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The elder nodded grimly.

Cedric balked, his hand hovering protectively over Larkess’s body. “We can’t just leave her . . .”

Elder Jung’s face softened. “Her soul has already gone to the Hereafter. Her body returns to the Earth Mother, as all living things do.”

It was only then that Cedric noticed the way the grass had surged around Larkess’s form—stretching, growing, covering her limbs. The ground under his knees had grown soft, pliant, and he had begun to sink into the soil along with the elder’s body.

Nature was reclaiming her, along with the bodies of the others who had fallen in service of protecting the sanctuary. Cedric reached over and retrieved the crown-half before it, too, was claimed by the earth. And before it was claimed by the fire still slowly making its way toward them.

The metal was warm when he pressed it into Elyria’s shaking hands.

“Quickly now,” said Elder Jung, and into the heart of the goldwood tree they went.

“Where are we?” Elyria asked when they finally emerged into snowy, winter-covered woods.

It had felt as though the four of them—Cedric, Elyria, Shep, and Elder Jung—had wandered through the narrow tunnel for both ages and no time at all. The entire experience was an onslaught of contradictions, and it all made Cedric feel unmoored. Trekking through the tunnel should have wrung him dry, should have extinguished what was left of his stamina. Instead, warmth crept back into his limbs with every step, his magic replenishing like lungs filling with fresh air after almost drowning.

Elder Jung only smiled when Cedric asked how. “Such is the power of the Veil.”

It was irritatingly unhelpful, really. Cedric didn’t want to seem ungrateful, of course. Especially with how close to the edge Elyria had gotten while she was fighting, how dangerously she had danced with burning out. It had killed him to know she was spending her wild magic so utterly in his defense, and so the fact that her recovery was being aided by their journey was certainly not something Cedric would begrudge.

Still, the cagey way the elder spoke of the Verdant Veil was irritating, to say the least, and Cedric found himself suddenly understanding Zephyr just a little bit better. The sylvan people were clearly much better suited to secret-keeping and subterfuge than their mild-mannered reputation suggested.

Equally unhelpful as Elder Jung’s mysterious references had been Young Shep’s explanation for how he and Thraigg had survived the cultist ambush. Not that Cedric was complaining, of course. He was beyond grateful to know they had both survived, even if Thraigg had evidently been injured in the initial assault. He was alive, though, and that, of course, was all that mattered.

Still, Shep’s muttered “You’ll see when we get there” when they’d asked for more details had left Cedric unsettled.

Or maybe that feeling was simply carried over from realizing that they now held both halves of the Crown of Concord in Kit’s little satchel. A satchel that now rested against Elyria’s hip, the strap secure over her shoulders, her wings once again vanished from view.

Cedric found he hadn’t even been able to muster surprise at Kit’s story of how Tenebris Nox had sucked her momentarily into the in-between in order to hand over the first half of the crown. He had made peace with the nocterrian’s enigmatic ways by now, and while there was a lingering sense of concern over why Nox couldn’t be with them at present, the fact of the matter was that there were simply too many things to be worried about. And somehow, miraculously, that offered Cedric a strange kind of respite from his typically racing thoughts.

He knew said respite wouldn’t last, of course. He just hadn’t thought it would dissipate immediately upon exiting the secret tunnel.

“Where are we?” Elyria asked again, her breath misting in the air.

Cedric stood close to her, the furnace of power in his chest simmering, a layer of sunfyre settling over his skin. It wasn’t enough to light him up, to draw attention to them in the dark woods, just enough to provide some soft warmth—a brace against the wintry chill.

“We are in the Forest of Valandor,” said a familiar voice, which had shock rippling down the bond in both directions.

Cedric and Elyria spun in place. He blinked, his eyes still adjusting to the starlit night. But eventually they found the voice’s owner, standing in front of a frost-covered evergreen.

Elyria barked a laugh—sharp, borderline maniacal. “Stars a-fucking-bove. Of course it’s you. It’s always fucking you.”

Cedric blinked. “What are you doing here, Raefe?”

34

THE FOREST OF VALANDOR

ELYRIA

“I cannot handle any more of this shit,” Elyria said, head tipping back, like maybe if she said it directly to the sky, the celestials might actually hear her and cut her a fucking break. Sid brushed against her hip, and her fingers reflexively dug into the not-quite-fur at the shadowcat’s neck before she added, “Why the fuck are you here, Raefe?”

A sigh punctured the air, and Sephone slipped out from behind Raefe wearing an exasperated expression. “We came to help, obviously.”

Elyria turned to look at Cedric with the hopes that whatever she found on his face would make her feel slightly less insane, but all it did was add to the ruckus in her mind.

Cedric’s head whipped from side to side, looking at the surrounding trees, confusion pulsing down the bond. “Impossible, impossible, impossible,” he murmured. “It’s so far.”