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I bit my lower lip to keep from laughing out loud again. “Because you can’t just jump onto an airplane, Dax.”

“Why not?” Mal asked, leaning closer from the backseat, clearly interested in the logistics of mortal aviation. “Does the metal bird require a spellcaster to summon?”

“No,” I explained, turning the wheel slightly as the road curved along a coastal cliff. “It requires an airline ticket, a security screening by the government, and a valid government-issued ID.”

A dead silence fell over the cab.

Manem furrowed his brow, leaning his broad chest forward. “An... ID? What is an ID?”

“An identification card,” I said, reaching into my leather jacket pocket with one hand while keeping my eyes on the road. I pulled out my slim leather wallet, flipped it open, and pulled out my California driver’s license. I tossed the small plastic rectangle back over my shoulder toward Caspian. “It proves who you are.”

Caspian caught the card effortlessly between two long fingers.

The three males in the back row crowded around it like high mages inspecting an ancient artifact.

The small plastic card was laminated and shiny, featuring my full name, date of birth, height, eye color, and a high-resolution portrait of my face in the upper left corner.

“Gods above...” Dax breathed, leaning over the seat to stare at it. “It has your face painted onto the glass! How did they capture your image so precisely without a master portrait artist?”

“It’s a digital photograph, Dax,” I smiled into the mirror.

“And this... this tiny piece of flat parchment grants you permission to move freely across the realm?” Manem asked, his voice laced with suspicious disbelief. “You must carry a picture of your own face, signed by a mortal king, merely to board a transport?”

“The government issues it,” I corrected. “If you don’t have one with your picture on it, you can’t fly on an airplane, you can’t buy certain goods, and if the guards stop you, you go to jail.”

Caspian didn’t look at the text or the state seal. His calloused thumb brushed slowly over the small photograph of my face on the card. His eyes held an intense, quiet reverence as he traced the plastic image of my smile, a dark, possessive warmth flickering deep beneath his pupils.

“A realm where every soul is documented by a small card,” Caspian rasped low, his deep voice vibrating through the vehicle as he finally passed the ID back to me. “A strange kind of cage, Trouble.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, sliding the card back into my wallet and shoving it into my jacket. “But right now, it’s the only thing keeping us from being locked up.”

Up ahead, through the thinning coastal fog, the blue highway sign for Neskowin Beach emerged from the pines—and the mood inside the Suburban instantly shifted back to iron and steel.

FORTY-THREE

The rain didn’t slow, but the mechanical rumbling of the Chevy’s engine finally died away as I pulled the key from the ignition.

The quiet of the Oregon coast slammed against the tinted glass windows. A vast roar of breaking waves and howling coastal wind that felt remarkably hollow without the familiar, living pulse of Nymeria’s ley-line magic. Out here across the world, the air felt physically flat, devoid of the ambient hum that had vibrated against my marrow since the day I was born.

We stepped out into the damp morning air, the soles of our sneakers crunching against the wet gravel turnout.

Ahead of us, Neskowin Beach stretched dark and wild into the dense sea fog. Rising directly out of the frothing white surf were the petrified stumps of the ghost forest—colossal, two-thousand-year-old Sitka spruce trunks preserved by sand and salt, standing like ancient, jagged gravestones against the grey horizon.

Without needing an order, the four men filed down the gravel path toward the wet sand. One by one, we stopped near the tide line. Following my lead, we stripped off our shoes and socks, setting them on a dry log near the high-water mark to prevent the heavy, black sand from tracking deep into our soles.

Stepping onto the shoreline barefoot was a physical shock.

The damp earth was freezing. A biting, mortal chill that sank straight through the soles of my feet and traveled up my legs like ice. I winced slightly, adjusting my leather jacket over my t-shirt, my toes digging into the wet grit as the ocean air whipped my copper-red waves across my cheeks.

I kept my eyes fixed on the grey horizon, trying to outrun the suffocating weight of the timeline ticking down in my head. Back in Nymeria, my father was restructuring the vanguard tiers, Soren and Rhea were isolated in the citadel, and the heir to More Alora was preparing for the sacred duel. Every second we spent breathing mortal air was a second closer to the executioner’s block.

A shift in the wind heralded his approach.

Mal caught up smoothly, his long, athletic strides easily matching mine as he fell into step at my side. He had thrown on a dark charcoal knit sweater over his shirt, the dark fabric making him look like a piece of the gathering storm given physical shape. His eyes held that quiet, calculating sharpness that had made him one of the most lethal candidates in the vanguard tiers.

I didn’t turn to look back, but as I adjusted my pace, I caught a brief, unmistakable glimpse of pure, volatile jealousy floating across Caspian’s face.

The High Captain was walking twenty paces behind us, pretending to converse with Manem, but his broad hands were clenched into tight, heavy fists at his sides. His dark hair whipped in the gale, and his piercing eyes were locked onto the exact space where Mal’s shoulder brushed against mine.