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"Should be?" Theron asked sharply.

"The landscape has... changed since the records were made." Tamir's fingers traced a line on the parchment. "The drought has altered many of the landmarks we'd normally use for navigation."

"Wonderful," Effie muttered, adjusting her position on her Vördr. "So we're basically flying blind."

"Notcompletelyblind," Tamir said, his voice turning scholarly. "The geological formations will still be there, even if the vegetation has changed. We're looking for a specific rock formation—three peaks that form a triangle when viewed from above."

Dannika mounted behind Vexa with so much ease, one might have thought she'd ridden a Vördr hundreds of times, but Tamir eyed Raskr like he might bite him.

"They can smell fear, you know," Rethlyn said seriously, and I had to bite back a smile as Tamir went pale. At least I was in on the joke this time.

"He's kidding," Mira called out, already astride her newly-claimed Vördr, Theron sitting calmly behind her. "Mostly."

One by one, the Vördr took to the sky. The familiar sensation of leaving the ground behind settled in my stomach as Tryggar lifted us higher. Below, Ravenfell's twisted spires grew smaller until they were little more than dark shapes. For a moment, I wondered if I'd ever see them again, and that sent a pang through my heart I wasn't expecting.

We flew Northeast, following Tamir's directions as he clung to Rethlyn, knuckles white against his leathers. The world stretched endlessly before us—an expanse of muted grays where vibrant forests should have been. Where they would again grow if we were successful.

Everything felt different now. Each wing beat carried us closer to Riftdremar, to the place where I took my first breath, where my parents drew their last. I'd spent years avoiding any thought of my past in fear of the pain it would bring. Now, the tiny fragments Aether had managed to piece together held weight. My fatherhadn't been just another casualty of war—he'd been a prince who chose love over duty, who gave up a throne to stay with my mother as flames devoured their world.

What would I find in those ruins? Part of me wanted to discover something that might help me understand who they were, who I was meant to be. But another part dreaded what those answers might mean. It was easier being Fia Riftborne, the orphan who carved out her own place in the world, albeit how small and suffocating that once was. Being Fiandrial Valtýr, heir to a throne I never knew existed... that felt like drowning in someone else's life.

The wind whipped tears from my eyes, though I couldn't tell if they were from the cold or something deeper. Ahead of me, Aether's form cut through the sky, while Vexa and Effie flanked us on either side. They still looked at me the same way, still treated me like the person they'd come to know. But how long would that last? How long before the weight of my bloodline changed everything?

I thought of the Queen, my grandmother, lost in her own madness in that towering castle. Was that my destiny too? Was there something in our blood that turned power into poison? That caused the destruction of those around us?

"There!" Tamir's voice broke through my thoughts. He pointed toward three jagged peaks rising from the wasteland, their formation unmistakable even through the haze.

Had we really been flying for an hour?

Rethlyn signaled for us to descend. The Vördr banked sharply, and through gaps in the clouds, I caught glimpses of what waited below. Dead vegetation sprawled in every direction, the skeletons of nature slowly reclaiming what had once been carefully maintained paths. My heart lodged in my throat as we dropped lower. This was it. This was where it all began.

We landed in what might have been a clearing once, though it was hard to tell through the ashen overgrowth. Dead vines creptup the remains of stone markers, their surfaces worn smooth by decades of neglect.

"The rip should be nearby," Tamir said, sliding awkwardly from Rethlyn's Vördr. He pulled out his map again, but the paper seemed useless against the reality of what time and abandonment had done to this place.

We spread out, searching. Fragments of old structures peeked through the tangles of dead growth—hints of the civilization that had thrived here before the drought.

Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. The others called out occasionally, marking their positions, but finding nothing. Doubt began to creep in. What if the rip had closed? What if we'd come all this way for nothing?

Then I felt it. A shift in the air, subtle but unmistakable. Like the moment before a storm breaks, when everything goes still and heavy. I followed that sensation, pushing through thorny vines until I found myself in a smaller clearing.

The rip hung there, barely visible. A shimmer cutting through reality, like heat rising from hot pavement. But this wasn't heat. This was a tear between worlds, a gateway to everything I'd spent my life running from.

I turned back to the others, my stomach in knots. They gathered slowly, forming a loose circle around the phenomenon. No one spoke. What was there to say? We were about to step into a graveyard of my past, searching for something that might not even exist.

The weight of their gazes pressed against my back as I studied the rip. A flash of movement caught my attention, and then Aether was there, right by my side, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him.

"Are you ready?" His voice was low, meant only for me.

I turned to face him, struck by how the muted light caught his square jaw, how it danced along his high cheekbones. How strandsof onyx hair fell perfectly across his forehead. And then there was the look in those golden eyes, one that made me feel vibrant among all of the death. I tried to ignore how his shadows seemed to reach for mine across the space between us, and the treacherous feeling that accompanied them.

"Does it matter if I'm not?"

Something softened in his eyes. "We don't have to find all the answers today."

"Just the ones that might save us all." I tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it.

His hand moved as if to touch my arm, then stopped, fingers curling at his side. "I'll be with you. Always."