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“I have had the pleasure of officiating a royal marriage once or twice in my day, long before your time.”

I blinked. The male was ancient. The royals before Draven’s parents had ruled for a thousand years.

“I find the marriage ceremony to be quite fascinating. An ordinary marriage bond involves some scant bit of mana from the officiant, but the binding is entirely external, a marking not unlike a piece of jewelry,” he said gesturing toward a ring on his left hand.

“The royal ceremony, as I’m sure you noted, is somewhat different, in that it binds the mana of the couple together,” he gestured now toward our hands. Our rings. The ones made from our very blood.

“That’s…not possible. I felt the mana it used, it wasn’t from inside me. It was from the land.”

Isren’s brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”

“Because I don’t have any, obviously, and it felt different than Draven’s.”

The Archmage’s eyebrows shot sky high. “You can feel his mana?”

“It’s difficult not to when he practically flings it around…like a child having a tantrum,” I tacked on, lest he take my assessment as a compliment.

The king glared, but the Archmage only tilted his head, looking between us for several heartbeats. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Were you aware that an ordinary Hollow cannot connect with mana at all? They are prey to its effects, but they could not identify its source, as you do.”

“I—no,” I admitted. “I’ve never met another Hollow, and all the books are vague.”

He nodded. “Because they are written by those with mana, but it has been a particular area of interest to me.”

I shook my head, frustration and something like panic edging in. How many times had a new mage been convinced I was hiding mana somewhere, only to have it end in agony?

Pain bit into my palms as I clenched my fists. The small half-moon cuts still hadn’t completely healed from yesterday, and I was close to breaking them open once again.

“Then I’m not ordinary, but the fact remains, Archmage, that I would have noticed if mana were sneaking around. I’m sure one of the mages’ many fun experiments would have ripped it right out of me, as they intended.”

A low growl rumbled through the air next to me. From Draven? One of the wolves?

“That is, indeed, a mystery,” Isren said. “But one I believe is worth exploring.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” I shot back, looking longingly at the door. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it doesn’t change anything. In theory, perhaps I should have mana, but in practice, I still don’t.”

My heartbeat quickened, frustration and anxiety threading dangerously close together. I’d promised to hear him out, but surely I’d done more than enough to keep that promise by now?

“There was something, at the Heartstone Ceremony,” Draven interjected, his winter-green eyes boring into mine.

“Is that why you yelled at me about ruining your entire life and kingdom directly after, then?” I asked, more than done with this conversation.

“At first, all I noticed was all the mana being abruptly and forcefully stolen from me,” he gritted out. “But after Nevara refused to acknowledge that you were a Hollow, I thought back harder on it. It did take my mana, which it should not have done, but something else was there, too.”

“Like…the excess of mana from the ley lines of your sentient palace?” I asked sarcastically.

He looked at me sharply, that muscle in his jaw ticking once again.

“You forget that I have completed the Heartstone Ceremony before. This was different,” he said flatly. “It…felt like you.”

I swallowed. His words hung in the air for a few moments before I knew what to do with them. The comment was too intimate for what we were to each other.

“Felt Hollow, you mean?” I mocked, trying to cover the way it had suddenly become difficult to breathe.

He gave me a flat look. “Chaotic. And disagreeable.”

“Or you’re just seeing what you need to see.” I leaned back against the wall, abruptly tired of an intellectual argument about something I had known all my life.

Lumen shifted on his paws, glancing between us like he was also tired, tired of us fighting. Tired of the tension. He shuffled over and curled up at my feet, his massive head resting on his paws while he surveyed the room.

“My Queen,” the Archmage cut in gently before we could begin our next round of arguing. “I understand why this is a road you do not wish to travel again, and no one here will force you.”

Those last words were pointed and all the more surprising, but I supposed even Draven could not hope to defy the Shard Mother’s chosen vessel himself.

“Not all wounds are visible,” Isren added after a moment. “But that doesn’t mean they never heal.”

I let out a bitter huff of air. “That depends on whether they’re fatal.”

I didn’t want to go down this road again. Didn’t want to add more wounds or scars to my soul. I wanted to believe that I could heal one day. That the darkest, most broken parts of me could somehow be stitched back together.

But some wounds didn’t scar, they festered.

“Indeed it does,” Isren responded gently.

“I would ask only that you contemplate the benefit of trying one last time. I have every reason to believe that you do have mana. If you would allow me the opportunity to check, we might be able to find answers together that allow you to begin to heal. What you do with those answers is your choice, and yours alone.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t need answers when they had already been wrenched from me in blood, but the barest tendril of doubt stilled my tongue. The Archmage was probably lying, and Draven was probably delusional.

The Shard Mother probably had chosen me as a punishment or some joke that only she knew the punchline of, but could I really walk away with probably? Without knowing the truth, beyond any shadow of possibility?

I sucked in a breath, already hating myself for what I was about to do. But in the end, I nodded.

One more chance to put this all to bed, then we could all move on with our lives.