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Of course Cedric understood. Was his entire life not the same? Everything he had learned—about himself, his family, his lineage, his upbringing—had been irrevocably tainted by Varyth Malchior’s treachery.

He’d had something severed too, when the truth came out.

Would he go back, Elyria wondered, if he could? To blissful ignorance? To the way it was before?

She didn’t need to ask to know the answer. He would never. Cedric took what happened in the past and used it to forge a stronger, braver version of himself.

Maybe she could be brave too.

“Do I need to decide right now?” Elyria asked Elder Larkess.

“Take all the time you need. As your nocterrian friend has not returned yet, and your wings remain safely ensconced in their shadowy safe, there is no rush. And giving your body more time to continue recovering certainly cannot hurt.” Larkess folded her hands on the table. “If it is worth anything, I would like to try to do this for you. You may very well have saved his life that day”—her gaze flicked to Cedric—“and that is not something I take lightly.”

Elyria’s eyes burned. “Don’t make it sound so noble. I only⁠—”

“It was noble. I honor the courage your sacrifice required and want to do all that is in my power to help.”

“A sacrifice you should never have had to make,” Cedric said sullenly into her mind.

“You’re one to talk,” Elyria shot back, but already she felt lighter.

She lifted her eyes from her companions at the table to the greater glade surrounding them. A group of healers was heading into the eastern woods, empty baskets looped on each of their arms. Off to harvest healing herbs and plants, perhaps. One of the sylvan tutors escorted a group of younger mixedborn children to the schoolhouse, waving at Shep as she passed.

“I do need just a little time to think about it,” Elyria declared, “but while I do so, is there any news with regard to Malakar I might have missed while I was, er . . . ?”

“Convalescing?” Jocelyn offered.

Elyria’s upper lip curled under her nose, but she gave a short nod.

Thraigg bounced his fist on the table. “Yes, speaking of things that are in yer power, Lark, shouldn’t we all be a wee bit more worried about the one thing that’s supposed to be?”

Elyria blinked. It took a second for her to piece together what the dwarf was referring to. The answer came to her just as Cedric’s reminder drifted down the thread between them.

“The crown—the locket,” he said, and each word was tight, guarded, even in Elyria’s mind. The state of his mother’s locket, the crown in disguise, was another thing Cedric had updated her on in the time since she’d fully awoken the previous day. But the reality was that there was simply so much she had missed in her months of captivity. Too much. It would take time to fully digest it all.

“Ah, that’s right,” she said, tilting her head to look at Elder Larkess again. “Have you figured out what’s preventing you from transfiguring the locket back?”

“The council and I have continued to convene on it but have yet to confidently arrive at a conclusion. We suspect that due to the immense power contained within the crown and the length of time it has been concealed, the weavings of verdancy keeping it transformed have simply become that much more complicated to unwind.”

Cedric let out a surprisingly derisive snort, frustration pulsing down the bond. “Maybe if you hadn’t spent my entire life working in secret, if you’d been honest with me from the beginning, we could have figured this out long ago.” He slammed his palm on the table, rattling the cups and plates that still lay upon it. “Before you let the man who murdered my parents raise me for twenty fucking years.”

21

MISDIRECTED ANGER

CEDRIC

The table was silent. The entire glade was silent. It was as though the very air had gone still, like the birds had stopped chirping, so in awe was everyone at the rage emanating from the typically composed knight.

Cedric had held his tongue. Tried physically biting it, in fact, the entire time the group had discussed Elyria’s wings. That was her time to listen, to learn, to figure out whatever she needed to in order to aid her eventual decision.

But now that the conversation had shifted to the crown, Cedric could hold himself back no longer. He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to be composed, didn’t want to be noble and honorable and deferential. He didn’t want to live in the dark anymore, only ever knowing what he was told by the ones who controlled the truth.

The past few months had been filled with nothing but his desperate desire to get Elyria back. Now that she was, now that he felt less like half of himself was missing, Cedric was determined to never again be a passenger in his own life. The fact that he had gone so long without that agency only served to fuel the angry fire smoldering inside him.

Granted, had he been of a clearer mind and more rested body, he might have been able to identify the fact that said anger was somewhat misplaced at present.

“Well?” he spat, and he could feel Elyria’s concern ripple down the bond between them, just as he felt her fingers curl over his wrist. His heartbeat slowed at the contact, and he leaned into her beside him on the bench.