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T he Veil was even more immense up close. Cora stared up at the strange wall, watching it writhe with swirling particles of shadows and mist. When they’d first approached, Fanon had ordered her to walk through the Veil. His smug grin should have been enough to tell her it wouldn’t work, but her hope had been too strong. Just when she was certain the Veil would be as yielding as a fog, she’d found herself against something solid. She’d first suspected Fanon’s magic, but then she noted her hands were suddenly free, her palms pressed against the invisible wall. As realization had dawned, she’d immediately reached for her collar. But before her fingers could make contact, Fanon used his magic to pin her arms to her sides and fling her several feet back from the wall.

“Well, at least we know the wardweaving remains strong,” Fanon had said. After that, he’d approached the Veil, pressed both palms to its swirling surface, and closed his eyes.

Then he’d stood there.

Unmoving.

For hours.

Or had it only been minutes? Now that she knew time moved differently here, she was unable to trust her own estimation. It certainly didn’t help that she had nothing to do but stand painfully idle next to Valorre, Etrix, and Garot while Fanon faced the Veil doing…whatever the hell he was doing. Every second that crawled by was like a knife twisting in her heart. Because each of those seconds were minutes for her world. For Teryn. If day broke, they’d be approaching a week.

Mother Goddess, would Teryn last that long? What could Morkai be doing to her kingdom right now?

“I know you must be anxious to return home,” Etrix said, stepping closer to her, “but we must give Fanon time. He’s extending his skyweaving all along the Veil, seeking the source of a possible tear.”

So that was what he was doing. If only Fanon’s task took the whole of his attention. She’d tested her abilities to fight her restraints while he was so distracted, tried to approach the wall a few times, but each attempt had resulted in invisible pressure holding her back. She wasn’t sure how his skyweaving worked, but his magic was obviously strong.

Garot shifted to face her. “Would you like to hear a story? I find stories relax me, and I never did finish telling you the history of your kind’s dark deeds.”

She bristled. So far his story had only revealed that a witch had used magic that brought him to El’Ara, and it didn’t sound like a dark deed so much as an accident that resulted in a love affair. Their child, on the other hand, seemed a bit unhinged, but he wasn’t her kind . He may have been half witch and a worldwalker, but he was half Elvyn too. After meeting Fanon, it wasn’t hard to imagine Darius may have gotten his cruel streak from his Elvyn side.

Of course, there was likely much she still didn’t know. Besides, a distraction might make the wait less agonizing. Especially if it provided more answers that could aid her escape.

“Will you tell me more about the Veil?” she asked, trying to sound more bored than desperate. “Has the border between our worlds always been here, or was it created to keep Darius out after he escaped Satsara’s first ward?”

“The latter,” Garot said, “though the fact that you can see it is proof that the ward is flawed. Had it been properly completed, it would be invisible to us all, and we’d never have to fear anyone crossing into our world again.”

“Why wasn’t it properly completed?”

Garot’s tone took on that whimsical storytelling quality again. “Before I can explain that, I must first tell you of Darius’ return. Feeling betrayed by what his mother had tried to do, he now came with invasion in mind. He insisted he was the rightful heir and would claim his place as Morkaius. Not Morkara, mind you, but as the self-proclaimed High King. Where the Morkara is responsible for distributing the mora fairly and evenly throughout the land, Darius sought to control it and harness it as he saw fit. War came. He used his worldwalking abilities to bring in human armies wielding weapons of iron. Many, many died.”

Cora tried not to let the terrified awe show on her face. Darius was no doubt the first Morkaius Salinda had told her about. She remembered the story, about the illegitimate son of the Elvyn queen, how he’d sought to overthrow his sister as heir. Salinda had said the war ended in a final battle at a palace, and that an explosion had turned the structure into a ruin. She’d surmised that Centerpointe Rock had been that ruin. That was where Morkai had intended to harness fae magic from, after all. It had made sense when she’d believed the fae war had happened in her world, but how was there an Elvyn ruin in the human realm if the war happened in El’Ara?

