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A soft, triumphant smile overcame his features, dimple popping, as he observed just how easily he could get to me.

Though, despite the welcome distraction, that heavy feeling hadn’t left.

I looked up into Byn’s face, trying to read him, when he leaned down and lightly planted a kiss on my lips.

Sparks raced inside my veins at the contact, and it took all of my self-control not to groan with disappointment when he pulled away just a heartbeat later.

“Be safe, alright? I’ll see you soon,” he said gently, voice full of emotion that I couldn’t seem to place in the moment.

** *

Kicking up a plume of dirt and huffing in frustration, I dropped to the forest floor, wings dragging. This small clearing was still covered overhead by the trees, and most importantly, was vacant of any soldiers or trokavs.

Since we left Cairnyl, any spare moment I had was spent attempting to use the booklet Rayven gifted me to shadow wield. What I didn’t realize when I began, though, was that it was unlike any other zirilium I’d ever used.

I hadn’t even come close yet, and I’d been here for hours.

Taking a deep breath and letting Rayven’s written words flow over me once more, I turned my attention inward.

Shadow wielding isn’t something you force, it has to choose to work with you.

Loosening another breath, I focused on the shadow of a branch that lay before me. I analyzed the shape of it, the small gaps where the leaves parted overhead. The dark color of it, where the shining light of the moon overhead had been blocked out.

You can’t bend it to your will right away—you must bend to it just as much as it bends to you. Meet it in the middle.

I kept my full attention on the shadow, slowly feeling a light buzzing sensation overcome my outstretched arms, closest to the darkness. I summoned a dredge of my own energy with those words in mind, and shoved that surge towards the shadow.

With that, I felt a tether snap into place—like pieces of a puzzle fitting together at last. I gasped at the contact of energy, and flicked a single finger out of place.

The edges of the shadow moved in rhythm with the motion.

I let out a victorious laugh, hopping to my feet once again, making sure to not let go of that tether of energy.

To become shadow, you have to surrender your entire being to it—nothing can hold you back.

Taking another steadying breath, I attuned my mind to that connection before me. My fingers were still tingling, and I hoped to the Stars that was a good sign.

I rolled my shoulders back, slowly relaxing each muscle in my body. I let go of my anxieties about the war to come, about Aurora who I’d left in Cairnyl, and the brother I’d likely see during battle in a matter of hours.

Each deep breath I released, I let go of another anxiety. And with each breath, more of my body was overcome with that tingling sensation. First my hands and arms, then from my toes up my legs, and onward.

Another series of breaths, and I stopped worrying about if I’d have to face anybody I knew during this battle, if my friends would survive, if my father would come to lead his people himself. My people.

The sensation spread up my limbs and into my torso, up my spine. I knew if I looked at my hands, I’d likely see the beginnings of my body turning to shadow, but I didn’t dare break my eyes away from the shadow before me and risk losing that focus.

Just as I went to take in another series of breaths, to hopefully succeed in this task, a crushing weight sucked the air right out of my lungs.

Gasping, I felt that tether between me and the surrounding shadows collapse, and I stumbled back a step at the loss of contact.

But the weight on my chest wasn’t coming from me.

Byn.

As fast as my muscles would allow, I spread my wings—taking up the entire width of the small clearing—and used that pain and agony in my chest to guide me to him.

I followed that feeling deeper into the forest, farther away from the South’s campsite.

If Byn wasn’t feeling his best, reconnecting with nature and grounding himself with it would have been one of the first things he attempted to do.

I remembered him mentioning that during one of our late night talks while at the cabin.

I followed those emotions as if they, too, were a tether between us—between our very souls.

Soon, heart racing, I circled over the same small group of trees twice when I finally spotted him below the largest of them.

Drawing my wings in, I fell, only releasing them again when I was close enough to the ground to catch myself and elegantly land just a few feet away from my husband.

The sight before me left me feeling gutted.

Byn was kneeling, hands covering his face, and was violently hyperventilating. Tears streamed down his face, and his entire body shook with the sobs that wrecked his chest.

Flinging myself onto the ground before him, I gently grasped his hands in mine and pulled them free of his face.

“Byn,” I said softly, my voice steady despite my racing heart and panic of my own blooming in my chest.

His eyes shot up to mine, darting around my face before landing on my eyes again. His breath was still coming quicker than I could count, but I could feel his agony ease just slightly at the sight of me before him.

Despite the small reprieve he seemed to have when I arrived, his hyperventilating resumed quickly, his hands leaving mine to reach up and grip his hair tightly.

“Byn, my love,” I said, then flared my wings out and around the two of us. Letting him once again enter one of the only places in the world I’d ever felt truly safe, and hoping he’d feel the same.

