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Without looking away from Kyma, Andvari nodded his consent. “Yes, of course.” Andvari called one of his servants to send for their best healers and asked Hagni to carry Kyma to a bedchamber to rest. The Shadow Guards escorted Hagni and the dryad away.

Now that Andvari and Roan were alone in the throne room, the dwarf closed his weary eyes and rubbed them.

“You believe it was Culan and his guards, don’t you?”

Roan nodded. “We found one dead Seelie warrior. His tunic bore Culan’s royal crest. Culan’s discontent is growing.

He is pushing at our boundaries. I fear you may be next.

” Culan would have to pass through Andvari’s hills to launch any attack upon the Unseelie court.

If he captured Vol Buldohr, he would have a staging ground to keep his men rested and fed and somewhat protected from attack by an Unseelie army.

Andvari looked around his throne room as a heavy sigh escaped him. It had been more than fifteen hundred years in the land of the humans since the Seelie and Unseelie had been truly at war.

“If we face war, it will be unlike any war we’ve seen before. Culan has made it clear that he would see our lands turned to ash if he cannot control us himself... You will need something to stop him,” the dwarf said.

Roan gave a wry smile. “Do you think I’m not powerful enough to face Culan in battle?”

Andvari’s lips twitched. “We both know you are ruthless and the power you wield hasn’t been seen in a Sidhe Fae in more than seven millennia.

” The dwarf hesitated before continuing.

“But Culan is hungry for power like your father was. That greed can make someone desperate, and desperate Fae are far more dangerous. Also, you carry too much of your mother in you. For an Unseelie king, you have too much heart... too much mercy.” Andvari lightly squeezed Roan’s arm and smiled.

“You wound me to say such things, my friend. I am a blackhearted king.” Roan chuckled, knowing the dwarf’s words carried too much truth to them.

He had inherited his mother’s magic and he was cursed with her compassion, and his father had despised him for it.

To Bahden, empathy was a weakness that could be exploited.

“What will you do if you face Culan?” Andvari asked.

“I will do what I must,” Roan said simply. He was not afraid to kill to protect his lands or his people, but he didn’t like to think about how many others would die when he and Culan faced each other on a battlefield.

“Then I will trust you with something that Lady Kyma wishes me to show you. Come.” Andvari led Roan out of the throne room and down an empty corridor.

He removed a golden medallion from around his neck and pressed the medallion into the surface of a carved piece of one of the stones in the wall.

After a moment, the stones broke apart with a soft whoosh of air to reveal a doorway.

The room was filled with towers of gold coins and treasures too great to count.

Andvari led Roan to a black marble pedestal, atop which was a box made of a dark silver-black metal that Roan recognized came from the heart of a star that had fallen to the earth.

Andvari passed his hands over the symbols carved into the surface of the metal in a pattern that seemed to make sense only to him. With a soft click, the box lid opened. Inside, a ring of black onyx sat upon a pile of gold dust.

“Only use it in the final hours, if you must. To wear it is to die,” Andvari warned him.

“How does it work?”

“You will know when you put it on.” The dwarf king produced a slender black leather pouch and folded it around the ring to safely tuck it inside without touching it.

“Tell no one of this, Roan. No one .” He gave Roan the pouch. “It was forged under a black moon’s light.”

Shock tore through Roan at the dwarf’s actions. “The black moon? You dared to make a weapon in such a way?”

The black moon was the one night when the moon’s power changed, during a lunar eclipse. In those times, the realm of the Fae was covered in true darkness. Enchantments made on such a night were far more powerful, but they always carried a great and terrible curse.

Andvari’s broad shoulders sagged. “The day I ascended the throne, Lady Kyma came to me in a dream, telling me that I must make this. She warned me that the peace I would build could be destroyed if I did not offer the Unseelie king a weapon to protect us all. She spoke of you, old friend. I made this ring in secret, alone in my private forge. Lady Kyma somehow knew it would come to this.”

Roan wanted to push the cursed ring back at his friend.

“Keep it. Defeat Culan however you must,” Andvari insisted. “For Lady Kyma’s sake, for all the others who will die if he is not stopped. It may be that only a great sacrifice will stop him.”

