6

SERPENT
LIKE SALVATION

The news about Vetris spreads around the crew like the fire that’s consumed it.

Lucien stays at the railing for hours until the wind changes, east-northeast to south, or so the captain says. The smoke then clears, and we can finally see it. Vetris, in flames.

Vetris, ruined.

I kick myself. I should’ve told him—I should’ve told him I saw her near the grasslands in my dreams. I didn’t. I didn’t, and now…

your mistrust will kill them all.

I push the hunger down and breathe. Nothing to be done. There’s nothing to be done now. The fourteen men taught me this, and taught me it well. It’s the past. Lesson learned. I have to learn from it.

Even if I told him I saw her near Vetris in my dream—what could we have done? She’s so powerful. We can’t weaken the bond between the valkerax and the Bone Tree, not yet. What would it have done, other than cause him great grief?

The exact grief he’s feeling now.

Fione, with nothing left in her stomach and half recovered, pulls her weary self over by the railing and offers Lucien her brass seeing tube first. And then he offers it to me, his face stone and yet green on the edges.

The white walls rot gray with ash and smoke, the glistening palace’s spires are fragmented and broken, the body of two massive valkerax impaled on them and dripping blood down the palace’s marble walls. The Crimson Lady is torn asunder, its two perfectly cleaved halves crushing scores of houses below it. Vetris’s only hope against Varia’s magic, the entire reason I was sent into Vetris instead of a witch—now nothing more than red rubble. Red, strewn with long white shapes. Valkerax, dead. Dozens of them. But not hundreds. The dense army camps ringing the city are scathed by fire and craters and broken horses, dogs feasting on the remains.

Crows—black ones—wing in heavy murders over what’s left of the city.

Vetris lost.

Just like that. As easily as that. All the combined might of the polymaths, all of Cavanos’s army, the thing the witches feared so dearly—defeated. Vetris won the Sunless War thirty years ago, against the might of the witches and their Heartless and their magic. But against the valkerax…

The seeing tube is strong, but not strong enough to see the individual details—whether or not the aquifers are intact, how many bodies there are.

“South Gate sustained the heaviest damage, looks like,” Malachite says dully. “And the noble quarter is completely trashed. Judging by the valkerax corpses, it wasn’t an instant attack—the royal family might have had time to evacuate.”

It’s a kind word, meant for Lucien. But the prince’s expression doesn’t so much as twitch. And the swirling in my gut says otherwise. The palace is rubble and sand. No one could’ve lived through that.

“There’s not enough dead valkerax—which means she didn’t even send her main force.” Fione’s voice is cold, compact. Only what’s necessary. Her way of dealing. “An auxiliary would be enough to do this—twenty or thirty.”

Just twenty, just thirty…did all this? I know how big the valkerax are, how powerful. I trained Evlorasin, for New God’s sake! But still, I’m aghast. Lost for words, for thought. Lucien says nothing, seeing tube riveted to the city again. Malachite pats him once on the shoulder, then wisely steps back to give him room. The beneather makes his long-legged way over to me.

“I’m amazed they took down that many valkerax,” he mutters at my side.

“Likewise,” I say softly. “But I suppose the majority of the king’s forces were gathered in the city at the time.”

“Except that just means they have nothing left to fight back with. That’s why Varia hit it first, probably: hamstring the bulk of their forces at once, and they lose all hope.”

I watch Lucien’s hawk profile. “He wants to be down there. With his people.”

“Sure. But that’s not gonna stop Varia. He knows that. We all know that. Our best bet’s Windonhigh. Find what we need to know, get out, and use it against her.”

“Fione’s taking it too well.”

“Nah. She’s just hiding it.”

“And you?” I ask. “You seem awfully calm.”

“I’m used to losing a lot of people at once.” He sighs, resigned. “Comes with the territory of hunting bloodthirsty giant wyrms, you know? Doesn’t mean I don’t feel it; I’ve just learned to deal with it. You’ve gotta deal with it, or it drags you down into despair. Big endless pit.”

I nod. “Yeah. I know.”

“’Course you know. But the nobles over there don’t. They’re different from us. I mean, they do know, but only in theory, in war tactics. Books. Concepts and tutoring. Not reality. So go easy on ’em.”

“I’ll try.”