Garot continued. “Our only hope was Satsara. As Morkara, she had the ability to make a ward stronger than anything any other wardweaver could conjure. So she and her tribunal agreed that she’d weave a ward all around El’Ara. From her seat at the palace, Satsara began weaving her ward, starting at the opposite end of our world, toward her. It took days upon days to weave, but it was almost finished. Only the land surrounding the palace remained when Darius arrived and killed her. In her dying breath, she relinquished the power of the Morkara, officially passing the role onto her heir, Ailan. But not before she secured the edges of the Veil and completed it where it had stopped—around a wide circumference of land surrounding the capital city of Le’Lana. What remained outside the Veil was pushed into your human world.”

Cora blinked at him. The capital city of Le’Lana. That…must be the land once known as Lela. The land that was now divided into three portions, one of which was her own kingdom. “So you’re saying the place I come from was once fae land?”

Garot nodded, eyes on the Veil. “The Veil surrounds the land that was left behind when Satsara finished her wardweaving too soon. If you came from the land that lies on the other side of this wall, the place we call the Void, then you came from what was once El’Ara’s heart.”

Cora’s mind whirled to reconcile old facts with this new information. The Veil wasn’t simply a barrier between two worlds; it was an incomplete ward that surrounded a piece of land that had once existed in another realm. All the tales of the mysterious land that had appeared out of nowhere, suddenly attached to the continent of Risa where once there had only been a beach, made sense now. Those tales hadn’t been exaggerated. They’d been true.

And no one… no one in her world knew. Not even the Forest People.

Garot continued his story, oblivious to Cora’s stunned musings. “The Veil succeeded at locking Darius outside of El’Ara. However, when Satsara had tied off the edges of her wardweaving, she hadn’t known Ailan had been at the palace too. Now her heir, our true Morkara, was stuck in the human realm too.”

Etrix gave a somber nod. “Which is why Fanon, Ailan’s consort, has been acting as steward ever since.”

Cora’s gaze flew to the golden-haired fae, still standing before the Veil. He was Ailan’s consort? While she couldn’t forgive him for his rough treatment of her, she could sort of understand his cruel demeanor. His consort was trapped in the human realm because of a war a worldwalker had started. A war with human soldiers wielding iron weapons.

Garot lowered his voice to a whisper. “Not everyone thinks Fanon should have been named steward. Many would have rather followed Etrix.”

“Garot,” Etrix growled in warning.

“I’m just saying,” Garot whispered. “You were Satsara’s consort. Had she not relinquished the power of the Morkara before she died, you’d have been steward.”

Cora’s eyes widened. Etrix had been… Satsara’s consort? The one Satsara had been forced to marry while carrying on her affair with Prince Tristaine? Cora was surprised Etrix had been able to bear Garot’s tale with nothing more than the occasional furrowed brow. Then again, if what they’d said was true, over seventy-five years had passed since Satsara’s death. Perhaps Etrix had been able to move on where Fanon could not.

Complicated , Valorre conveyed.

She agreed. It seemed humans weren’t the only ones who had complex marriage politics.

Etrix let out a dark chuckle. “You think I want that responsibility? I have enough work on my plate as Head of Tribunal.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Garot said. Then he turned to Cora, including her in the conversation again. “I’m certainly happy to be without Fanon’s burdens. Everyone knows he’s only a steward and can’t direct the mora , yet he gets struck by the people’s ire over the Blight.”

Cora shifted her gaze to the decayed landscape. It struck her as more significant now that she fully understood what the Veil was. “Why is the Blight happening?”

“Another unforeseen circumstance of Satsara’s incomplete wardweaving,” Etrix said.

“In other words,” Garot said, “the Veil is to blame for the Blight, and that is due to how the mora moves through El’Ara. It is born at the center of our world, in the heart of our planet’s core. From there, it travels to the surface in the fire dunes, the land at the complete opposite end of our world, then travels through veins deep underground. These veins crisscross the land until they join again at the polarity opposite the fire dunes. That polarity was located in the capital city of Le’Lana. The palace of the Morkara was built directly over that polarity, its very structure designed to funnel the mora straight from the conjunction of those veins of power. The Morkara has always been in charge of directing the flow of mora back into our world, distributing it evenly, fueling light, heat, and technology.”

