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Black spots crowded in on his vision, a buzz starting in his ears and creeping inward.

He couldn’t possibly offer anyone anything at all.

He was nothing. Had no one.

A rageful bellow sounded in the deepest recesses of his mind, but it was smothered almost instantly, leaving him hollow.

Utterly hollow.

A smile played across his lips. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Magnus couldn’t stop staring at Lunara.

It was the lightless, deadened look in her eyes as she gazed into some faraway middle space that held him rapt. Twisted him in knots. Made him want to bellow at the skies and shake his fists at the Sisters.

Why bring two perfect people together just to rip them apart in the worst fucking way imaginable?

At least the blackened jaw and bruised band around her throat were gone thanks to Fern’s gift, and the tears had dried to salty tracks down her cheeks.

Fern and Hedda had feverishly recounted the disaster of Brand waking to him and some of the others, but Magnus couldn’t accept it. His parents and Amun were going to want to hear it for themselves, but he wasn’t sure he could bear it again. And he sure as shite didn’t want Lunara to relive it for the sake of their morbid curiosity.

—It isn’t morbid, lad. Every detail is a clue. They need to know⁠—

What if I didn’t want to fucking know?

—Wishes aren’t going to fix anything⁠—

He met Fern’s eyes across the room where she stood sentinel over the witchling, mace in hand. Her and Lunara’s old shared chamber was filled to the brim with his subdued family, the double space now divided into a large sitting room and single bedroom with an open doorway between the two. But he and the fierce warrior Fae may as well have been the only ones there.

Never mind his suspicions about Fern. A deeper worry seemed to connect them, spanning the distance—a strange island of shared pain, shared confusion, over the ones they separately loved most both being unwell. Maybe there, stuck in the middle, they could survive it together, knowing just how well the other understood.

“I wish to lay eyes on His Highness, that is all,” Amal hissed, her indigo riding linens whispering over her oiled leather armor with every agitated step as she paced back and forth.

The ajma arrived on Nakarat’s wings just as Amun said she would, both she and the dragon ready to rain fire over the castle in their ire with the Imperial Heir. As his lifelong bodyguard, it was her duty to stay at his side. In fact, this was only the second time Mag recalled seeing one of them without the other.

“Aye, and I’m of a mind to go with her,” Thaddeus said. “I want to see Brand.”

Thad showing up as well was a surprise none of them expected, but most certainly should have. Their cousin had been up to his eyeballs in all the wretched shite Magnus would’ve been dealing with were he not glued to Brand.

Endless dreadbeast attacks. Roaming hordes of Forgotten. Burned fields and more ruined villages and displaced Wolflords.

No wonder Thad’s tan skin was dull, his robes dirty and wrinkled. That his blond waves were a knotted mess and there were bags under his cerulean eyes for maybe the first time in his young life, like he’d come straight from a battlefield after not sleeping for days.

A stab of guilt settled in beside the worry and sadness and confusion. Magnus should be with his people, helping his Uncle Caius and Thaddeus, but he needed to be with his brother. There was no winning.

“No one is going anywhere until Amunkar comes back,” Alwyn announced, standing from the settee and crossing to Thad. “I know you’re eager, but Amun hasn’t seen Brand alone yet as the others have. Just let them be for a moment, and you’ll have a chance, eh?”

Thad gently extracted himself from Alwyn’s hold on his shoulder, only the hint of a grimace twisting his features. “Aye, Uncle. I understand.”

“I do not,” Amal snapped, crimson scales flashing brighter beneath her rich, sepia brown skin. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but you know what happens should I fail in my duty.”

Another creaking door, another entrance as Amun and Lyriat strode in, both of them drawn.

“Wonderful news, Amalajneera,” Amun said. “I yet live and you shall be spared the throne.”

The ajma released an explosive exhale and scrubbed her face, brushing away rogue twists of her black hair that had fallen forward. “It isn’t the throne I’m worried about,” she muttered, her eyes darting to Vann so quickly that Magnus almost missed it.

Amun clicked his tongue, then addressed the room at large. “Hedda, Faldir—best go to him. He shouldn’t be alone, but I think he needs to see a couple of undeniably loyal faces right now.”