He pats me on the shoulder the exact same way he did Lucien, then heads over to the captain at the helm. The crew’s whispering can’t be contained, filtering in from behind me.

“Begods, look at the state of it.”

“Spirits save us—valkerax. My grandpa’d be rollin’ in his grave if he could see this.”

“There’s none left to see. None but corpses in Vetris now, I reckon.”

“Ach, shhh! Don’t ya know that black-clad one’s the prince of Cavanos?”

“And I’m a sage-duke. A prince wouldn’t be up here bumming with us. He’d be down there, fighting or fleeing or whatever it is royals do during war.”

“We’ve still got the whole armada, don’t we?”

“The valkerax keep in Cavanos, there’s nothing to worry about. Let ’em rampage, long as they stay away from my wee ones cross the mountains.”

I feel it suddenly, like a latch clicking into place. My limbs go numb, zinging as if asleep, and Lucien seems suddenly…bigger. Taller at the railing. He’s a vacuum pulling my eyes in, my body in.

Magic.

“Lucien!” I stagger as the airship gives a massive heave. The crew crows about turbulence, and I manage to scramble off my knees and toward the prince. “Lucien! What are you doing?”

He won’t turn to face me, but his hands on the railing are already pitch-black up to the wrists. The wind whips his hair back and forth, erratic. I know that wind. The wind before teleportation.

“Don’t!” I shout over the howling. “Lucien, it’s too far away; you’ll hurt yourself again—”

“Again?” Malachite catches my arm as the ship gives another heave.

“He’s—” I gesture wildly at the prince’s back. “His right eye, it’s gone! Using magic beyond your physical limit is— He’s going to teleport down there—”

Malachite snarls a beneather swear and launches himself forward, grabbing the railing and Lucien’s shoulder all at once.

“Luc, look at me—”

And he does. He tilts his dark-haired head over to his bodyguard, his friend, and the hawk-eyes I know so well are eclipsed, no whites to be seen. Black and only black, deep and endless.

“There’s no time.” Lucien’s voice comes out even, still as water. “We go.”

“Mal!” I reach for his hand, grabbing Fione’s and pulling her toward Lucien. Fione’s moment of confusion, Malachite’s tense brow of realization, and then the feeling of being pulled inexorably somewhere, in one arrow-direction by the guts, the sounds of the howling wind and the uneasy crew and the creaking airship evaporating into total silence. Blue sky, white sky, and then black. Nothing but black.

With the faintest pop, color flicks on again—crimson flames licking old wood buildings. Sound crashes down on my ears all at once: screaming, crying, hysterical shouting, and the crackly eating noises of fire. A village. We all stagger forward into a village on fire, Lucien clutching his left hand to his chest and panting.

“Luc!” Malachite turns to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Help…them.” He points with his right hand at the village. “Go.”

“Lucien—” Fione starts forward.

“Go!” His roar is louder than the fire for a moment and his eyes, now normal again, flicker over to me, wordless and pleading.

go, the hunger echoes him faintly. But he’s put no magic behind it. It’s not a command. It’s a wish. A desperate request.

“C’mon!” I snag Malachite by the chainmail. “We’re pros at this by now, right? You check the buildings still standing, Sir Fireproof. Fione—let’s gather the survivors and get them to a safe place.”

Lucien’s eyes soften in gratitude. Malachite tries to argue for one second, sees the look between the prince and me, and makes the decision to dash into the blazing walls of fire. I take off downwind, and Fione trots after me, keeping up surprisingly easily considering she just spent the last couple halves retching.

“Not a fan of the sky, huh?” I shout back, passing her my handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth.

“Certain parts of me aren’t keen on the sky, apparently. The polymaths say every day we should try to learn something new about ourselves.”

Her dry joke gets me, but only for as long as it takes for me to see a little crowd of huddled children by the remains of the town well, smeared with ash and fear. I gather them up with promises of their parents, and Fione offers a few of the more dazed-looking ones water from her skin.

“What happened?” Fione asks a child gently. They gulp water greedily, and lower the skin only to point wordlessly at the ground.

There, in the perfect ashen detail of the dirt, is a massive scratch mark. Four lacerations deep and long in the earth, punctuated by a titanic paw impression, white fur and scales scattered about.

Valkerax.

