The manor’s glamour was sloughing off like withered, curling wallpaper. Each strip that fell away was an eerie tear on the

breeze, and gooseflesh ravaged my skin at the sight.

I’d known they’d magicked their estate to hide all traces of blight, but I hadn’t expected... this . Rotting, putrid vines climbed the walls and tore away at the crumbling facade. Instead of mortar, a bubbling ooze the color

of curdled milk dripped from between the bricks. Pools of frothing loam surrounded the building like a moat, eating away at

the soft earth and preparing the manor for an early grave. The stench of decay and sour mulch was so thick that I gagged.

Without warning, a handful of spores near the grand entrance burst, showering the air around the steps in a fine spray of

mustard-yellow particles.

And that was only the manor. The entire state was a putrefied mess as the glamour that had been so painstakingly layered simply dusted away. The grounds were leached of color, the grass beneath our feet now golden brown. The neatly trimmed hedges were nothing more than thorny skeletons where leaves had once thrived. The flowers? Gone. No blooms. No stalks reaching toward the sun. Just an expanse of decay and disease that unfurled across the lands and into the forest, where the trees had been transformed into barren bones that speared the cloudless sky like knives.

I could barely find my voice. “What’s happening?”

Rorik’s eyes were wild. “I don’t know.”

He bolted toward the manor, leaving me to sprint after him. I tried to force my magic to settle, tried to dampen the power

surging through my veins in reaction to the absolute grave that Fernglove had become, but I couldn’t. So I let it pulse from

me with every heartbeat, taking what comfort I could in the alabaster light coating my limbs. We didn’t have to go far. The

moment Rorik and I burst through the double doors leading to the entry foyer, we found someone crumpled on the floor. She’d

folded in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them tight. Her brittle hair splayed out

behind her, and her skin was covered with wounds. Blight festered from every hole and crawled over her entire body. Her fingers

twitched. Her breath was a high-pitched, shuddering wheeze.

“Grandmother,” Seville sobbed as she kneeled beside the near-lifeless form.

Mavis. It was Mavis. She was a desiccated shell of the vivacious woman I’d spied in the painting. She had maybe minutes left.

With my power fully intact, I could see a solitary thread still attached to her center. There wasn’t an inch of it that wasn’t

covered in tar, and already it was hardening to an impenetrable surface. Soon, it would simply dust away.

“She just collapsed. I tried to encase her, but her body rejected it,” Seville said through her tears.

Encase her. Immediately I pictured my brothers in their floating coffins, and I prayed to the gods they were safe, that whatever magic

Seville used to try to save Mavis hadn’t affected their barriers.

Seville’s hands aimlessly fluttered around Mavis’s head. Lydia and Clesian were there, too. They’d wrapped their arms around their daughters, pressing their bodies flush to their sides. Amalyss and Tasia stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed terror.

Rorik swallowed thickly as he set his jaw tight. “Seville, you need to stop siphoning. You’ve already pulled every ounce of

magic from the estate. You’ll drain yourself next.”

“No!” she screamed, and she flung herself over Mavis’s trembling form. I hadn’t noticed the aura of magic surrounding her

until now. It was the same shade as the caskets housing my brothers, but try as Seville might to direct that green mist to

Mavis, nothing stuck. Seville’s power ate away at her glamour—at all their glamours—and suddenly she was laid bare before

me. A gasp caught in my chest. Seville had always looked youthful. Flawless. Now, she looked startlingly similar to the dying

matriarch in her arms. Full of blight and fear and a heated rage in her stare. I glanced at Rorik and stilled.

Gods. I’d seen some of his magical features before: the glossy wings with the golden underside, the sable horns and pointed

fangs. The endless depth of emotion in his ink-black stare. But there was more, so much more, to his being. An iridescent

sheen coated his skin like a golden-hued exoskeleton, and he had daggerlike nails that were as dark as his eyes. Blight ate

away at the carved muscles along his arms and bloomed against his cheek. Yellow loam and pustules sprouted from beneath his

collarbone and spread toward his throat like the limbs of a tree. Seeing Rorik covered in death made my heart tremble.

It wasn’t the fact that he was already drenched in sickness; it was the fact that he didn’t seem to care at all. There was

nothing but resignation in his gaze as he stared at his dying grandmother.

A chill swept over my skin. He wanted this. Maybe not for the others, but certainly for himself.

“You,” Seville said, turning her sharp gaze toward me. “Save her. Please.”

