrees grimly.
“And if he gets the Crown?” Phoebe asks.
“Then the realm breaks,” Dagan answers without flinching. “Or bends. The Prime’s power was never meant for hands that would twist it. Idris believes he can force the Crown to submit. He is wrong, but he can cause great harm in trying.”
The room feels colder all of a sudden.
Jules rubs a hand over her belly, expression tight.
“And you were just… going to handle all this and not tell us?”
“Jules—” Alaric starts.
“No,” she snaps. “Don’t you ‘Jules’ me. I’m the one feeling every time you go into battle like my heart’s being squeezed in a fist. You think I don’t know when something’s wrong?”
Delia nods sharply.
“Same. The bond doesn’t care if you’re trying to be all stoic and macho. We feel it.”
I swallow.
Because I feel it too.
Even here, sitting safely in a stone fortress surrounded by vines that glow and roots that hum, I can feel the earth under my feet shifting, adjusting to pressures I can’t see.
I can feel Dagan’s tension like a frequency in my bones.
“We were trying to spare you worry,” Dagan says quietly.
