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Elyria let out a broken sound, her hands hovering uselessly over Larkess’s chest, as though afraid to touch her and make it all worse. Her grief crested through the bond, guilt and sorrow and fury tangling together.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I should never have come here. I put everyone at risk, and I⁠—”

“Hush now.” Larkess shifted minutely, her eyes unfocusing and refocusing as she sought Elyria’s face. “You are not your darkness. . . . You did not break this place.” She loosed a shuddering breath. “You are the shadow from which the dawn emerges.”

Elyria’s tears fell freely now, and Cedric felt his own carve a path down his face. “There has to be something I can do,” he said, desperation roughening his voice. “Anything. Just tell me what to do.”

Larkess’s fingers tightened faintly around his. “You already know . . . what to do. Dawnbringer . . . Realm healer . . .” She closed her eyes. “King.”

And then she was gone.

Despair clawed at Cedric, but he could not dwell in it. Not when Elyria was suddenly scrambling back from where she’d just been kneeling, her glassy eyes fixed on the spot in the grass where the locket was barely visible now among the blinding light pouring from it in pulsing waves.

Her gasp was mirrored by Cedric’s own as the locket lifted into the air, spinning as it hovered above the ground. The chain snapped apart with a sharp crack, the metal unraveling as it spun, winding and winding like thread on a spindle. And then that thread—that shimmering, shining, luminous thread, like it was forged from daylight—began reshaping itself in midair.

Edges sharpened.

A surface formed.

And half of the Crown of Concord clattered to the ground, a twin to the one Elyria and Cedric had won in the Crucible.

There should have been relief. Should have been a sense of victory.

There was only grief.

Cedric stared at the crown, nestled in the blackened grass, unable to move but unable to look away. He felt frozen—in time, in space, in feeling.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that. Minutes, or maybe only seconds. But it wasn’t until Sid padded up beside him, nudging his arm with her broad nose, that he realized he was still holding Elder Larkess’s hand. Gently, he laid it down, then sank into the shadowcat’s side with a sob.

That was all there was time for.

“Ellie. Ric.”

They both looked up at the sound of Kit’s voice. She stood a few paces away, her hands clasped in front of her. It took Cedric a moment to register the fact that she was not holding Jocelyn any longer.

Nor was she standing there alone.

To her left was one of the other sylvan elders—the man with the intricate face tattoo whose looks of disdain toward Elyria had not gone unnoticed by Cedric. And to her right was⁠—

“Shep!”

Elyria sprang to her feet and dashed over to the trio, the crown half all but forgotten. Well, it wasn’t forgotten by Cedric, whose eyes darted between the sharp spires sticking up from the grass and Young Shep. The sylvan’s tunic was ripped, tangible grief written into the creases of his face.

“Jocelyn?” Elyria asked.

Shep offered a tight smile. “Already through, headed to the healers on the other side.”

“And Thraigg?”

“He awaits us there too,” he said, though Cedric didn’t miss the way his smile flickered.

“Thank the stars.” Kit blew out a forceful breath. “But how did⁠—”

“A tale to be told on the way. We must go.” Shep’s eyes flicked to the path behind them, some mix of nervousness and a deep, bone-weary sadness glazing them.

Cedric’s chest seized when he followed the sylvan’s gaze and registered the sight of the burning forest behind them.

“Elder Jung cannot hold the way open for long,” Shep continued.