A hollow ache grew in my chest. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“Liar!” she screamed. “You can help her. You just won’t.” She spat at my feet as tears bisected her cheeks. They streamed

over the edge of a wound stretched across her jaw, and the foaming blight seemed to writhe with pleasure as it caught her

tears. As if it took joy in her sadness, her pain.

“Seville, look around you.” Rorik’s words were soft but full of authority as he gestured to the manor. Everything was rotting

from the inside out. Blight was a patchwork design of black and yellow crawling across the ceiling, dripping from the rafters,

seeping into the furniture. The air was thick with yellow dust that settled against everything like a weighted sheet. There

was no escaping what they’d become. The collective glamour they used to hide from it all couldn’t obscure the truth any longer.

Seville had destroyed it in her search for any scrap of power she could use to help her grandmother.

“There isn’t any time left,” Rorik said. “Edira can only do so much.”

At the sound of my name, Mavis’s eyes flew open. With a forceful wheeze, she struggled to turn her head and meet my gaze.

“Come.”

Everyone stilled. Time slowed as the weight of her dying request filled the air, and I bit the inside of my cheek. I glanced

at the family and blissfully found their expressions free of suspicion. Only Rorik’s brows drew together as he watched me

drop to Mavis’s side.

“I’m here.” I knew I couldn’t cure her, but I’d ease her passing just the same. My light covered us in a gentle barrier that blocked the drifting spores. Soft hisses filled the space as the yellow snowflakes drifted to their demise and burned away against my skin. I pushed soothing energy through to my fingertips and willed it to transfer to Mavis, to take away her pain. Her gaze never softened.

“Speak.”

It was the last thing she said before her eyes slipped closed and her breathing stopped. And as her last thread disappeared

into nothing, my magic finally receded.

“Grandmother.” Seville ran light fingers along Mavis’s brow.

“What did she mean? Speak ?” Clesian asked as Lydia stepped out of his embrace to take a cautious step forward. Tears filled her eyes as her breath

hit harder. Faster.

“People tend to lose their grips on reality in the end.” I pitched my voice low and kept my pulse steady. Not yet. Not until

I had the power to save my brothers. “I’m not sure what she meant.”

Lydia’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth as if to probe further but never got the chance. Just then, Orin sped into the

room. As he crossed the threshold from the outside world into the blight-ridden house, his glamour fell. Seville’s power stole

whatever magic it could, sharpening suddenly with Orin’s presence, but he didn’t flinch. Instead, he silently scanned the

surroundings, taking in the display of blight and his grandmother’s corpse on the floor.

“Seville, that’s enough. She’s gone. Take her body to the tree so she may join the others,” he said quietly.

She complied with one last shuddering sob. Capping her power, she slipped her arms beneath her grandmother. She trembled when

part of Mavis’s body disintegrated in her hold, but she steeled herself by pressing her lips tightly together. As they walked

away, they left a gray-and-yellow trail of ashes and blight.

“Lydia, Clesian, I need you...” Orin swallowed as his voice broke, and he pinched his eyes shut. His nostrils flared as

he took a long, heavy breath through his nose.

His pain was so believable . It made me want to puke. But rather than show my distaste and let him in on my budding plan, I kept quiet. Still. Beside me, Rorik’s expression hardened, and a tendon strained against his neck.

When he regained his composure, Orin straightened and once again met his family’s gazes. “Gather what’s needed for the ceremony.

We’ll join you later.”

Like Seville, the four of them left without saying another word.

“Ceremony?” I blurted. So much for poise. The ceremony was exactly what I wanted—needed—but in the aftermath of Mavis’s death

it just felt wrong. “What about Mavis?”

“Seville will bury her. She may not make the ceremony, but that’s all right. She needs to grieve.” Orin came to my side, and

he palmed my cheek with a gentle hand before letting it fall to my waist. Anger clawed beneath the surface of my skin at his

touch, but I didn’t wrench his hand away and spit in it. Yet.

My tongue, however, was not as easy to hold back. “And you don’t?”

His eyes dropped to my mouth, and he exhaled so deeply it seemed to stem from his bones. “I will miss my grandmother. But

I can’t change what happened, only prevent this from happening to anyone else. We can prevent this.”

I hated how, even now, his syrupy words made me question my resolve. “Mavis is gone. What happens to our bargain? Are my brothers

safe?”

Orin had the smarts to look appalled. “Edira, I would never harm them. Mavis may have been the reason you came here, but she’s

not the reason I’m asking you to stay now.” He tucked a strand of moonlit hair behind my ear before brushing his knuckle along

my jaw. “You know that.”