It might still be around. Lucien—I can’t be worried about Lucien. Not now. He teleported us from an airship who knows how many miles in the air to the ground. To a village somewhere in Cavanos. All four of us. By himself. It took three witches to teleport just me from Nightsinger’s house to the Bone Road. And after Varia teleported herself and me to the Tollmont-Kilstead mountains, she was so exhausted I had to carry her the rest of the way to the Bone Tree.

He’s hurt himself. He had to, to do this.

I shake my head, gold hair sticking to sweat. I can’t think about that now. He wants me here, doing this. Not worrying about him. But I can’t help it. If he keeps going like this—if he keeps trying to help people with his magic without regard for himself, he’ll…

The children follow behind Fione and me like exhausted ducklings, too scared to even cry or complain. The only thing that makes them jump is the occasional crack of wood as another village building collapses. The smoke’s not thick enough to obscure vision—the southwardly wind mercifully wicking most of it away. Less casualties, then, at least by smoke inhalation. It’s the little things in life.

Ingeniously, Fione uses her seeing tube to point me in the right directions—east, a pair of elderly men; northeast and between the burning market stalls, four teenagers trying to persuade a terrified cow to move. It finally decides moving’s the better option when I lovingly bite its flank as hard as I can with all my Heartless teeth. The children don’t follow me after that, preferring Fione and the more human adults, and I can hardly blame them; I wouldn’t trust a lady with fresh cow blood on her mouth, either.

At last we catch up to the majority of the village, stripped down to near-nothing and forming a long chain of sweaty bodies between the secondary well and a burning building, passing buckets upon buckets of heavy water to each other. On the frontlines, another chain of humans frantically shovels as much dirt onto the fire as they can, swapping in another villager when one starts to buckle. It’s an incredible display of human cooperation, but it’s a futile one—the building looks to be on its last legs, and the rest of the village is faring no better.

“What is that building?” Fione asks.

“The main granary,” one of the teenagers speaks up. “For winter.”

“The most important building in the village,” I muse.

“If we lose it…” An elderly man trails off at the look the children give him.

“You won’t.”

The new voice comes from behind us, and we whirl. In my heart I already know who it is—always. Lucien. He looks better than when we first arrived, his left hand no longer cradled by his right. Maybe…maybe he didn’t hurt himself? No. He’s just hiding it. For me. For all of us.

Because he’s the prince of Cavanos, and he’s been taught to show nothing but strength.

follow his example, you useless creature.

I step forward, the hunger and worry gnawing equally at me. At the determined look in his eyes. But Lucien cuts me off, catches me in it, and smiles. That real, true smile, cutting bright against the smoke and gloom.

“It’ll be fine,” he says, confident.

His body goes completely still as he bows his head ever so slightly on his chest. He holds both his hands up, and I’m only half relieved to see the left one rise. It shakes, his fingers trembling as they turn midnight to the knuckles. He’s not up for this. He’s going to hurt himself—

How can I stop him?

How can I stop him from doing what he wants to do? What he’s always done? Protecting his people is what he lives for, I know that, and still—

Cries rise up as the chain of men scatter, all of them clutching their buckets and fleeing from the pure, transparent column of water rising from the well’s mouth like a languid snake. Malachite rushes into the town square just then, covered in soot and carrying an unconscious little girl in his arms, a terrified woman trailing behind him. He shoots a look at me, red eyes in red flames, and all I can do is shake my head.

Let him.

All we can do is let him.

This is what he wants, more than anything.

The water column writhes, undulates, and then pauses at the very peak of its height, looming tall over the village. And then Lucien gnashes his teeth, eyes flying open and the whites crawling with tendrils of black. Like a signal, the water darts forward, languid no longer, and winds between the piles of dirt being shoveled, picking up more and more of it, the transparency turning thick and dark. Mud.

The men leap back, the children start to cry, and elders make Kavar-praying motions, fingers to their eyes, and for a moment, I’m reminded of Ania. Ania Tarroux, the pious, beautiful, kind Goldblood who taught me how to pray.

Ania Tarroux, the girl I tried to give Lucien to. The girl who died, torn apart by Heartless on the road fleeing with her family to Helkyris.

I raise my fingers to my eyes, too. But it’s not the New God I pray to. It’s her.

Because she feels more real.

