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Of course, they will.

They did not just come to attack.

They came to send a message.

I exhale sharply, straightening, forcing my expression into something cold, something calculating. “Prepare the patrols. Double the defenses along the borders and make sure the wounded are tended to. They will not catch us unaware again.”

The Sentinels bow in unison, ready to carry out my orders.

I turn on my heel, prepared to leave—to strategize, to prepare for what is coming next—when a shift in the air stalls me.

Something is wrong.

The castle’s magic shudders, the walls humming with warning.

A figure steps forward, emerging from the stone itself, his body forming from the very walls of the chamber. One of the Spectral Guard.

I meet his glowing violet gaze but his silence is answer enough. A cold feeling creeps down my spine, one I haven’t felt in centuries.

“What is it?” my voice is quiet, but no less deadly.

The Spectral Guard inclines his head. “She is gone.”

The entire room stills.

My breath halts.

The steam of the war maps curls in the heavy air, the weight of the words pressing down on my chest, sharp and suffocating.

I turn my head, slow, deliberate. “What?”

The Spectral Guard does not shift, does not flinch. “The sea witch has escaped. She was seen leaving through the north gate, into the forest, heading toward the human encampment.”

A sound escapes me, low and lethal.

A snarl.

The table beneath my hands cracks, the force of my magic splintering through the polished obsidian, veins of heat spidering outward.

Betrayal.

Again.

The castle seems to shift around me, the very foundation responding to my fury. I hear Morrin inhale behind me, his feathers ruffling, but I do not turn to him. I cannot. Because my mind is already twisting backward—dragging me into the past, to another betrayal, to another moment of weakness.

To him.

To the human king I once trusted, who whispered pretty lies in my ear, who swore loyalty and then plunged a dagger into my back the moment I turned away.

And now his son holds my realm’s destruction in his hands.

Because I was foolish enough to let my guard down. Again.

A sharp crack fills the room as the map beneath my hands shatters, water from an overturned goblet spilling over the edges, hissing as it meets the heat rolling from my skin.

The Spectral Guard does not move. He waits, silent as the grave.

I rise to my full height, the power within me thrumming like a storm, my drenched gown clinging to my skin, my claws curling into fists.