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Bryn tried to pull herself from her haze of fury and guilt about everything she had discovered about the horrible things the Helvig family had done to the people of Ahland.

It seemed there was no end to their misdeeds.

From the forging of their continents treaty, to the prisoners she hadn't known about, the Helvig clan was always at the center of destruction.

Aeric's low voice rang out into the dining room where their dinner sat forgotten in the wake of the night's news— it wasn't as if anyone had much of an appetite anymore, anyway.

Across from her, Liv sat stone-faced, the usual small smirk and mischief in her eyes missing as she avoided Bryn's eye.

Any anger Bryn might have felt about Liv hiding the history of her family's treachery evaporated with the rest of her emotions from the night, leaving her a husk of who she had been when she had woken that day.

Her legacy was one of hatred and greed— Bryn could not be angry with anyone about the history that was erased except for the people who had been complicit with its inception.

Hakon was downing his fourth glass of Elven wine in the last ten minutes— perhaps trying to set some record for how quickly someone could become useless in a conversation.

Gunnar and Dahlia sat close together, the Elven healer stretching out to inspect Gunnar's wound.

Herrick and Maude only focused on Aeric as he explained how they would get to this Hilgafell place, but the rest of the room was forgotten as they absorbed the Shadow King's words.

"—will sail until we reach the shores of Hlidestad, the town at the base of Hilgafell, and then we continue the rest of the way on foot," Aeric finished .

Bryn had missed most of the instructions, her mind swallowed by the raging shame she felt about the travesties that were taking place under her nose in Logi.

An Elven Queen Consort had been living in the same palace for years and she had never known.

How much had Bryn really been able to do for her people?

She hadn't known about any of it— her father had hid it all from her…

and yet, she knew that vitki were being arrested.

She had blindly assumed, out of fear—or worse, complacency— that they had been executed before she could find them.

She had tried to do the right thing by stopping the arrests from happening but had not considered that those already captured were still suffering.

In her ignorance, hundreds— perhaps thousands— had been tortured and bled all in the name of greed.

It wasn't sitting right with Bryn.

The rich food she had eaten that had become lead now churned with her emotions, her body threatening to empty her stomach onto the table in front of her.

She needed to make this right, to fix the mistakes of her complacent past in any way she could.

Focusing back on the conversation at hand, Bryn asked the one question that was bothering her.

"What is Hilgafell? You said it was the holy land, but I have never heard of it," Bryn said to Aeric.

Maude glanced at Bryn before asking, "Is it a part of Elven culture?"

Herrick looked between the two of them, his eyes wide as he took in her and her sister. "You've never heard the stories of Hilgafell? I'll admit that I only thought they were stories told to us when growing up, but everyone in Veter has heard the stories of the first temple."

Both Bryn and Maude gave Herrick a blank look before exchanging an uneasy glance. Aeric looked to Liv to explain, but the warrior was still absorbed in whatever thoughts plagued her.

"Hilgafell is the location of the original Temple of the Gods," he explained.

"When the Norns created Midgard, the gods established their stronghold on an island shrouded in mists, high up in the peaks.

The island lies north of the continent, about a day's travel by boat.

For centuries, it has been the gathering place for Elven and humans to pay tribute to the gods and seek guidance from them.

Every nine years, scores of worshippers would travel to Hilgafell to attend the ceremonies held by the Grand Soothsayer for the Great Worship.

Many aspects of Elven culture were also honored by humans once, but after the Elemental War, it seems the tales of our greatest worship place have become stories. "

Bryn was intrigued by the history of this place and shocked that she had never heard of it before.

It seems that when the Elven became a myth, so did Hilgafell.

How out of touch were her people with the gods if they did not even know such a place had ever existed?

Did everyone in the Kingdom of Flame share her and her sister's ignorance?

Bryn started to have more questions than she did answers.

Her entire past was one lie after another that she had accepted without question.

"It'll take a few days to prepare a vessel large enough to bring us as well as a contingent of soldiers," Aeric explained, his eyes glazing over as he spoke.

