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Realization washed through me.She loved me. My brain went silent as a piece of my heart that I didn’t even know existed split apart, the edges sharp as shattered glass. It slashed a new wound in my chest, this one for Elin. My hand flew to my mouth as I watched a single tear trail down her cheek. My voice was a muffled whisper. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“She wanted to,” Elin answered, her mouth quivering. “She was going to tell you at Cindregala. She was waiting for you to meet someone first, because she felt like she could never let herself be happy unless you were, too. You were always her main concern. And she was watching, you know, when you met him.” Elin nodded to Cal behind me. She mustered up a weak smile. In all this mess, in all the hurt I’d witnessed in my life, in all the heartbreak that I’d suffered, her smile was the most excruciating, most distressing sight I’d ever seen.

I turned away, fighting the instinct to double over, anything to combat the hollowness that ripped a canyon through me. Cal was at my side, a hand on my back as he looked down at me. He was silent, simply there if I needed him. And I did. Saints, I did. The back of my hand was pressed so hard to my mouth that I was sure it’d leave a bruise, but it was all I could do to keep the agony from boiling over, because I knew what Elin was going to say next.

“She saw him offer his hand, and she saw you look up at him. She looked at me and said that you were going to fall in love with him. That you didn’t know it yet, but he was the one sent to you by the Saints. And she saw the same look in his eyes, too, when he saw you. So she said yes, that was the day she was going to tell you that she and I…were in love. She was waiting until we met up later that night at the waterfront to tell you that we were going to move across the sea to Zidderune, where our love wouldn’t have been looked upon as…unfavorably as it would have in Eserene.”

Every part of me hurt, every bone ached at my naivety. I’d missed the signs, all of them right in front of my face. I wished Larka had told me, was sick that she felt like she couldn’t. It had all been for my sake.

But that’d been Larka. I’d spent so much time breaking up the fights she’d started, dodging sideways glances from strangers at her words, and trying to come up with rebuttals that were half as witty as hers, that I must have been blinded to the person at the core of it all. She’d been a hot-headed, foul-mouthed spitfire, but she’d loved me in a way I could never be loved by anyone else.

“So I take it back,” Elin bleated, standing a bit straighter, blinking hard to rid her eyes of the flood of tears. “It shouldn’t have been you that died that day. Itcouldn’thave been you that died that day. And not because you’re some prophecy waiting to be fulfilled, but because Larka would’ve never let that happen. It had to be her.”

I closed the distance between us and folded her into my arms, clinging so tightly to this last piece of my sister I had no idea had remained. “I’m sorry she was taken from you, Elin.” I was a mess, but she held me, too. I think we were holding each other together in that moment, and that without each other, we would have shattered completely. “I’m so sorry.”

“She wasn’t taken from me,” she whispered, pulling back to look at me. “Not fully. I’ll always have her with me.” Her lip trembled again. “And so will you.”

Elin backed away, wiping the tears from her cheeks as she lowered herself to the ground once again. “Tomorrow,” she started, crossing a fist over her chest, “I will die for you, and for Larka, with honor, if only to be with her again.”

Chapter 48

A pallet was laid in my tent, and the table was covered with food. Roast pig and rabbit stew and sliced potatoes, biscuits and pastries and the most beautiful looking cake I’d ever seen. I tried to decline both luxuries more than a few times. How could I accept these comforts? But Nell informed me that every soldier would have a bedroll to sleep on, a tent to sleep under, and a hot meal to eat, and insisted I accept. I did so, begrudgingly. The moment I hit the pallet, I was so happy I did.

And the wine… It made me forget, just for a moment, where we were and what was about to happen. It made me forget my exchange with Elin, the realization that still rang through me. Just for a moment, it was me and Cal, eating a meal in candlelight. There was no battle to come. There was no harried past. There was no Castemont. There was just us, together.

I placed my goblet of wine on the table, suddenly feeling much more sober than I wanted to.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m thinking…” I trailed off, convincing myself to admit to the thing that had been nagging at me. “I’m afraid to die tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to die tomorrow,” Cal cut in, his voice stern.

“Cal.”

He reached across the table, his thumb finding my chin and lifting it toward his face. “Powers or no powers, you are the rightful queen of the realm. Powers or no powers, you are the Daughter of Katia and Rhedros, the Daughter of Benevolence and Blood. That is power in and of itself.”

I inhaled. “You could die, too. You could be hurt, and I’m not going to be able to heal you.”

His mouth turned up in a close-lipped smile, gemstone eyes crinkling at the corners. “I accepted death a long time ago. And if I’m going to go anyway, this seems like a good cause to die for.” He leaned forward, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. The sudden brush of his fingers sent shockwaves to my core.

Defeat crept in at the thought of the man at the center of it all. My mind zeroed in on him, everything else going quiet. “When I go, I have to take Castemont with me.” I stood from the table and moved to sit on the pallet, elbows on my knees as I cradled my face in my hands, kneading at my temples in a feeble attempt to rid my head of the ache it’d been carrying since Blindbarrow.

“Whatever happens,” Belin whispered, lowering himself to sit next to me, thumb stroking across my cheek, “I’ll be right there with you.”

A breath whooshed out of me as my back hit the pallet and I squeezed my eyes shut. Cal’s hand found my knee. “Can I ask you something?”

My eyes opened, assessing his face, but it was unreadable. “Okay.”

“Back in Taitha, after you saved the Vacants, you said you’d spoken with Katia and Rhedros. Have you spoken with them since?”

I swallowed hard, dreading the answer I had to give him. I managed only a weak whisper, afraid that if I heard myself speak the words, my shortcomings would stop my heart where I laid. “Not since I lost my powers.”

“Have you tried?”

I pursed my lips and nodded. I had tried to find them, but I had no idea how. I searched for them in my dreams at night, trying to figure out how I could get to the Darkness Beyond. I forced myself to meet Cal’s gemstone stare. There was the sympathy and warmth I’d been craving, but beneath that, I saw fear. Cold, rigid fear.

“Can you try now?”