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We sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor, the grimoire opened, and scattered bits of any parchment, any ledger, we could find in Gaina’s hovel on what we read.

Adira asked about specific things that remained hazy: risks, side effects, potency, where certain herbs were found, boiling times needed for venom elements to leech into others, time frame for casting.

Sometimes the others would step in, bringing bowls of stew or horns of honey ale, and bring up new considerations like moonlight and the potency it brought for spells, blood rites, and maps of other realms in Terrea.

Not all on the list could be found in mage lands.

I circled important areas with a charcoal pen and sat back, pointing at the elven word. “There is a mystical bloom in their lands we translate to the flowerof remembrance.”

“Coincidence?” Adira used a strip of leather to tie her hair into a knot on the top of her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It grows in one of the elven courts, but Destin did recently raise tariffs on the nightvine herb and some realms did not care much for it.” I laid back on the floor and opened my arm, giving way for Adira to curl against my side. “Some elven nobility were particularly fond of its impact on the longevity of certain creatures in Aelvaria. They might not be receptive of us seeking one of their coveted flora.”

She hesitated. “Well, are you a thief or not?”

I chuckled. “You want to steal from the Elves? I ought to warn you, King Hadeon is known to be brutal on a battlefield. Some say he has darkness that rivals the cruel ones.”

“Good thing you can shatter bones and I can drain blood. I mean, really, pick your brutality.”

I kissed between her brows, resting my cheek on the top of her head.

“What do you think?” she asked, voice soft. “Fears aside, what does your gut say?”

“We’re facing a challenge, but I’d expect nothing less. This degeneration is complex and thoroughly embedded in our land.”

“We will not have long to pull this off.” Her fingers drummed over my chest. “The curse is nearing your heart.”

“None of this can be done alone. Either we are risking war with elven or spending a fortune to find a trader of basilisk venom without anyone in the mage courts learning of our moves.”

Adira hugged my waist. “I know I’ve only been returned for a few weeks, but with the past colliding with the present, this fight has gone on forever. Yet, now that we’re reaching the end, it feels like it’s coming too soon.”

“We’ll be ready,” I said.

“Do you mean that, or do you simply not want to argue again?”

“If I am arguing with you, it means we are alive. I will argue with you until the day my heartstone is buried.”

“What a grand outlook on our future days.”

I grinned. “I did not say I would win the arguments, Wildling.”

She hummed, the shift of her cheek against my chest hinted to a smile. “I do love making up after, if I recall.”

Heat scorched my veins. “We’d have no need to argue, and could skip to making up, if you’d simply listen to everything I say.”

The way Adira rolled her body over mine, the way she touched me, slow, sensual, needy, I had little control in the way my body arched into her. “You should know, Kage Wilder . . .”

I drew in a sharp breath when her palm ghosted over the bulge of my cock.

Adira drew her mouth close to my ear, unfazed by the chance one or all of the others might walk in at any moment. “If you would simply agreewith me, then I might listen.”

She kissed away any protests.

She kissed me until I could not imagine arguing a single word. Pure manipulation is what it was, and I never wanted it to end.

Gaina had her own longboat.Two sails over dark wood laths. The stempost was made of many coiled snakes reaching for the starlight overhead. The woman insisted it was meant for fishing and snaring the eels that lived beyond the sandbars.

I wasn’t so certain she truly recalled how she came to own such a vessel. Made too intricately, too large, as though it might fit an entire clan and sail across the whole of Terrea.