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Especially when paired with the magic he felt pulsing through him thanks to the crown. He could still feel the weight of it on his head, despite the fact that it was now neatly hidden from view, just like Elyria’s.

Still, all this power—new and old, gifted and grown—also made Cedric feel . . . strange.

Because even before they’d officially sealed their life-bond, Cedric had been feeling the slow creep of his power, hadn’t he? Every day he’d felt more and more like his fae heritage was surfacing, like it had awoken the very moment Elyria brought him back in the Sanctum.

Would it take him over completely? Could he even say he was the same person now that he was then? Did he want to be?

Elyria sighed, and Cedric’s attention immediately snapped to her. She was still staring ahead, into the Chasm that loomed before them, and at the village of Goldenvale sitting far on the other side. Cedric had been there before, of course—and recently too. He and Tristan had stopped there on their way to and from the academy at Paideus. He’d never seen it from this vantage before, though, and it was truly a breathtaking sight.

Between the setting sun and the aurora still painted across the sky, the world was lit in shades of orange and fuchsia. Mistwood trees lined the far edge of the Chasm, keeping most of the village’s buildings tucked away, just out of sight. Winter had borrowed their leaves for the season, but their long, drooping branches still swayed mesmerizingly in the wind.

“Need s’more time, Rev?” The startle of Thraigg’s voice as he came up from behind was the first sign that Cedric and Elyria had both lost track staring across the great abyss. “Or are we good to get crackin’ again?”

“Isn’t that a question better served for yourself?” Kit asked, skipping up beside the dwarf. Behind her were Jocelyn, Shep, and two of their new sylvan companions. “Seemed like that last jump did a bit of a number on you.”

“Bah,” Thraigg grumbled, waving his hands. “I’m heartier than a bowl of stonegrupple stew. Besides, we’re just hopping ’cross the way to Goldenvale, ain’t we?”

Jocelyn laughed. “The fact that we can now refer to crossing the eastern Chasm as anything remotely like ‘hopping across the way’ will never cease to baffle me.”

“He isn’t wrong, though,” said Shep.

“I suppose you’re right.”

A beat of silence passed.

“I could try, you know,” Elyria said, finally turning back to look at everyone. To look at Cedric. “We could try. To seal it. Here and now.”

“I have no doubt that you could,” Cedric said slowly, fully aware of the reactions of the rest of the group. Kit’s cloak fluttered, like her wings had sprung open from surprise beneath it. Shep shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. Jocelyn frowned thoughtfully. Thraigg scratched at his beard. “The question is whether we should.”

“You think it would take too much,” she said.

“I think we don’t know what it will take. We can presume that, as with all things, the crown’s magic is not limitless. When you brought me back with it during the Crucible, did it not expend its power? You said it yourself once, it was like it went dormant after that.”

Elyria shrugged. “We don’t know if all of that was the crown itself, or because of all the power granted by the sacrifices of the champions who had fallen before you, the blood spilled within the Sanctum.”

“Exactly, Ellie. We just don’t know a lot of things.” Kit stepped forward and took Elyria’s hand in hers. “You could start here and, sure, maybe it could seal the Chasm all the way from the Ironpeak Mountains to the Sea of Serenity.”

“Or,” said Jocelyn quietly, “you could run out of power before it seals up the part closest to the Line, and by the time you and the crown have regained your strength, Malakar could have already breached it.”

Elyria exhaled, long and slow. “And then sealing all of it won’t matter.”

They all knew it.

“Tomorrow,” Cedric said, taking Elyria’s other hand. “We’ll reach Kinsgaith tomorrow, and our real work can begin. Let us simply finish this leg of the journey first, yes?”

“All right, then. You all win. To Goldenvale first.” Shadows trailed Elyria’s boots as she started striding back toward the horses and supplies, Kit and Cedric following behind her. They exchanged a wary look, and Cedric knew that she was just as concerned for Elyria as he was.

Well, maybe not just as concerned. He would be kidding himself to think that anybody on this side of the Hereafter was capable of worrying about his solimaeus as frequently or as thoroughly as he did. Still, there was something reassuring in knowing he and Kit were on the same page.

Maybe it was good for Kit, too, to have somewhere to focus her own worry.

Cedric knew that thoughts of Nox plagued her. They plagued him, too. Could the nocterrian bastard not even be bothered to send one of their darkness-spun pieces of parchment to communicate that they were safe?

“All right, everyone. You know the drill by now. Stay close,” warned Elyria, dragging Cedric’s attention back just in time to see her shadows surge around the group. And like a blanket of silence had been draped over them all, swallowing sound and distance alike, Elyria pulled the entire group forward through the in-between.

The world folded.

Then, after a little while, it unfolded, and Cedric found himself standing at the top of Goldenvale’s main road.