At that, Rorik scoffed. A nocturnal sheen passed over his gaze, and all at once I was reminded that he was a killer. The reflective gold flash was a threat aimed directly at his brother, and I believed in my core that if I broke the vow, he’d rail against Orin—not for me, but for himself. And that was enough reassurance for me.

“As if you’re actually asking her to stay.” Rorik’s grin was feral, his words tight.

Orin didn’t respond as he inched closer to me. Claiming me. His fingers on my waist tightened like the shackles of the evervow

that held everyone’s collective rage at bay.

Rorik tilted his head toward me but kept his gaze on his brother. “Edira, leave while you can. I know you don’t want to, but

it’s the only way. Do it now while you’re not bound to anyone here.”

“I have her brothers,” Orin seethed, taking a small step forward. His eyes widened a fraction at his own outburst, at the

glimmer of his true intentions finally rising to the surface.

“You have my brothers?” My gut churned as I twisted out of his grip. “What does that mean, Orin?”

His gaze turned pleading, but I could see it now: the tension straining the sides of his emerald eyes, the twitch to his brow,

and the uneasy shift of his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, Edira. I didn’t mean it like that. A lot has happened

in such a short amount of time, and I’m not handling this well. Once we do the ceremony—”

“You’ll be a Fernglove ,” Rorik interjected. His eyes shone with so much heat and despair that I couldn’t help but freeze. “The vow, Edira. Even

with his power, you’d still answer to him.”

My knees went weak at his words. This fucking evervow . I needed Orin’s power to save my brothers, but I couldn’t get that without heartbonding to him. And then I’d be beholden

to the vow and unable to speak the fucking name to break the damn thing.

But if I played my hand now and shouted the name, Rorik would be free to act as he wished, to pummel Orin into oblivion like he so obviously desired. But to what end? I’d have no magic to save my brothers. Their caskets would be nothing but a memory the moment I acted against Orin’s wishes, and the blight feasting on their bones would finally finish its meal.

As I spiraled in silence, Orin went impossibly still. He stood there, unmoving, long enough for me to question whether he

had mastered a way to erase his breath entirely. And then rage crashed over his expression as he pulled back his lips in a

vicious snarl. He pushed me behind him to seethe at Rorik.

“You told her. How?”

“ You told her.” A dangerous, fang-clad smile filled Rorik’s face. “She overheard you the other night, when we were discussing

the Starglens.”

Orin’s fingers twitched. “You’ve manipulated her for far too long.”

“Have I now?” Anger glinted in Rorik’s eyes. “That’s fascinating.”

“How much do you know?” Orin leveled me with his stare. The manor trembled beneath our feet as roots shot through the floorboards

and tangled in an intricate web. Thorns pushed through the bark and surrounded us like daggers.

Fear spiked in my throat at the violent display of power. “I know enough.”

“I’m guessing this wasn’t part of your elaborate plan.” Rorik grinned. “Pity.”

“Silence!” Orin roared. He stepped into the mess of still-growing roots, not caring that the barbs tore at his pants and nicked

his skin. “I will end you.”

“You can try.” Rorik seemed to delight in Orin’s rage, and he only uncrossed his arms to thrust them wide. “I’m right here.”

That was the only invitation Orin needed. He moved so fast I barely caught the movement. One moment he was there, and the

next he’d slammed into Rorik with such force that they went crashing into the wall. The house groaned at the sudden impact,

and rotted debris began to crumble around them.

“Edira!” Rorik shouted from beneath his brother’s form. “Get out!”

I couldn’t glimpse either of their faces. The house had started to collapse, and plumes of yellow dust filled the air and

my lungs. All around us the walls caved in. Picture frames crashed to the floor and glass shards skittered against the wood.

Screams crested from somewhere outside the manor, and through one of the now empty window frames I saw attendants fleeing

across the trembling lawns. They’d likely all left when Seville first tore away the glamour and were waiting to return, but

now with the ground caving in, they were racing away from it all. Only one person ran into the foyer, into the thick of the

blight and Orin’s raging magic. Vora.

“We need to get my brothers!” I shouted, and she spurred into motion in the direction of their quarters. I took off after

her to help, but a wayward root covered in sharp barbs erupted from the ground to decimate the stairs behind her. I only prayed

she’d get there before the whole manor fell. All around me, vines writhed and thrashed as if they were beasts. They lashed

into me, leaving welts and bloody scrapes along my skin. With each biting slap I winced in pain, but the creaking whine of

the house was all that mattered.

