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A t the Sacred Oak, they dismounted and embraced. But in the crowd, Vahly couldn’t spot Arc anywhere. She accepted congratulations and well-wishes with quick arm shakes and words as she wove through the groups.

Nix? Where are you both?

At the far side of the oak. Come quickly.

The urgency in Nix’s voice had Vahly running. She tried to push past a group of Jades who grabbed her by the shoulders to praise her courage in battle.

“Thank you. But I must go. Sorry.”

They grumbled as she forced her way through their bulky, green bodies. Amona walked up as she cleared the Jades, the last of the Lapis at her side.

“Daughter, your ingenuity in the fight was nothing short of genius.” She pulled Vahly into a rare hug, and Vahly gritted her teeth, wishing she could enjoy the moment but worried for Arc.

“Thank you, Mother. But Arc…” She glanced at the tree, trying to see over the crowd. “Nix says to come quickly.”

Amona put a hand to Vahly’s back and ushered her through the dragons. “Make way for your queen.” Amona’s voice held the ringing tone of a command, and the clustered Jades cleared a path to the oak.

Rigel’s silver hair peeked from the other side, and Vahly rushed forward. Rigel, Aitor, Ursae, Euskal, Haldus, and Baww gathered in a circle. She wiggled through to see Nix on the ground in her human form wearing a loose cloak and cradling Arc’s head in her lap.

Nix looked up at Vahly, tears shining in her bright eyes. “I’m afraid we’ll have to give him up to the earth soon, darling. Please, come take my place.”

Vahly’s chest caved. Arc’s face was ashen, his eyes shuttered. Blood crusted his hair and stained the left side of his face, and where his surcoat had ripped along his shoulder, bruises marred the luminescent skin. But he wasn’t inert due to some battle injury. He was suffering from the curse.

She slid into Nix’s place and gently supported Arc as best she could considering her sea-wet trousers and bloodied boots.

She pushed a lock of his thick, black hair behind one pointed ear.

The ghostly light of his crown didn’t seem diminished when she studied it from the corner of her eye.

His chest moved with a shuddering breath.

She lifted his hand and gasped. Black lines crisscrossed his fingers and forearm, almost all muscle and tendon withered to nothing.

The lines inched up his arm toward his neck.

She didn’t need anyone to tell her what would happen if the curse made it that far.

“What can we do?” she whispered to him, a chill running over her skin. “Don’t hold back. Suggest your wildest idea. You know I love a longshot bet, love.”

He opened his eyes a fraction, the sparkling, dark color an arrow in her chest. “The only hypothesis…” His eyes closed, and his words fell into silence.

She gave him a gentle shake. “No dying, elf. I’ve told you. I’m your queen. This is an order.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “Tell me your hypothesis.”

His throat moved, and his eyes shifted under his closed, plum-shaded lids. “Destroy the crown.”

Vahly looked up and locked eyes with Rigel, then Haldus. “How do we destroy the crown?”

Rigel’s lips parted, but instead of speaking, he only shook his head.

Haldus glanced at the elder elf. “As far as we know, the crown cannot be destroyed.”

Rigel exhaled and gazed into the wide boughs of the sacred oak. “I don’t know how.” Then he stared at her. “Perhaps your sword could do the job?”

Nix crossed her arms, tears still hanging on her cheeks. “But how is she going to smash a crown currently on the brow of her beloved?”

“Give me the crown.” Ursae stood. She’d been kneeling beside Arc, silent and weeping. “Then kill me. I deserve it.”

Vahly grabbed her arm. “No, you don’t. You fought well today. You have been on our side. You’re forgiven. No one is making themselves a sacrifice. I don’t want that, and I know sure as the Blackwater that King Arcturus doesn’t want that.”

She felt the slightest tightening in Arc’s fingers where they circled her wrist as if he were agreeing with her statement.

“Surely elves have been dethroned for noble reasons in history. They’ve shucked the crown for a cause other than treachery or death. Surely. Rack your brains, elves! Dragons! Give me ideas.”

She sounded broken. She didn’t care. To finally have defeated Astraea, to have a life laid out in front of her, then to lose him…

“Rigel, please support him.” She gave up her spot to the elven elder, then stood and removed her sword.

“Please let this work,” she whispered against the carved blade.

With careful movements, she lowered the oaken sword onto what she hoped were the outer edges of the air magic crown. Rigel gave her an encouraging nod.

Panic crawled up her chest, but she pushed it down and closed her eyes to focus on her magic. Words sprang to her lips, and her Blackwater mark tingled.

