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I swallowed, nodding slowly. He was right. The fight with Idris suddenly seemed immaterial–an after thought to be defeated once the true enemy was conquered. That enemy had always been the curse.

“I’m sorry,” Bael blurted out.

I turned to look at him again. “Why?”

His brow furrowed in anger. “I’m the only one who can’t seal the bond with you.”

“Your only difficulty is being less fucked in the head than the rest of us,” Scion said. “I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing.”

Bael still looked angry. “If I could–”

“If you could fuck me on the floor this second and seal the bond, it still wouldn’t fix things.”

Bael raised an eyebrow. “It certainly wouldn’t make them worse, though. Shall we try?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m saying that we’d still need to break the curse eventually. What if we have children one day? Do you want them to be constantly miserable and unable to find their future mates? And what about the kingdom? It’s not just you who is affected, it’s everyone. Idris and his segregated towns are just the newest version of an old problem.”

“Which is what?” Bael asked.

“That this kingdom is divided. It might be one continent, and one kingdom in theory, but it isn’t. Just look at Nevermore.”

“And Inbetwixt,” Scion added. “Their lord and lady have been a pain in my ass for years. The guilds are really running that city,but without real power they have to operate underground which makes things more dangerous for everyone.”

“And Overcast,” Ambrose said. “They’re nothing more than a vassal state where we send soldiers we don’t want in positions of power. They’re all living in near poverty because the marshes make it impossible for large trade routes or farming.”

“And Underneath,” Bael said. “It’s surprisingly civilized and well managed down there, but their population is stagnant. There’s almost no children because there’s too many incompatible immortal species in one place, and they all keep killing each other out of boredom. The hedge is keeping thousands of different species from thriving.”

“If we get the kingdom back, we’ll tear down the hedge,” I promised.

Bael smirked. “I already have a kingdom, little monster. I’m tearing the hedge down regardless. It will just be a matter of if our own soldiers are going to come fight me on it.”

“They won’t if I have anything to say about it,” Scion growled.

“I think this is the point…” I said slowly.

They all looked at me, but fell silent simply waiting for me to explain.

“Aisling was the Uniter. She mated with the lord of every realm and made them all work as one connected kingdom, but then when the Unseelie king forced her to be with him things fractured. Elsewhere cannot be ruled by any one person. No one person is worthy. It has to be a bonded group, each with separate strengths, working together.”

A ringing silence answered that pronouncement. No one seemed to know what to say. The words had felt heavy, but now that I shared them I seemed lighter.

Like somehow, somewhere, the gods were smiling.

I gave a little nervous laugh into the silence. “So are we going to try and reunite the crown tomorrow?”

When no one immediately answered I glanced toward the window. I couldn’t precisely see the Source from here, but I could see the base of the mountain that cradled it. I wondered which path my mother took up the mountain. It seemed absurd to climb to the top with an infant, after just giving birth no less.

And the longer I looked at the mountains, the more uneasy I felt. The more I couldn’t banish the memories of that…vision…I’d had when I may have died.

A large part of me hoped this would all be simple. That reuniting the jewels with the crown would be all it took to break the curse, and that Idris would be easily removed right along with it.

But I wasn’t that naive. Not anymore. Even if I fixed the crown, surely there would be more. A test of worthiness, one might say.

“Actually, I thought you might try to reunite it tonight” Ambrose said, breaking through my thoughts.

“Tonight?” I squealed. “Why? How?”

“The crown is simply another Source forged weapon,” he said. “Like a sword.”