I stumbled over the puckered roots and fell into a bed of thorns. They wormed into the soft flesh of my stomach and punctured

my arms, my legs. Even one of my cheeks. Pain arced through my body as I forced myself up. One thorn broke off and remained

lodged in my thigh, and I dragged my leg behind me. There had to be another way upstairs, another way to get to my brothers.

But already the ceiling was crumbling, and I froze as a chandelier came loose from the rafters just above my head.

I didn’t know where Rorik came from. Just that he’d somehow thrown Orin off him and wrapped a single arm around my waist, yanking me out of the way. The chandelier exploded in a violent spray of crystal shards, and Rorik rushed us outside through a hole in the wall. The entryway crashed behind us, and he lunged several feet away from the crumbling manor. A flicker of relief touched his eyes as he scoured my face.

And then Orin slammed his fist into Rorik’s temple.

Rorik flew back, but he found his feet quickly and tore toward Orin. They collided with unrestricted violence, both of them

snarling as their fists connected with flesh.

“Stop!” I screamed, but they didn’t hear me. No one could hear anything over the collapse of the manor. Bony trees stripped

of color and leaves punctured the earth and sliced into the house like blades. Windows shattered as their jagged limbs kept

growing, and the roof cracked as one monstrous, barren oak punctured the beams and climbed toward the sun. Fissures splintered

the earth and blight poured out in a flood, coating everything in loam and sludge. I stared in horror as Rorik and Orin continued

to pummel each other.

They couldn’t seriously harm each other. The evervow wouldn’t let them. But how long would this go on before the magic kicked

in? My heart pounded as I ran. Blood spilled from the wound in my thigh, but I ignored the burning rush of pain and the dots

blooming across my vision.

I got to Orin first and threw myself at him. He pushed me aside as if I were no more than a stubborn cattail battering against

his calf in a mild breeze. I hit the ground and rolled, drenching myself in blight and coughing as spores filled my lungs.

“Edira!” Rorik was at my side, hoisting me up.

“Get away from her!” Orin snarled. Anger fueled the blight at his feet, and ripples formed across the bubbling surface as

if he were the center of a storm. “You should’ve stayed away. You’ve ruined enough.”

“You think I want to be here? Surrounded by people I loathe?” Rorik refused to move from my side. Cuts lined his biceps and blood oozed from a gash on his chest. But not for long. Blight saw an opportunity to strike, and it didn’t hesitate. The hungry maws of the tar-like substance crawled over his skin and settled in the gashes. And from it birthed yellow loam and pustules poised to erupt and spread more sickness. If Rorik was in pain, he didn’t show it.

In my peripheral vision, I spotted Vora off the side of the house, my brothers’ floating caskets before her. She was pushing

them away from the debris, and adrenaline surged through me at the sight. I raced toward her as quickly as my injured leg

would allow and thrust my body weight against Noam’s coffin. Vora nodded but said nothing as she focused on moving Nohr. How

she’d managed to get them down the gloomy, tight staircase at the back of the house baffled me, but I was grateful she did.

Tears spilled from my eyes as I pushed. Noam was so close. I could see him, see his weakened body and sallow face. Nohr, too.

I glanced between them, resolve forming in my bones as we finally came to a stop.

Rowena’s hatred for Orin was already my own, but I needed him. I needed him in a way she could never have understood, because

there’d been no one he’d used as collateral. She’d had no family to protect. I looked at Vora, tears lining my eyes, and her

own gaze was thick with sadness.

“Thank you.” I squeezed her arm once and then took off, heading back into the wreckage where Orin and Rorik still raged. Orin

had thrown Rorik into a tree, and the splintering crack reverberated over the lawns. His chest heaved as he glared at his

brother, and I took that moment to come to his side.

“Orin, I can fix this. Fix all of it,” I begged. Rage and fear mingled in his eyes as I placed my hands on his chest. I couldn’t give up on the small hope that he would still let me cure my brothers. He could have my power, do whatever he wanted, so long as they were safe. “Please. We can do the ceremony now. Call me your heartbond, grant me your power, and—”

“You can’t seriously still want that,” Rorik hissed, and I turned to see him staring daggers at me.

“Do not talk to my heartbond that way,” Orin seethed. His hand found mine and gripped it tight. “You will rot. I might not

be able to kill you, but I will never heal you—and neither will she. And I’ll celebrate the day blight finally rids us of

your stain.”

