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Sarina shook her head slowly. “Taly and Skye reacted as if something was there. The mimic could sense it. All I saw was the crown.”

To call it a crown was to diminish its significance entirely. It was aVis’hallan. Different from the one he’d been given, but there was no mistaking it. It had been forged in the same ancient fires as that horrible crown of dark flames he’d hurled into the sea so many years ago.

Sarina wrapped her arms tightly around her body. “I’ve been thinking,” she said softly. “I know you have too. It’s just… saying the words out loud, it seemed…”

“I know,” Ivain answered, suddenly feeling so very, very old.

Sarina swallowed. “The way Taly described her training with Azura… It could be coincidence, but…”

Ivain frowned. “You and I both know there’s no such thing as coincidence where Azura’s involved.” He didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to see the truth of it, but it was there—undeniable. “The first trial is always a test of separation, lasting a period of one year and one day.”

“And then that…gamewith the feyries,” Sarina said, the word curling in her mouth like rot.

“An impossible task. A trial that cannot be won, only endured.”

“The fact that Taly won…”

Ivain huffed a laugh. At least there was one bright spot in this mess. “I bet Az was livid. She always hated being beaten at her own games.”

“And then, of course, there’sVaughn.” Sarina growled his name, flames flickering around her fingertips before being snuffed out by the saferoom’s wards. “Azura lured him there. And Skye. And then she created a situation where Taly believed her most desperate fear had come true, all to see if she could fight her way out of it. To see if she would kill.”

“A trial of death.” Ivain’s stomach turned.

He’d pushed students before. He’d made them bleed, made them break bad habits, made them claw their way through pain. But this wasn’t that.

It wasn’t survival. It wasn’t instinct or necessity.

Azura had taken Taly’s love and turned it into a weapon—a blade, sharpened on grief.

“Those don’t sound like mage guild exams,” Ivain said lowly.

“No,” Sarina replied with a small shake of her head. “They don’t.”

Ivain dragged a hand through his hair and finally said the words they were both avoiding.

“Azura intends for Taly to inherit the Time Shard.”

As if in answer, the crown seemed to pulse with its own inner light. Vis’hallan were born hungry. This one was already craving its master. It was ready to be wielded.

“We can’t let that happen,” Sarina said, soft but firm.

“I’m aware,” Ivain whispered. A Shard’s power was vast and terrifying, and Taly, his little one... She was still so young, still learning about her power. Even if she survived the bonding, she wouldn’t be able to control it. One errant thought could destroy her. Destroy an entire nation.

Ivain hung his head. “Sarina—”

“Don’t.” Her voice was raw, barely above a whisper.

But he went on anyway. “It’s already begun. The Rites. The Procession of Gifts—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—and, yes, Sarina, those were gifts. The Eye. The grimble. The Shards-damn crown. All the necessary pieces have already been set in motion.”

“Then wemake it stop,” she snapped. “You’d already been crowned when you escaped.”

He had. And he’d paid a steep price for that escape. He’d do anything to spare Taly from the same.

“I need to think,” he said, trying to breathe. He placed a hand over his heart, the ache there, and knew that it was breaking. “We’ll need to bolster the protective wards on the house, and there are teas that can dampen magic. Talismans that can be worn…”