"We should leave after Midsommar in three days.

With the heightened energy from the full moon, Dahlia should be able to remove the iron band from Herrick's throat on the summer solstice before we set sail for Hilgafell. "

"We shouldn't wait any longer," Maude snapped. "We need to remove the iron band from Herrick's neck. Tonight."

Her sister looked at Dahlia expectantly.

Bryn had been on the receiving end of that look before, and it was impossible to refuse.

The healer, however, straightened her spine under her sister's piercing stare and stood from her chair.

For a moment, the screech from the wooden chair on the granite floor was the only sound as Dahlia moved to stand behind Herrick.

The General stiffened as the Eleven neared, but as she slowed with a question in her hesitation, Herrick nodded stiffly.

Placing her slender hands on either side of the band, Dahlia closed her amethyst jeweled eyes and started mouthing words so fast that Bryn couldn't pick up on what she was saying.

The Elven healer was chanting in the Elven language the same way Liv had done to open the door in the mountain when they arrived in Nida.

Herrick remained still, his eyes closed and his face blank as Dahlia continued her chanting.

Maude moved to hover over her shoulder; her eyes focused only on the metal band that restricted Herrick's galder .

Slowly, the metal band started to pulse with light, the silver ethereal glow of Dahlia's healing galder making its way between the cracks in the restraint.

The light started to grow more rapidly as the entire table watched; even Hakon had pulled himself from the bottom of the wine bottle to see what was happening.

Just as suddenly as the light appeared, the metal band returned to its normal state; the air around it seemed to get sucked into the band like it was trying to absorb as much galder as possible.

Dahlia exhaled quickly like the air had been knocked out of her, as her shoulders bowed under the extreme exhaustion that seemed to overwhelm her.

The Shadow King promptly came to the healer's aid, his strong arms catching her as she started to lose her balance.

"My apologies," she huffed, her crystal-like gaze meeting Maude's. "The band was absorbing my galder at an exceptional rate the longer I used it. I thought I would be able to get through the defenses of the band, but once it caught on to what I was doing, it stopped working."

"You speak about it as if it were sentient," Liv said, cracking through her withdrawn state to question the Matron Healer.

"Because it is," Dahlia said quietly, looking at Herrick now.

He had opened his eyes but only stared ahead.

Bryn could see in his stare that he was avoiding confirming Dahlia's statement, but it was all the confirmation Maude needed.

Her sister whipped her hand in the air like she was brandishing an invisible rope and then pulled it toward her.

In response, Herrick's chair abruptly turned in place, forcing him to look at her.

"You knew this, and you never said anything?" she demanded of him, her hands starting to smoke from the fire Bryn knew she was suppressing.

Herrick stood quickly, his feet positioning themselves in a defensive position naturally as he faced Maude's wrath.

"I wasn't sure until now. Even if I did know for sure, what was I supposed to say?

I don't know what this means. Besides, it doesn't change the fact that the band needs to be removed as soon as possible. "

Before Maude could retaliate, Aeric stood and got between them so he could inspect the band. He reached out and hesitated for a moment before Herrick nodded slightly, keeping his eyes on Maude the entire time. When Aeric touched the band, he withdrew quickly, like it had burned him.

"This is very dark galder ," he said quietly.

He stepped away and started pacing, his speed much slower than her sister's when she was agitated, but the differences ended there.

Maude's father paced in the same way she did when she was anxious or frustrated about something.

His form was the same, his shoulders slightly hunched as if the weight of his troubles were a physical burden. Bryn could only marvel at the sight.

Maude had not known her true father, yet she had mannerisms that matched his.

It was remarkable that while they had only known each other for a few weeks, the similarities between father and daughter were already evident.

Almost as instantly as Bryn found the sight amusing, her humor turned to ash in her veins as she remembered that while Aeric may have loved her mother, Helvig was a tyrant villain who held no affection for anyone other than himself.