The rest of the family waited on the fringes of Orin and Rorik’s war. Even Seville had returned, her body racked with anguish

but her gaze full of malice. Not one of them seemed surprised that it’d come to this. They only watched and waited. The attendants

had long since fled. The glamour had protected them from the affliction, but now? In a land riddled with disease? One cut

and they’d be gone, and it was obvious Orin didn’t care.

The only one who remained was Vora. She’d risked her life to save my brothers. She hadn’t even thought twice when I asked

for her help. But why? Her gaze was pinned on Rorik, and she clasped her hands tight before her as fear gathered in her eyes.

I’ve worked for my lord for years.

Every interaction I had with her blended together and spread out before my eyes. All the times she’d gently warned me without

going against Orin’s commands. Her hesitation surrounding my decision to become his heartbond. The way she said “my lord”

with reverence but spat Orin’s name with vehemence. The way she kept me sleeping to keep him at bay, to keep him from pushing

in when my body, my mind, needed rest.

Rorik. He was the reason she worked at Fernglove. She’d been tasked to watch over me at his behest, not Orin’s.

“Don’t let Rorik get under your skin.” Orin’s hold on me tightened. “The deal was Mavis for them, and look.” He gestured to where Vora sat with my brothers by her side, as if he’d been the one to orchestrate their safe escape from the manor. “They’re still safe. I could’ve let them die the moment she did.”

I marveled at his nonanswer, draped in a threat, when he could’ve set everything right with just a simple phrase.

“Tell me, were you ever going to let me cure them?” All the pent-up rage fractured through me and seeped into my words. “Or

were you going to command me to mend only those you deemed fit?”

“You think I’m the bad one here?” He rounded on Rorik with venom in his glare. “You trust him?”

Rorik stilled.

“Trust?” It was my turn to laugh. It was strange and maniacal and on the verge of breaking, but I couldn’t stop it. “I don’t

trust any of you. How can I? At least Rorik didn’t lie to me.”

Orin’s answering smile was ice straight to the veins. “Ask him about your brothers. Ask him how he knew about everything.

Ask. Don’t worry. He’ll respond. The evervow commands he follow my will.”

“Edira.” My name on his lips was a breathy plea. “Don’t.”

The world began to shift beneath my feet. “What does he mean, Rorik?”

“I’ll tell you what I mean.” Orin released me and strode forward to grab Rorik by the neck. Slowly, Orin lifted him, so Rorik’s

toes just barely skated over the grass. “His affinity for insects. His control over them. It really is handy, because no one

gives a damn about them.” Orin’s grip tightened, and Rorik wheezed. “Funny how one golden beetle can keep tabs on everything.

The best part, though? Insects aren’t bothered by blight. The spores can cling to their legs and transfer with ease to other

people. Like Noam and Nohr.”

My heart hammered in my throat. Sounds faded in a howl of nothingness. Noam. Nohr. Tears flooded my eyes as I stared at Rorik. He never once brought his hands up to try to wrench free of Orin’s hold. Instead, he only looked at me. He couldn’t speak, but it didn’t matter. His empty eyes told me everything I needed to know.

Everything had been planned from the start.

“Why?” I barely found my voice. “They didn’t do anything to you.”

“You wouldn’t have come otherwise,” Orin said with a shrug. “Mavis was on her way out. The rest of us aren’t far behind. We

needed a cure.”

I get what I want.

“You planned this from the beginning,” I said in a whisper. Tears spilled over as I looked at Orin. “I thought...”

“You thought wrong.”

I’d thought I’d known anger and heartache before. The moment I’d read Rowena’s warning, I’d been consumed with a heated ire

that threatened to spill over at every moment. But this. This. A numbness took hold of my limbs as an endless roaring churned in my ears. My heart slammed against my rib cage like a beating

war drum, and my ratcheting breath carried the acrid taste of bile. Time slowed. My vision blurred as tears threatened to

take over, and then every breath, every sound, every thought, sharpened on Orin.

This was fury. And I wanted to see him, all of them, burn.

My daughter gave her life for this, but none of us can speak it.

Mavis’s note was tinder to the flames raging in my body. I wouldn’t give anyone my power. But I would destroy Orin’s.

“Zeverin...”

Lightning struck the spines of Orin and Rorik, and they stilled. The word was barely a whisper on my lips, but the power of

it filled the air with tension.

Orin’s grip on Rorik loosened. “What did you say?”

“...Ignatus...”

“Edira, what are you doing?” Orin took a step toward me.

What was I doing? Whatever was necessary so I could carve that everjewel from his neck and end his sorry existence.

“...Embergrave.”