Roan closed his fingers tight around the black leather pouch and thought of Kate lying dead, Culan standing over her... an innocent even among innocents. He gave a shake of his head, trying to dispel the terrible vision, and focused on the matter at hand.

“You will see that Kyma’s sisters are properly buried? And do what you can to protect the surviving trees?”

Andvari nodded. “We will. If we come under attack, I will light the beacons. Tell your guards in the palace to watch for them.”

Roan nodded. The spells around the labyrinth prevented messages from being sent between the palace, the dark woods, and the Black Hills.

Only the pixies could travel across the labyrinth unaffected by the vast network of enchantments, but Roan was not about to put the fate of his kingdom at risk by trusting pixies.

If Culan came for the Twilight Court, he would have to pass through the dark woods and the Black Hills on his way north.

Then he would have to contend with the labyrinth.

The labyrinth’s enchantments prevented flight over it, but all the same, Roan didn’t trust those safeguards alone.

If Culan was determined to attack the Twilight Court, he would find a way, a hole in the labyrinth’s defenses.

No Unseelie would sleep easy for a while, least of all Roan.

His thoughts turned to Kate again, and her brother.

Caden was safe in the palace under Eudora and Rath’s watchful eyes.

Kate was in the labyrinth with Patch to keep her out of trouble.

In some ways, she was safer there than at the palace because Culan would come to the palace directly and avoid the labyrinth if he could. But if he couldn’t...

Roan bid Andvari goodbye.

Hagni and his men left Vol Buldohr and resumed their patrols on the borderlands. Roan once more took to his owl form as he flew back to the palace. Warm air carried him higher, but then a distant cry from the depths of the labyrinth reached his tufted ears.

“Lord Arun?”

Roan dove toward the labyrinth, seeking Kate, but she was hidden from his view.

He reached out to Kate and searched for that ever-growing connection between him and the mortal woman.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Show me.”

The whisper came back along the pathway that connected them, and he felt a power that stiffened his feathers like no other.

Only one place affected him like that, a place that moved constantly in the labyrinth.

The Crystal Cave. It was a place between worlds, half in his, half in Kate’s.

Great power was trapped within the crystals of that cave, which bled out into its pools.

It was not a safe place for Kate without him there to protect her.

Roan flew faster, tracking the magic in his mind until he found the cave’s entrance.

He landed before the dark opening and returned to his true form.

The connection to Kate was growing stronger.

She was unwell, he could feel it. Her pain beat at his skull like the drums of war.

The sound of his boots echoed as he walked down the glowing tunnel until it gave way to a vast cave. He halted at the sight that met him.

Patch sat upon the ground, hands knotted in his brown cap, his wrinkled face strained with concern as a small female troll cradled an unconscious Kate in her arms. Blood soaked Kate’s hair by her temple.

No ...

Culan couldn’t have found her, not here, not in the safety of the labyrinth. It wasn’t possible... The faces of the dead dryads blurred in his mind with Kate’s, and his knees suddenly threatened to give out.

She’d been hurt, his Kate... The cave shuddered around them, rocks cracking above and below, as rage filled his blood.

Roan grabbed Patch and lifted the kobold in the air. “What have you done?” Patch tried to respond but couldn’t get any words out as Roan shook him. “You little fool !” Roan snarled. “I’ll kill you and every kobold who’s ever breathed your name?—”

“Lord Arun,” the troll interrupted, her voice tremulous. “I am to blame. Kate is brave. Kate saved me .”

Roan dropped the kobold with a thud, and Patch scampered away, cap still clutched in his hands. Roan turned to the troll, his temper still roiling. His hands itched to touch Kate, but he had to calm down first or his magic could harm rather than heal her.

“Tell me what has happened, troll.” Roan crouched down in front of the creature, who held Kate protectively in her arms.

In a slow but competent tale, the troll explained how Kate had rescued her, and their flight from the other trolls.

She explained how Kate had been struck by a rock, but that they couldn’t stop moving until they were safely away from the danger of the other trolls.

That was how they’d ended up in the Crystal Cave.

So Culan hadn’t found her. Roan felt he could breathe again, but only just. Kate had been hurt. He had told that damned Patch to keep her near the outer sections of the labyrinth away from all of the dangers that existed deeper within.

“Give her to me,” Roan said, holding out his arms. He was calmer now and ready to heal her.