“Rise, earth, and reclaim the crown of air. Let its power sleep in your dark recesses until the time is right.”

Vahly opened her eyes. Nothing had changed. The crown remained on Arc’s head, and his chest had stopped moving.

Rigel rubbed Arc’s chest. “My king. Wake, please. Your queen is here.”

But Arc’s hand slid from Rigel’s grip.

Heart dropping, Vahly forced herself to breathe deeply and shut her eyes. “Rise, earth,” she repeated, feeling the magic curl around the syllables of every word, pressing her will into every sound. “Claim the crown of air. Break its hold on the soul I choose.”

Nix was kneeling and weeping now, her hands on Arc’s leg. Aitor’s hands braced her shoulders.

Amona stood above Arc, her eyes turned down at the edges. “Vahly, perhaps you should sheathe your sword and say farewell.”

The black lines of the curse tangled around Arc’s jawline and over his cheeks.

Amona’s words cut Vahly like the sharpest blade, but Vahly shut her eyes and tried again. She would never stop trying.

“Rise, earth and all your spirits! Claim the crown of air! Break its hold on the soul who saved me, who heals me, who will forge a new embodiment of elven power! This is my fate, and I choose it! Rise, earth, and claim the crown!”

Power sizzled up her arms from the hilt, then flashed in tingling sparks down her legs. The ground quaked and broke open, spilling fresh water. Opalescent light swirled out of the turned earth and new spring.

Amona, Nix, Aitor, and the rest moved aside, coming to stand next to Vahly. The dragons beyond the oak grew quiet, only whispering and pointing.

The scent of earth magic was pungent and powerful. Salt and minerals. The forest floor after a rain. Sun-warmed fields.

The opalescent light coalesced into human-like forms, and suddenly Vahly was staring at a crowd of galtzagorri, short and ghostly, who had materialized alongside a circle of moonlight.

Scales glittered at the edges of the circle.

It was the Spirit of the River. To the Spirit’s left, a tall, dark, and spindly shadow appeared, perhaps a sort of magical echo of the Mountain Spirit who had given Vahly a sprig of pine what felt like one thousand years ago.

“Greetings, Queen Vahly and King Arcturus.” The Spirit of the River’s voice was wind chimes and water bubbling over smooth stone.

Vahly bowed her head at the Spirit but kept a good eye on Arc.

“We come to your aid,” the Spirit said, reaching a tendril of moon-white glow toward the crown. “King Arcturus will remain king, but he must use his power to forge a new diadem before his end.”

“I will help him in his efforts. He will do it. I swear it.” Vahly knelt, lifted her sword, kissed the hilt, then held it across her palms toward the Spirit.

A coolness washed over her scalp, then she glanced to see the Spirit’s circle growing larger and wavering. Smudges of darkness appeared at the being’s borders like an artist had shadowed the appearance with charcoal. Then the light went purely white again, and Arc’s eyes flickered open.

The galtzagorri set their hands on the ground, and a vibrant green light shot through the grasses and dirt.

The light flowed into Arc, who jolted and inhaled.

The black lines of the curse slithered back down to his fingertips, then disappeared altogether.

Vahly flung herself on him and held his face in her blood-stained hands.

His color returned, warm and healthy, and the bruises on his shoulder faded.

Tears flowing freely, Vahly faced the spirits. “Thank you.”

The ghostly forms bowed as one. Their forms spun into that pearly fog again, and then they were gone.

Arc sat up, and Nix hugged Aitor tightly as Amona whispered a prayer to the Source.

Vahly couldn’t breathe. “You are so lucky your hypothesis proved true.”

Arc’s eyebrow slanted. “Why, were you going to kill me if I died?”

“Exactly that.”

“And how would that be accomplished?” He chuckled, his gaze on her warming her middle and making her heart forget how to beat.

“You’ll have to glean the secret of double death from me with favors.”

“Oh.” He brushed her hair from her neck, sending shivers across her skin. “What sort of favors do you demand?”

She leaned toward his pointed ear. “The talk is that elves are good at everything.”

One by one, Amona, Nix, and the rest bowed and left them on their own.

“Everything? That is high praise.” He tapped his lower lip with his fist and narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure I read a scroll about this rumor.”

“Sack the scrolls, elf, and kiss me.”

Arc pulled her flush against him and pressed his mouth to hers, and she quickly forgot about spirits and swords, battles and victories.

It was past time to start a new life woven with the magic of elves and the fate of dragons.