The sound of metal clanking against metal sang through the air, as if shackles had been cast off and thrown against stone.

A swell of electricity bubbled between us and then exploded. It rushed outward in a gust of wind that knocked everyone off

their feet, and an eerie quiet settled over the estate.

“You removed the evervow.” Orin scrambled to his feet first. “How?” He stared at me with unbridled wrath, and I couldn’t help

but smile. Good. Let him feel loss. Let him lose control of everything he cherished.

“Mavis.” I pulled myself up and bit back a curse at the pain. “You’re far from beloved, Orin. I can’t wait to watch you fall.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Orin bristled at me. Then his gaze shifted to Rorik, and he stilled.

Murder filled Rorik’s stare, and he stood slowly. He rolled his head from side to side, then flexed his hands. Behind him,

his wings flared out, stretching wide before settling against his back. He raised one hand to the air, as if grazing the invisible

currents of magic still lingering around us. A smirk tugged at his lips.

“Who would’ve thought,” he murmured. “Mother, you actually did it. You outsmarted Father. Your lover’s name.”

Something fierce flashed in Orin’s eyes. “He is not your father.”

Rorik’s grin was pure evil. “I know.”

And then he lunged. He closed the distance between them in a breath and slammed his fist into Orin’s face. Blood spurted from Orin’s nose, and the sickening crunch of a broken bone filled my ears. Orin tumbled backward but was upright in a matter of seconds. The earth rumbled as roots began to erupt through the soil at his feet. A thorny branch burst from the ground and speared Rorik’s arm. It went clean through, but Rorik didn’t falter. He only broke it off with a sweep from his hand and cast it to the side. I hardly recognized the Ever standing before me. His features were sharper, his gaze violent and full of hatred. Rorik was a predator unchained. The evervow that had bound him to Orin’s will, gone.

Rorik moved with lethal accuracy as he slammed into his brother again. Orin went flying until his back cracked against a pile

of debris from the manor. But he was strong, too, and he whipped around after securing a slab of stone and hurled it in our

direction. It blocked out the sun as it arced toward us. No, not toward us. Toward me.

Time slowed as I watched it fall. It’d crush me with ease, and I didn’t have a chance to escape.

At least I’d be done with this family. This mess.

Rorik jumped in front of me and braced his arms across his face. The slab crashed into him, and debris showered around us.

He stumbled back and fell to one knee, just inches away from me. His shoulders rolled forward as he caught his breath. I could

hardly stand to look at him. It didn’t matter that he’d just saved me from death. All I could see were my brothers’ sick faces,

their blight-ridden forms. It may have been at Orin’s command, but Rorik was responsible for Noam and Nohr’s condition. He

alone delivered blight straight to their veins. He was why I was here.

“I don’t want your help,” I said, my voice a deadly whisper.

He didn’t look at me. “I know. But I’m giving it anyway. Tell me where his everjewel is.”

My brows drew together. I hadn’t expected that response, but I would take it. I would take an opportunity for revenge. I stared

past him at Orin, and anger swelled beneath the surface of my skin. “In his neck. The tip of the sword. Destroy it.”

“With pleasure.” Rorik lunged like a savage beast and sliced into the flesh of Orin’s side with his nails. Orin howled in

response and then ripped Rorik off him. He landed on his feet a few yards away, teeth bared.

They came together like two mountains crashing, and the open clearing rumbled with the force of their hits. Rorik drove his talon-like nails toward Orin’s jugular, but Orin moved with the fluidity of water. Gone in an instant and then behind Rorik’s back, driving a fist straight into his kidney. Rorik went flying, and Orin tipped his head back to laugh.

“You won’t last against me,” Orin spat as he stalked toward Rorik. Streams of iridescent magic dripped from Orin’s fingers,

splashing against the blight and sending quakes through the ground.

Rorik moved like the hunter I’d always known him to be, and rage burned in his eyes as he set Orin in his sights. That look

was enough to chill me to my core, but I silently urged him on. Rorik lunged, and this time, he met his mark. His fingers

clawed at the soft flesh of Orin’s neck, and with one harrowing rip, he extracted the hidden everjewel and then leaped away.

And then he crushed it between his fingers.

Relief sang through me at the sight. Orin was done. I’d accomplished what Rowena had set out for me, and he would be no more.

I hadn’t saved everyone, but at least this wretched being would be gone forever.

Throughout it all, Orin never moved. And then out of nowhere, he laughed. The action caused blood to spurt from his wound,

but he didn’t even bother to clap his hand over the gash. An aura of magic began to pulse from his body, and he pointed two

fingers directly at Rorik.