Cora frowned. “You mean it generated flame? Like lanterns and hearths? Can you not produce flame without it?”

“Your technology is different from ours,” Etrix explained. “Our light and heat come not from flame but the mora .”

Garot’s mouth quirked in a sly grin. “I once met a truthweaver who insisted the human realm would one day discover something similar. Do you have that yet? Instantaneous light? Means of travel fueled by combustion?”

Cora shook her head, having not a single clue what he was talking about.

“Disappointing,” Garot said with a sigh. “I was hoping you could tell me some stories next.”

Etrix frowned. “Is it not taboo to show interest in the human realm?”

Garot rolled his eyes, not bothering to answer the question. “Anyhow, because the Veil trapped the Heart of El’Ara—our very source of mora —in the human world, balance has been disrupted. The mora seeps through the Veil, traveling along those underground veins as if Le’Lana wasn’t a world away. Without a Morkara, we have no one to call the mora back. No way to return the flow to our land. So the mora leaves our world and does not return. That is why the land is dying.”

“That isn’t the only balance that has been unsettled,” Etrix said. “Without any way of directing the flow of mora , we have nothing to trade. We are unable to uphold our alliances with the Faeryn, which has made our relationship with them tense. They resent us for the Veil. Blame us for what is happening to the land. We fear war with them. But that’s not all. While the Mermyn stick to the seas and the Djyn reside in the fire dunes, they too could pose a threat. The Blight hasn’t reached them yet, but if it ever does, they could wreak havoc on our realm. The Mermyn could flood the world, or the Djyn could burn our land to cinders.”

Cora was once again startled speechless. The Mermyn and Djyn…were these other types of High Fae? She’d only ever heard of the Faeryn and Elvyn. The fact that there were even more kinds of fae made her head spin. Yet the plight of the land sank her heart. “Is there nothing you can do about the Blight?”

“All we can do is wait for our Morkara,” Garot said. “We don’t know what happened to Ailan and Darius after the Veil went up. We only have our truthweavers to rely on. As far as we know, the Veil will tear when we have a true Morkara again. We hope Ailan is alive and will return, but most of our truthweavers have said our true Morkara will be born from her bloodline.”

“Don’t say that so loudly,” Etrix said, eyes flashing toward Fanon.

Garot pursed his lips, expression abashed. “Right. Fanon doesn’t like hearing about this prophesied heir, for it would suggest Ailan’s heart has moved on in the human world.”

“One’s heart and body aren’t always aligned,” Etrix said. “One can love someone while physically being with another.”

Garot gave him a sad smile, and Cora realized Etrix was probably referring to his relationship with Satsara. Had they loved one another, even with their forced pairing and infidelity? Or had he been the one she’d been with physically while loving someone else?

Garot spoke again. “Whether it’s Ailan or this child of prophecy, we await the tear in the Veil.”

Cora’s pulse kicked up as his words triggered dawning realization.

The unicorns. The mother. The child. Who do you think you are in that prophecy?

Cora cursed under her breath.

This child they were waiting for, this heir of Ailan…

Was that…her future child?

The one she’d never have?

The one Morkai had ensured would never be born?

Her stomach bottomed out, adding to the hollow feeling that remained where her magic once filled.

Morkai’s curse...

The fate weaving…

If left unbroken, the Elvyn might never have their Morkara again. The Blight could grow. El’Ara could be destroyed.

Panic crawled through her. She had to tell them. They had to help her?—

“There is no tear.” Fanon’s voice rang out from near the Veil. Her eyes darted to him. The first blush of sunlight crept up from the horizon, illuminating his dark glower, his blue eyes pinned on her. “The Veil is fully intact, which means you lied. You couldn’t have passed through the wardweaving. Worse, it means you’re a worldwalker.”