“Byn, focus on the calm you feel in my chest—like I focused on yours back at the cabin. I’m here,” I offered, hoping focusing on one steady emotion would help.

He shook his head side to side forcefully at the idea, but was unable in the moment to offer a further explanation.

Not knowing what else to do when that didn’t ease his pain, I decided to do exactly what he did for me all those months ago when I first arrived.

Wrapping my arms around the male I had come to love more than life itself, I pulled him to me so his head rested on my shoulder, and began to hum.

I hummed that same tune that had weaved into my head and never left, though I’d only heard it once.

I began softly, a bit tentatively, but when he didn’t pull away after a heartbeat, my courage grew, and the notes I made became stronger, though just as gentle and loving.

The tune itself was beautiful, though a bit on the sad side. It was something bittersweet.

I gingerly ran a hand up and down his spine—his shirt damp with sweat—as I continued to hum. With each passing note I released, his hyperventilating slowly ceased and his breaths deepened.

After a few more notes, the tune came to an end, but I continued to move my hand along his back until he was finally ready to lift his head on his own.

When he finally did and met my eyes, I could feel the love and gratitude radiating from him in place of that crushing weight—but the anxiety of his was still ever present.

“Tell me,” I said gently, but firmly.

Byn began shaking his head, and a haunted look overcame his expression. Suddenly, I felt like I could actually see just how heavy his crown weighed upon him.

Cupping one side of his face, I turned his head to look at me once again.

“You can’t deny something is wrong any longer. Tell me,” I said quietly. “Please, my love.”

His mouth set into a firm line, as though he was trying to stop his lip from trembling.

Then, as if a dam inside him had broken, he simply poured himself out before me.

“I’ve known I was to rule for years now, but that responsibility has never felt heavier than it does right now.

The pressure to be perfect all the time, to always have the right answers.

The weight of not only my sisters depending on me, but an entire kingdom…

” He let out a shuddering breath. “The last time I planned a battle, strategies and all, as I did tonight, my parents died.” His voice broke as tears once again welled in his eyes.

“Who is going to die because of my decisions this time? How many families will I have to face who loses somebody in this battle? Each and every person who dies on this battlefield is an additional weight on my soul, along with my parents’ deaths.

” He paused, taking a steadying breath. “Sometimes I go over in my head how I could have positioned our army differently last time, in order to spare my mother and father. Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, I wish I could have traded my life for theirs.” He said the last part so quietly it was hardly a whisper, tears escaping his eyes.

Hand still cupping his cheek, I tilted his head up to meet my eyes so he really heard me as I spoke.

“Your parents would have not changed a single thing, if it meant you got to keep living, Byn. Not a single thing. They loved you, and Margo, and Teagan with their entire beings, and if they could redo it, they wouldn’t change a thing—I guarantee it.

My love, they wouldn’t wish this for you in the slightest, but I know that when their time came, they were confident their kingdom was in good hands with you as their heir.

They had faith in you, believed in you, because they knew how courageous, loving, and brave you are,” I said with confidence.

“Not only that, but you don’t have to carry these burdens by yourself anymore. We’re in this together now, and any decisions you and I make, we face the consequences together, alright?” I asked.

Byn, still looking slightly doubtful, nodded his head. But behind the doubt clouding his eyes, I saw something even brighter.

Hope.

“Why couldn’t you focus on my calmness?” I asked him, my voice displaying only genuine curiosity.

At that, Byn paled slightly. He rubbed the back of his neck, obviously reluctant to share as he explained.

“Emotions can’t… expand, or take over others, like I might have allowed you to believe.

They still have to go somewhere. When you focused on my calmness and peace back in Echen Bay, and took it into your own chest, I took all of your panic and fear into myself.

Essentially, we swapped emotions in that moment.

” He paused. “It was the only way I could think to help you at the time.”

“Byn…” I started.

The tightness in my chest from Byn has ceased completely now, only slight guilt radiating from him now, but just as he opened his mouth to respond, we both heard it.

“Robyn!” The sound of somebody running through the brush. “ Aviva! ”

“That’s Teagan,” Byn breathed.

Him and I shared a single glance, then I was retracting my wings and we were both on our feet, following the sound of Teagan yelling our names.

Because of the darkness of the forest at this hour, I took the lead, my eyes adjusting better to the lack of light.

“Teagan!” I shouted into the forest.

“This way!” she responded, and I shifted our direction slightly to the right, when I finally saw her up ahead.

My feet carried me until we were upon her, Byn at my side and Teagan panting slightly.

“What is it?” Byn asked tightly, and I could tell without the feeling in my chest that his anxiety was rising once again—along with my own.

“They’re here,” she breathed, “the North. They’re on the horizon as we speak.”