“You think that was my only jewel? I have more hidden in me, and you’ll never find them.” His stare was wild, his words a

booming cascade of dread. Roots erupted around Rorik and chained him to the ground. He roared at the thick trunks burying

him in the earth, but he was pinned in a matter of seconds. The blight stemming from the land surged in earnest, coating his

body and covering him in a thick layer of black sludge.

Orin chuckled. “Pity, I was looking forward to a more satisfy ing brawl after putting up with your insulting presence all these years.”

Wild, uncontained fury raced through Rorik’s expression, and his muscles bulged against Orin’s hold. “I’ll kill you.”

“I suppose you can now, if you’re strong enough. And speaking of death...” Orin turned his attention to me. “In case you

forgot.” He raised one hand and snapped his fingers. The sound was more like a thunderclap, and it reverberated through the

air and rattled my bones. A wisp of glittering green magic streamed toward his hand and absorbed into his skin.

Vora screamed.

I jerked my head toward her, toward my brothers, and watched as their tombs evaporated and they fell to the ground.

A panicked cry ripped through my throat as I ran. I didn’t care about the pain in my leg or the burn of my breath. I didn’t

care about anything except getting to Noam and Nohr.

Somewhere, Orin laughed. “I will get what I want.”

I would die before I gave him anything. Moonlight coated my entire body as I uncorked my power. When my magic doused my eyes,

Noam’s and Nohr’s threads came into view.

There wasn’t any color left to their strands. Just thick tar on the verge of solidifying and dusting to ash.

“No!” I shrieked.

“It won’t work.” Orin’s voice was amplified with his magic and filled the entire clearing. “Not without me.”

When I reached my brothers, I slid to my knees. The muck of loam coated my legs and arms, and my chest threatened to cave

in. My frantic gaze raced over their forms. Consciousness slowly returned to their faces, followed immediately by harrowed

looks of agony. Then mania. Their deranged chuckles and nonsensical speech bubbled around me.

“No,” I sobbed as I reached for their threads. I took one from each of them, pinching them into needles and thrusting them directly into my arms. The moment their blight-ridden threads made contact with my body, the rest of their infected strands burrowed into me. Pain exploded behind my eyes as blight from two separate sources flowed into my core. Burning tears cascaded over my cheeks.

Save them. Save them. Please, just take me instead.

Adrenaline surged through me, staving off some of the pain as I held my brothers close. They didn’t even register that I was

there. Vora joined me on the ground and ran her hands through their hair. Her eyes were full and glassy, and she forced a

swallow as she looked at me.

The blight on their strands liquefied and streamed into me like endless black rivers, and my body cooked from the inside out.

My light waned. My vision swam. I didn’t have enough power to save them both.

My brothers were about to die.

“Give me what I want, Edira, and I just might spare them.” Orin strode closer, and he beckoned to Rorik with two fingers:

“Wouldn’t want you to miss this.” The branches chaining him in place thrust from the ground, carrying Rorik with them. Shards

of bark splintered off and fractured around Rorik as he rallied against their hold. But each time he managed to break free,

more vines and roots shot from the earth to bind him tight.

Might. Orin would never save them.

The last dredges of my power bloomed from my center and pushed outward, coating my brothers in a soothing white light. Their

blight still moved through their threads into me, but adrenaline was a magic all its own that somehow kept me from succumbing

to the agonizing pain riddling my frame. If I couldn’t cure them, I hoped I went with them.

Vora looked beyond me to Rorik. Her lips pursed together. Slowly, she rounded her gaze back to me. Her words were no more than a whisper: “I know you don’t trust me or him, but if you want to save you brothers, let it happen.”

A subtle shift in the loam drew my focus. It was slight, like the churning of soil in preparation for planting seeds, and

then a ribbon of magic so clear and beautiful broke through the surface. It was the color of shined gold, glittering and full

of promise. The hue of the beetle that’d set my life on this path. My gaze riveted to Rorik. His fingers had curled to obscure

his palm, and the magic easily slid from his hand. I followed its trail down his leg and into the earth. To the ribbon now

gingerly waiting by my fingertips. Slowly, it wrapped around my forearm without touching my skin.

It hovered there as if waiting for permission.

Heartbond. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. I looked at Rorik, at his clouded expression. I looked at his life threads dancing about

his frame, drenched in the same sickness that infected my brothers. The death sentence he’d delivered.

“I don’t want him,” I said to Vora without breaking his gaze.

