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For a moment, we’re forgotten. She rushes to the tree and falls to her knees at the foot of it, her hands going to its bloody trunk.

Now’s probably not the time to tell her we actually took out two oaks, not one.

She doesn’t spare the sleeping soldier laid out near her a passing glance.

“I never thought it would be you,” Des says quietly, menace riding his voice.

His wings snap out, the bone-white talons gleaming in the darkness. The shadows are gathering around him.

Mara’s head is still bowed. “You entered the Fauna King’s palace and defiled it. I invited you to my kingdom, and you dared to do the same. First with my harem, and now with my holy forest.”

Around us, roots and vines begin to snap and stir.

“You thought promising peace between our kingdoms would earn you immunity.” Her hair begins to whip about her as her power rises, the floral scent now mingling with the cloying smell of rot. “You—thought—wrong.”

Mara screams, and a hundred different roots and vines shoot toward us. Des steps in front of me, and shadows blast out from him, snuffing out the fairy lights and blocking out the heavens above. The roots wither and die away before they can do more than caress my skin.

Everything is inky darkness. I can’t tell up from down, left from right. There is no ground, no forest, no soldiers, no sky. Nothing but primordial night.

From the darkness, I hear Des chuckle. “Oh, Mara.”

The air fills with power, and the fae queen shrieks.

BOOM!

The earth shakes as Mara unleashes another wave of her magic.

“Is that the best you have?” Des taunts a moment later.

I can’t tell what’s happening; I can only assume the two rulers are fighting.

The magic in the air crests again—and again and again.

“Callypso…”

The hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. Des’s voice calls to me from an entirely different direction than where I assumed he stood.

“Enchantress…”

I spin at the sound of his voice.

From the nothingness around me, a figure appears in the distance. Des watches me from afar, not coming any closer.

And yet, I swear I can sense him still engaging with the Flora Queen somewhere else in the darkness.

Des beckons me toward him. When I don’t budge, he turns around and heads deeper into the inky blackness.

What is going on? Is this an illusion? Is this real? What happens if I follow him?

What happens if I don’t?

On reflex, I begin to move, throwing a glance over my shoulder. I don’t know why I bother. Aside from Des, there’s nothing here but unending darkness. I understand now why one of Des’s titles is the King of Chaos. This world of perpetual night could drive a person crazy.

Slowly, however, the shadows give way to forest once more. It’s not until I see the fairy lights overhead that I look behind me. A swell of darkness still swathes the forest. From it, I hear faint shrieks and grunts.

When I swivel back around, my mate waits for me in the distance, surrounded by those bloody oaks.

“Des?” I say, confused.