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“You?” I asked, confusion seeping into my question. She was from The Silliands and the ability to glamour came with their Chaos Magic. Or maybe she meant Landers, since he had Marzog blood in his veins.

“No,” Wren said, shaking his head as a small smile crept across his lips. “Dukovich. He is an expert at glamouring.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. He had glamoured himself for hundreds of years—glamoured armies during the Great War to sneak them across enemy lines.

“Could this really work?” I breathed, my eyes meeting Andrues.

“It could,” Andrues said, nodding as he twisted the ring on his pointer finger with his thumb. “But, can you trust that he will not betray you? Trust that he will not notify the High Priestesses of your presence and leave you there unguarded and unglamoured?”

A heavy silence fell across the room as the weight of Andrues’s words sank in. After everything that had happened, everything he had done, could I really put my life—the lives of those I cared about—in his hands?

“We have no other choice,” I finally said, forcing my voice to steady. “If waking the Fallen Ones—if trusting Dukovich is our only chance at winning this war, then we have to take that risk.”

Landers’s gaze burned into me, his disapproval palpable in the charged air between us.

“Hyacinth, please reconsider,” Landers said slowly—carefully. “We do not know what kind of power we would be unleashing. They may not have Higher Magic, but they are still pure blooded Gods. The consequences could be catastrophic.”

I met his eyes, my resolve wavering seeing the fear that reflected there.

“I understand that there are risks, Landers. But I also know that if we do nothing, if we face The Silliands and Ammord with the forces we have now, it will be a massacre.”

He stared at me for a long moment, a war raging behind his eyes. A heavy sigh slipped between his lips, his shoulders relaxing as he ran a hand over his face.

“Will you think on your decision until after our meeting with the Yaldrin leaders?” he asked. “Pri and Ata will be in Ammord in a few days and they may be able to learn additional information that could give us a better option than this.”

“I agree,” Pri interjected, leaning against the table’s ledge. “This decision should not be made on a whim, especially if there is even the slightest chance of finding another way.”

A weighted sigh slid over my lips. “Okay. We will take the next month to find any way around this, but if by our next meeting we have found no other option then I will go to The Silliands. Can everyone live with that plan?” I asked as nods of agreement passed around the room.

My eyes locked on Landers and I could have sworn I saw him blanch—saw something behind his gaze pull away from me.

A heaviness lingered in the air as everyone began filing out of the room.

I leaned against the table, my mind swirling as the weight of the decisions we had to make settled into my stomach like lead.

Pri squeezed my hand, pulling me from my thoughts, and gave me a reassuring smile.

I watched as she slipped her other hand into Wren’s and slowly let mine go as they left the room.

My eyes stayed glued to my hands as they settled between my thighs. Nerves bubbled in my chest as my mind played that look in Landers’s eyes over and over again.

Maybe I overstepped.

He was the King, the one that should be making these decisions, not me.

Landers handed Elric a stack of parchment, gesturing his head to the doorway as he glanced over to me. Elric nodded, bowing his head to me as he passed by and stepped from the room.

A long moment of silence passed before Landers let out a deep breath and leaned against his desk across from me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my eyes still locked on my hands.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Hyacinth.” His words sounded sincere but strained.

“You’re not upset?” I looked up to see his eyes already on me.

A small smile flickered across his lips as he chuckled softly.

“No, I am not upset. I do not like the idea, but I meant it when I said you are my equal.” He pushed off his desk and took a few steps toward me, pushing a curl behind my ear.

“Technically, you do outrank me, being a God and all.” He grinned, sliding his hand under my chin and pulling my eyes to his as I let out a sharp breath.

“We will not agree on everything—leaders rarely do. That is why we hold these meetings, why we have these discussions, so that we can all be heard and make the decisions needed to win this war, together.” He let his lips find my forehead as he pulled me against his chest and I leaned into the warmth of him.

“How about I stay in tonight instead of taking Nithra out, and we have dinner together in our rooms?” I asked, pulling back from his embrace.

“I have this sinking feeling that it’s all about to start, that it’s coming faster than we had hoped.

I don’t think we are going to have many more quiet nights alone. ”

Landers studied me for a moment, letting my words hang between us as he pressed his thumb against the crease that had formed between my brows and nodded.

I tethered myself to our quarters, narrowly missing the wall as I landed into our rooms. An armchair flew across the space as I toppled back onto it in a failed attempt to break my fall.

A laugh rolled out of Landers as he watched my backside connect with the marble floor. I glared up at him but couldn’t help the smile that broke out on my face as he stretched his hand out to me.

“I see practice is still needed,” Landers said with a smirk as he lifted me from the ground.

He’d taught me to tether when we first came to Locdragoon, and it was the hardest of all the magic I’d learned to wield. No matter how hard I focused my mind on where I wanted to go, I always landed a few feet off.

“I may need more practice in tethering,” I said, sauntering over to the glass doors separating the sitting room and balcony as a mischievous smile spread across my face. “But, I have gotten quite good at other things.”

I pushed open the doors and walked out onto the terrace as Landers followed after me, his arms crossed across his chest. Pulling myself up onto the stone railing, I started walking it like a balance beam.

Landers took three rapid steps toward me as I feigned falling and a laugh flew out of me at the bewildered look on his face.

He ran a nervous hand through his hair as his eyes narrowed on me.

“You have made your point.” He stretched his hand out to me. “Now, please come down from there.”

I grinned down at him, winking, and pushed myself from the ledge.

My name exploded from his mouth, the sound of it frantic as his body shot over the edge of the railing and watched me fall through the air.

Wings erupted from my back and beat against the wind, bringing me back to the balcony’s ledge as Landers dragged a hand down his face.

“That was reckless,” he said, amusement braided into the worry that coated his words.

“That, my King, is called fun and you should try it. It’s good for the soul.”

Landers smiled up at me, finally letting out a long breath as he hoisted himself up on the railing beside me.

“Do you trust me?” I asked, slipping my hand into his.

His eyes locked on to mine. “With my life.”

A smile split across my face at his words as I slid my arms around his waist, then stepped off the ledge.

We fell, careening toward the ground as I laughed against his chest, the sound echoing into the night.

“Hyacinth! Open your wings!” Landers yelled as we quickly approached the earth, his grip tightening around my body.

His heart raced against my cheek as my shadows detonated from me. Tendrils reached out, grabbing hold of the castle’s structure and held fast as we bounced inside the inky net that caught us.

Landers clutched his chest, panting as he looked over at me with wild eyes.

“Who knew,” I sang, my shadows pushing me toward his side, “our great leader would be scared of a little fall.”

I leaned over him, my curls falling over my shoulder as I looked into emerald eyes that glittered back at me.

A laugh bellowed out of him, a loud, full-bodied sound that made my heart swell inside its chamber. My smile grew wider at the joy that seeped into the usually hard lines of his face.

His laugh was my favorite sound.

Landers slipped a hand behind my neck, pulling my lips to his, and kissed me.

I poured myself into that kiss, poured every ounce of love I had into it. It was the kind of kiss that scribes wrote legends about, that they would speak of when they thought of love.

“I love you,” I whispered against his lips, leaving a gentle kiss on each of his cheeks as I slid into his side, nuzzling underneath his shoulder. His arm wrapped around me as we looked up into the night, the stars sparkling above our billowing hammock.

“I love you, Hyacinth,” Landers breathed into the sky.

Tucking myself further into his side as the wind sent a chill through my body, I let myself feel it—feel this small moment of joy before it was ripped from our lives.