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W ind swept across the flooded Red Meadow and raked Vahly’s cheeks. She tasted salt on her tongue, and her eyes were dry from trying to see over the sun-splashed water. A slip of darkness showed in the distance.

“We’re here,” she said, her voice carrying back to Arc, who rode behind her on Kyril. “Illumahrah.” She tensed, knowing this would be a difficult moment for Arc, to say the least.

They flew above what had once been thick forests of pine and oak, beech and maple.

Waves churned where the once luxurious tree palace had stood—a palace that should have been Arc’s since he’d claimed the elven crown.

Vahly imagined all those scrolls with ancient information lost to the sea, ripped and soaked and ruined alongside the kynd who had written them.

Astraea had flooded Illumahrah, the home of the elves, when Vahly had been trapped under the water.

Time had passed so that the bodies of Arc’s kynd had returned to the earth naturally, but the pall of death still hung over the realm.

Clouds gathered overhead as if the very sky mourned the loss of such a powerful, knowledgeable, and peaceful kynd.

A mist swirled up from the surface of the water to spray Vahly’s face. Kyril shook his feathered head and scattered more drops over Vahly and Arc.

Vahly squeezed Arc’s knee gently. There were no words that would be good enough.

He knew she cared and she mourned with him.

The touch and their growing bond felt strong, and she knew he had to feel it too.

Now more than ever, she longed to be truly bonded with him, to seal their joined fate for better or worse.

She wanted to feel his body next to hers, to breathe his breath, her heart beating against his in a shared rhythm.

But such a bonding would have to wait until she fought Astraea.

There was no time for the joys of love just yet.

Perhaps there never would be. But Vahly could hope, and by the Source, she would hope with everything in her.

“Queen Vahly!” Nix flew forward and jerked her chin toward the center of the now flooded plateau. “I see land.”

“Impossible.” The whole place was under water. How in the world was she supposed to find the Sacred Oak under the sea?

“Yes,” Arc said, his voice tight with unspoken emotion. “The circle is protected somehow.” The awe in his tone said he hadn’t known about this.

And then Vahly saw the land for herself.

Though swamped with a heavy fog, the dry area formed a perfect circle amid the choppy salt water, and lording over it all stood a towering oak with long, gnarled limbs, leaves wine-dark from the season’s turn.

The scent of earth, the scent of her own magic, spooled from the Sacred Oak like thick incense, piercing the metallic odor of the mist and the salt of the ocean.

Her magic drummed through her. Yes, it seemed to say. Now. The earth’s heartbeat echoed her own, stronger and louder in her chest and her ears as they neared. Power surged inside her veins, filling her with a pleasant heat and the desire to take Astraea on right this very moment.

Heart rising with a burning hope, Vahly used her legs and feet to urge Kyril into a slow, winding path down to the circle.

Through her connection with Kyril, she could feel his worry.

Telepathically, the gryphon showed her the image of the Sacred Oak again, as he had when they were still in the northern mountains.

In his image, yellow flowers bloomed around the oak’s wide base as if it were spring.

She saw what she guessed were Kyril’s parents in this memory passed down through the gryphon’s special kind of magic.

His father had been darker in feather color and thicker around the neck than Kyril.

Kyril’s mother had possessed a glossy pelt.

In the image, her fur reflected a long-ago sunbeam.

They were majestic, just as Kyril was, and Vahly told him as much, bending over his neck to whisper to him as they landed.

They settled among the rest of the party a good distance from the Sacred Oak, which hid in the mist like a dream.

The dragons remained in their human forms, split cloaks wrinkled and the hems—sewn with the Jade symbols—on their borrowed shirts, dresses, and Aitor’s trousers dirty. The fabric clung to their scaled blue bodies, the mist still blanketing the area.

Vahly slid from Kyril’s back and turned to check on Arc. His dark eyes were shadowed, the ink and gold light of his crown just barely visible when Vahly focused instead on Arc’s parted lips.

“I am home,” he said quietly, his voice a deep rumble and filled with power. He lifted his chin and regarded the oak. “I feel this place welcoming me.”

As his presence rolled over Vahly—intoxicating, invigorating—he inhaled, eyes closing as the wind lifted the ends of his straight black hair and the edges of his cloak.

Her lips longed to find his and feel his power wash through her, to join her magic with that of an elven king, a soul she had grown to love as much as her own.

Nix straightened her borrowed dress, then bent to pick a sprig of fall berries from a low bush. She tucked the tiny berries and their emerald leaves behind one ear. Her red hair hung damp over one shoulder as she winked at Vahly.

“Time to show us the goods, Queenie. Let’s see that earth magic rise.”

Vahly almost laughed. Even the worst of situations couldn’t keep Nix’s humor down for long. “Glad you’re taking time to get pretty for a tree.”

“It can’t hurt to look one’s best when dealing with the one magical living thing to survive through a historic, catastrophic flood.” Nix started up the sloping hill, hitching her skirts and raising an eyebrow. “That tree isn’t just a tree.”

Amona and Aitor trailed Nix, Vahly, and Arc, with Kyril following. The mist occasionally broke open to show the sun overhead and the Sacred Oak beyond their path of tall, waving grasses and patches of sage, lavender, and hyssop.

Vahly’s magic bloomed inside her, growing strong against her ribs, spreading through her blood. Her fingers and Blackwater mark tingled, excitement coursing through her bones.

The oak’s farthest-reaching roots, slightly exposed here and there in the mossy ground, appeared at Vahly’s feet.

Feeling joined to the ground beneath her, she dropped to a knee and bowed her head. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she willed them back. They weren’t tears of sadness but of joy. She knew, without a doubt, she was in the place she had been meant to be since her birth.