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“Nyx?” he gasped.“Tell the King…the outpost is lost. Do not send help.”

“I’m not at the capital—I can’t tell him. And if I did, they would know about us.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” The defeat in his voice crushed me.

“I’m coming.” My mind was made up. I would fly to the stars for him.

“Nyx, the kingdom needs you. Zaria needs you. Go home and get the kingdom ready for war. Do. Not. Come. Here.”

“Kol,” I broke. “KOL!”

“I love you, Nyx,” he whispered. And then there was nothing.

Zaria held me as my world fell apart.

“We have to go!”

But we were too far away. What was I thinking? We would have been too far away if we were in the First Kingdom, even flying with no rest. Taking Zaria to her village had put me even farther away.

How could I expect to get to Kol before?—

I refused to let those thoughts creep into my head. I pushed them down. I had to try to get there.

“Yes, of course,” she replied without hesitation.

I dumped the contents of my pack on the ground and held it out to her. “Put what you need in here. As much food as possible.” I picked through the contents, taking the things we’d need for her to survive and nothing more.

“Anything else?” She surveyed the small pile we left.

“Take the ropes.”

“What for?”

“We are going to be flying straight across the kingdoms and over the Middle Sea. I won’t be stopping to make camp. You’ll need to strap yourself to my back so you can sleep while I fly.”

“When are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t need to.”

“Yes, you do. Lack of sleep makes fae go mad.”

“I am a Dragon of the Night. I can go without sleep a lot longer than most fae.”

“Your reserves will be shot.”

“I’ll be fine, Zaria.”

She saw I could not be reasoned with and nodded.

Without another word, I cut the horses loose and shifted to my dragon form. I lowered to the ground, barely letting Zaria get into place with the pack before launching us into the sky.

FORTY-SEVEN

ZARIA

Iknelt for water in the cool steam and felt Nyx’s eyes on my back, his anxiety bleeding into every connection we had. Like live wires, all the places our magic connected were fried and burned. He needed sleep but wouldn’t take it. We were both short-tempered and overtired.

Something had to break.