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“And everything Father and the elders agreed to would fall apart.” Her voice dropped, sharp and entirely cold. “They couldn’t ask the clans to trust the man they believed had murdered a shrine maiden.”

I could imagine the aftermath too easily. The accusation would travel farther and faster than any account of an unknown assassin arriving for treatment. The clans would remember placing her hand in mine. They would remember where she’d gone.

Someone had counted on that.

“The treaty was always fragile. Many of the satyr lords, like Phaedrus, were against it. If someone sought to destroy the treaty, killing you here would give them the war they wanted.” I traced the dark floral mark now etched into her neck. “It would explain why your standing didn’t protect you. And why someone would risk almost certain death to frame me.”

“We don’t know for certain that’s why the assassin came.” She reached for her clothes at the foot of the bed. “But it makes more sense than anything else I can think of. Do you think it was Phaedrus?”

I wasn’t sure. The assassin had lied about his need of our care. But I doubted he’d lied about his hatred of Blighted Ones. He could have easily acted on his own, no encouragement needed.

“I have no idea,” I told her. “But we have to figure it out.”

I rose and began dressing, buckling my belt. I knew the questions I wanted answered. Extracting the truth from the people of Korinos would be harder. “I can try to learn who saw the assassin on the road. But I can’t search the settlements or demand the clans surrender someone on suspicion. Least of all a satyr lord.”

Thalia dressed in silence for a moment. I listened to the small rustle of fabric, wishing I could have protected her from this. “There is another way to ask,” she said quietly. “I can try full communion at the shrine.”

A full communion? I’d never heard of such a thing.

“You speak to the Forests already. What would you be doing differently?”

“Usually, I only draw what I need from the current, or listen for what brushes against me,” she replied. “Full communion means opening the gates entirely, without holding the rest of the world back.” She crossed the room to stand beside me. “I may be able to feel something in the deep roots that I can’t reach from here.”

A jolt of uncertainty crossed our bond, and I didn’t like it. Thalia was the bravest person I knew. If she was unsure about something, it couldn’t be good.

“May be able to?” I turned toward her, almost afraid to hear her answer. “Tell me what it costs, Thalia.”

“I can lose myself in it,” she admitted quietly. “There’s more life in the Endless Forests than one person can hold. It’s beautiful, but it is also vast. If I open myself completely, the boundaries of who I am dissolve into the whole. I could forget to come back.”

Forget to come back? No. Absolutely not. There had to be another way.

Thalia saw straight through my panic. Her fingers touched my wrist. “I won’t be going into this alone. I need a tether. Someone to hold me tight, someone who can remind me of my own name. Of my own existence. My mate.”

We had been mated for a single night. I’d barely learned how to find her through that connection, and now she wanted to entrust her very existence to it.

“What do I do if you stop answering me?”

“Keep reaching for me. Let me feel where you are, even if I can’t speak.” She closed her hand firmly around mine. “I trust you, Eryx. This will work.”

I hated everything about this idea. I wanted a physical wound I could stitch, something I could manage with my own hands. Instead, she was risking a formless danger neither of us could measure.

But back in Asphodelia, there had been Lake Acheron. I’d seen and faced ancient powers before. I could hold Thalia. I could anchor her to the earth. I believed in her, and I believed in us.

“Show me what you need,” I said. “Before you begin, I want you to know exactly where to reach.”

She pressed her forehead briefly against my chest. I held her there, feeling the precious rhythm of her heart. I would protect her, no matter what I had to do.

The moss was wet and freezing under my bare hands. I knelt at the shrine in the courtyard and spread my fingers between the stones. The familiar, quiet movement of life hummed just beyond the frost.

I’d come here so often to make small things grow. I could loosen the soil around a struggling root, coax a bruised stem upright, and know exactly when it was safe to stop.

This morning, I desperately wanted to. Instead, I turned to Eryx.

“Sit behind me. I need you to hold me. I’ll probably go limp.”

He lowered himself onto the stone without a word and drew me back against his chest. His arm settled around my waist, supporting me entirely. I placed his other hand over mine on my knee.

“Like this,” I told him, staring at how easily his hand enveloped my own. “Keep me close enough to feel you breathing.”