“He knows,” Vora said to my back. “He doesn’t care. He’ll give you what you want and leave you be.”

Orin took a few more steps in my direction and smiled. He was so sure he’d won. “Well, Edira? What is your decision?”

“I accept.” But it wasn’t for him. And somehow, Rorik knew.

The golden ribbon of magic tightened against my skin and went taut between us, casting off loam and blight as it burned with

otherworldly brilliance. At the same time, my brothers’ threads pulled out of my veins at the sudden influx of power, and

they hovered before me half drained of blight. Orin froze. He glanced from Rorik to me, as if sensing the solidified magic

of our heartbond. Realization slammed into him, and he roared as he turned toward Rorik.

Time slowed as the magic seeped into my skin. A sense of awareness snapped into place, and suddenly we were tethered. I could feel the tension in Rorik’s muscles, the anxiety racking his mind as he prayed I’d accept what he had to offer. And the magic. The magic . It swelled through my limbs and turned my veins gold, and the light surrounding my body was dusted with glittering, gilded

flecks.

And then, for the first time, my life threads bloomed to life around me in a visible display of power. They writhed with energy.

With Rorik’s magic. With purpose . I narrowed my focus to Orin, and they split into hundreds of smaller strands and shot outward in a rush. Several drove into

the ground and pushed my body upward so I floated in the sky above the blight and sickness. The rest slammed into the family.

Into Seville and Lydia and Clesian and their daughters.

My brothers.

Even Rorik. But not Orin. Never Orin.

And then my veins drained them of their blight.

Black tar was siphoned from their bodies, from their life threads, from the very earth beneath us, and it flowed down my strands

like I’d broken a dam. Everyone watched in rapt horror and fascination. My body was cooking with the sudden onslaught of disease,

with the arcing pain lancing through my limbs as wave after wave of blight crested against me. The edges of my vision blurred

as my breath became harsh. I vaguely registered that Rorik was calling my name, but my head had tipped back to the heavens

and tears fell from my cheeks to dampen my blouse.

Not tears. Blood. The ruby-red droplets looked like gems in the light of my magic.

A sickening splash of liquid met my ears, and I tilted my head enough to see Orin had summoned a root and sent it straight

through Rorik’s abdomen. Blood flowed from him with the same efficiency as the blight flowed into me. His hands immediately

went to his stomach, and they came away red. Then he looked at me and smiled as the color of his eyes dulled.

I felt his life flicker both through our bond and my threads, and I screamed. I screamed with everything I had. I screamed because Orin had stolen so much, and while I didn’t understand why it mattered if he stole Rorik, too, I wouldn’t allow it.

Vengeance filled me to the brim and chased away the pain, and I cast my arm to the side as I commanded one of my threads to

slam into Orin. It pinned him to the ground, and I willed my magic to bring my feet back to the earth. Slowly, I walked toward

him.

“You wanted my power.” I hardly recognized the timbre of my voice. It was heady and deep and riddled with magic. “Take it.”

With one hand, I summoned several more threads and aimed them at various points in his body. At the faintly glowing gems hiding

beneath the surface. I recognized the likeness of my magic in the everjewels, and they throbbed with recognition. Orin couldn’t

hide them from me. Not anymore.

I flicked my wrist, and the strands drove into his flesh. I channeled everything I had into them and redirected the blight

I’d drained from his family. From my brothers. From everyone who’d ever been a by-product of his schemes. I wanted Orin to

have it all. To suffer like we had.

The jewels shattered in an instant, and Orin screamed.

Black liquid surged into his being as the wounds along his skin festered in the presence of more blight. Pustules formed and

erupted across the expanse of his chest, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. And then yellow loam frothed in his

mouth and coated his teeth. He gagged as sickness slid down his throat. Tar leaked from his eyes. His ears. His nostrils.

Gone was the resplendent Ever with power and beauty fit for a king. He was nothing more than a grave.

A full-body tremble overcame him, and he gave one last gargled gasp. Then he stilled. He disintegrated before our eyes, leaving behind nothing but bones. He’d have no chance to join the ancestor tree. He didn’t deserve it. The blight that remained hardened and dusted to ash, and a quiet breeze carried it away. Gone.

“Goodbye, Orin.” I would’ve said more, would’ve cursed him to the ends of the earth, but my power crashed and, with it, so

did I. I hit the ground hard as my vision went black, but before my senses dispersed, I swore I caught the sound of Noam’s

and Nohr’s confused voices.

Alive. I’d done enough.