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There wasn’t an ounce of a lie in my words.

I looked back out the window, drinking in the rolling clouds of pure darkness. “Duwar is broken. Two parts of a whole. And it is no different to my own desperation of searching the realms for you if you were taken from me. If you take me to Wychwood, Duwar will follow. This is not something I can run from.”

“I can’t just accept that you are the heart of its desire, Robin,” Duncan gasped.

It was in that moment I understood that the reason no one had given me answers was not because they knew I couldn’t handle them. But because they knew what I would do when I found out.

“Ican save us,” I said, not needing to further explain myself.

It was as if Erix was ready for me to say those four words, because he broke, pain etched in the single word that came out of him. “I hate the world for making it so, but I trust in your strength, Robin. I believe in you.”

I dared not move. My body was trembling, my power barely containable. Except it wasn’t my power that was responding to the conversation. It belonged to another, the broken part of Duwar, left to wallow inside of me.

“I must go to it,” I said, glad Althea was holding me up. “I can at least try.”

“Please,” Duncan said, this time shouting it, spittle flying out of his mouth. “Give it… to me.”

The time for others sacrificing themselves for me was over.

Closing the space between us, I entered the bubble of affection that me, Erix and Duncan created just from our proximity. “Duncan, I must do it. And for that, I need your support. Remember what you showed me Duwar was capable of, spreading new life across the ruins of Imeria Castle? I can do it again, I can – I must at least try.”

Duncan blinked heavily, releasing a breath full of tension. Then he looked from me to Erix. “It is our duty to support him, to stop him from putting himself in any further unnecessary danger.”

“Even I must learn that we can’t always do that, Duncan,” Erix said, drawing a soft hand over Duncan’s forehead. “Stand by him, not against him.”

“Robin is not your broken little bird, Erix. And he is certainly not your incapable fey boy bound in chains, Duncan.” Althea straightened, growing taller, shoulders rolling back. She did not wear a crown on her forehead, but she stood as if she bore one made of pure fire. “He is a king. And above that, he has already proven he would give his life for these realms. Aid him in this decision. He will need our belief in him to succeed.”

Duncan looked up at me again, tears brimming in those eyes that I loved so much. And when he spoke again, it was with words that sang of his acceptance. “It is not our belief that matters. Robin trusts in himself, so I must accept that. I believe in him, but he too believes in himself. That is enough.”

My heart swelled in my chest. I clung to the feeling, refusing to let it go. I mouthed my thanks, knowing how much this was hurting Duncan.

“Then the fate of the realms is in the best hands, little bird,” Erix said. “You have my support.”

Duncan lowered his head in defeat, chin to chest, leaning into Erix’s side for support. “I could never stop you, Robin. You know that–”

The ground rumbled, shaking the foundations of my home. Dust fell from the rafters, furniture toppled over, glass smashed. Althea was in the door frame in seconds, breathless and panicked.

“Time to go?” Althea said, the glint in her amber eyes singing of her worry, but she too believed in me. After all, it was all their love and support, their patience in me, that moulded this very moment.

“How close is it?” I asked, sensing the tugging inside of me.

Althea’s panicked eyes flared with fire. “Duwar’s practically knocking on the front door for you.”

CHAPTER 38

The mass of swirling, destructive power that was Duwar had spread like spilled ink across Durmain’s landscape. It was a scar upon the world, a shadow demanding all light. Within it, flashing with flames amongst thick unnatural smoke, a monster roamed, but not one made from flesh and bone – one crafted from the twisted will of a person’s final wish.

Ash coated the air, spoiling each inhalation, lathering my tongue with the taste of… death.

This was a disease on the realms – a physical reflection of Cassial’s intent and promise.

Duncan had been the one to fly me toward it, with Erix following not far behind. Even from my distance, I couldn’t fathom just how far the disease had spread. Miles. Leagues. Where human towns and villages had once been, was now swallowed whole by the gaping maw of this beast. It had almost reached past Wychwood’s borders, creeping closer toward those who dwelled in the fey land. Whatever it had touched was left drained of life. Trees bowed, limbs frail and colourless. Even the air it touched seemed poisoned with the promise of more ruin.

We’d left Grove just as the mass of power overcame it, swallowing everything I had ever known in darkness.

And it wasn’t going to stop. Devouring, destroying – but also something else.

It was searching. A broken lover, searching for the other part of them. The shard inside of me. I knew it like a deep keening cry as the part of Duwar inside of me rose its head like a serpent from its nest.