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“I hardly see how that concerns you.”

Gerarda pulsed her fist over and over again, refusing to get out of my way. “Once the seals are broken, magic will be returned to its full strength. A dozen—”

I raised a brow.

Gerarda rolled her eyes. “Elevenwielders will be more than enough to halt Damien’s plans. Enough to protect the Halflings we left behind.”

I didn’t hold in my laugh, though the sting of pain in Gerarda’s eyes cut it short. “You and Vrail have been working on the seals for weeks. It’s time for you to accept that we missed our shot at bringing the magic back.”

I had been so close. When I found that Elder birch in the Rift, I thought it had been the final step to bring the Light Fae home.

My mother’s kin.

My kin.

But they were gone. All that remained was their magic, which they had locked away in different parts of Elverath to keep Aemon from using it to kill the rest of the Fae. It had worked, but at great cost to this land and its people.

All that magic could’ve been unlocked with one single pierce of my bloodstone dagger through Aemon’s heart. But Damien had gotten there first and now the magic was out of reach.

Gerarda blinked up at me like I was a violet moon. “You truly have given up.”

My throat seared but I didn’t bother answering her question. No one knew the exact locations of the seals. Vrail had come to the same conclusion I had that day in the Rift with my mother. Five groups of Light Fae sacrificed themselves to create five siphons that drained the mainland of all its magic. But magic couldn’t be destroyed, only stored. The Light Fae had used water as a barrier to protect each siphon and the seal that kept the magic stored within it, but there were countless islands where each could be. Vrail had yet to find one of them, let alone discover if the seal could even be broken after Aemon’s death. I stepped around her and into the aisle between the stalls. Killian’s horse poked his head over his pen, his glassy, bored eyes staring at us.

Gerarda followed me out of the stables, right on my heels. I sighed and stopped mid-stride. She spun in front of me, her hair fanning out in a black wave before settling along her jaw. “Hildegard died believing you had a plan.”

My breath caught with such force it was as if the air had turned to water and filled my lungs. Gerarda’s eyes were sharp and piercing like a blade pressed to my throat, daring me to breathe again. I refused to recoil. “Ihada plan. It failed.”

Gerarda lifted her chin. “Then help us craft a new one. You’re meant to save us—”

The wind outside whipped violently at the ground as I stepped toward Gerarda. “And I failed at that too.” Hot air burned through my nostrils like fire smoke as I tried to rein in my gusts. “I never claimed that title. No matter what my mother wanted, what Hildegard wanted, whatever plans thisguildof yours had for me.”

Gerarda’s jaw tightened, but her lips stayed shut.

“Perhaps the true mistake was you all putting your trust in me. Where I go, death follows.” The heaviness of those words was almost enough to knock me to the ground, but I did not drop my gaze from Gerarda’s face, even as my magic flicked black hair across her freckled cheeks.

She glanced down at the strands and I could hear her thought as plainly as if she had voiced it.Imagine what you could train this to do to him.

A small part of me—the trained soldier who still yearned to protect her kin—shuffled in the depths of my despair. But I knew the truth. I had seen it. The skin along my arm itched from it.

Magic or no, the Crown could not be defeated.

Damien had proven himself to be more bloodthirsty than his father. It wasn’t enough for him to rule over Halflings, he had begun to use their blood to make magical weapons that would wreak havoc on anyone who thought to oppose him. And the weapons he didn’t need, he sold to the highest bidder. And those bidders had paid for an army so large there was no chance we could take them, even if every soul in the Faeland joined the fight.

All we could do was survive and I wouldn’t be judged on how I planned on doing so.

“I thought you were better,” Gerarda whispered, more to herself than to me.

I plucked a piece of grass from the tangle of my braid and let it drift to the ground, my gusts finally settling. I thought of all thoseShades who had never made it off that island. Whose last days had been spent in cruel misery at Damien’s command. My throat seared as I thought of the young initiates I had helped train. Their lives had been ended before they’d had the chance to begin.

My fists shook beside me as I met Gerarda’s gaze once more. “I don’t have anything to be better for anymore.”

I thought Gerarda had been exaggerating, but Riven had left a flattened, brown line around the Myram tree. He spotted me the moment I stepped into the clearing and halted. I dropped my gaze back to the brown ring, so I didn’t have to see the wave of disappointment that crashed across Riven’s face.

I shielded my eyes with my hands as I looked up to where the tall groves swung against the sky. The suns had already reached midday.

I spotted two familiar figures walking along one of the bridges of twisted branches just above our heads. Vrail was chattering away while Syrra stared down at me. This had become our routine. I pretended she wasn’t perched above me like a bird and she kept her mouth shut.

“If you’re wanting to lecture me, Gerarda already did.” I dropped my hands and continued toward one of the five branches that curved down from the top of the Myram and sunk into the hidden city below. I wanted to swipe a casket of wine from the cellars while I still had enough wits to carry it up to my burl by faelight.