Because she loved him too, once.

Please, Ania. Please shield him from his own magic.

The muddy column grows distinct—fangs, a frill, a snub-tipped nose, and a long, forked tongue. A real snake. A snake like on every banner of his father’s, every seal of his letters, every emblem of his breastcoats. Surrounded by the d’Malvane snake, making it flesh. Maybe not on purpose. Maybe, deep in his mind, it’s a symbol he’s always wanted his people to know as one of safety. Not Vetrisian witch-persecution. Not Vetrisian noble excess. Protection.

The snake hovers, as long and wide and big as a valkerax, and then strikes. It lunges after the fire on the granary’s roof, snapping its jaws as the muddy water surges over the building. The snake eats the fire, a trail of smoke hissing up wherever it touches, and the fearful cries of the villagers slowly, slowly turn to cheering. Malachite whoops, and Fione’s tense face allows a single small smile, one of the children squeezing her hand. Even the cow seems to relax, drooping its head and picking at a tuft of spared grass.

Lucien remains taut, arcing his midnight fingers to the left, and the snake moves with it, scattering over the village and shedding itself as it goes—sheafs of water like scales being dropped, all the fire sputtering out on contact. One by one, the village houses stop burning, smoldering down to mere hissing embers. Lucien raises his arms, and what’s left of the snake ascends, higher and higher, before bursting out of its shape, muddy water raining down on the last of the buildings.

The cheering grows thunderous, and Lucien is swarmed by his people. Sweat and mud slicks his brow, but his face—his expression. Gods, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I thought I knew him happy. I thought I knew what that looked like. But I had no clue. I had no idea he could smile this big, laugh this purely and without care, the arms of his people reaching for him and embracing him tight. Like a savior. Like a brother.

Like a friend.

…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned to admire about humans, it’s that when there’s nothing left, they become strongest.

The village is a blackened mess. The graves have been dug, and the bodies of loved ones buried. Not many.

not enough.

Even one is enough, I argue with the hunger.

The little girl Malachite saved is now an orphan.

The village gathers around her, around the campfire they’ve made—with some hesitation—to roast sweet tubers and saltpork. Women thread thoughtful fingers through the girl’s messy hair, coo over her brilliant, sharp dark eyes. Her name is Dewen. She’s five—almost Peligli’s age—and she refuses to leave Malachite’s side, shadowing him like an overly attached ferret and demanding to be picked up every few seconds. Malachite obliges insomuch as his patience allows, which is to say, instant deference every single time.

“You’re awful light for a human,” he grunts, circling the fire with her.

Dewen kicks her feet against his chainmail. “No.”

“Yes,” Malachite argues sagely.

“No!” She pouts.

The beneather looks over to where I’m sitting on a pile of mostly clean debris and grins. “Is it just me, or does she sound like someone you know, Six-Eyes?”

I stick my lip out exaggeratedly. “No.”

He laughs and saunters off to show Dewen the Red Twins—two blood-red crescents high in the sky. I surreptitiously shove more of my dinner into my mouth—depressingly, fresh organs very suddenly became a non-rarity in this village. Most of the cows burned to cinder, but a few of their corpses were intact enough to feed from. Fione cut me out a liver herself, which I thought awfully nice of her.

As I wash my bloody hands in a nearby bucket, a sigh slips out. I didn’t expect Lucien to wait on me hand and foot with soggy organs when I became his Heartless, but I didn’t expect him to not speak to me for two whole halves, either. Granted, he’s been surrounded by a thick ring of villagers since the moment he saved them—busy organizing the recovery efforts, turning down what gifts they could salvage from the fire and what village girls suddenly think him overwhelmingly attractive. And I mean, I’ve been busy also. Staring. And dressing what wounded would allow me near them with Fione. But mostly staring.

I suppose a busy prince is better than one who gazes off into the distance, toward the smoke column of Vetris, with eyes like the end of the world. But even so, I catch him doing it in quiet flickers between the bustle. Mourning.

I can feel Fione’s gaze on me as she nears, wiping bloody hands on her apron. We both thoroughly inspect the crowd of villagers from afar.

“Aren’t they supposed to hate witches?” I blow air out.

“It’s difficult to hate someone who saves you,” she muses. “Or someone who looks like, well. That.”

She motions to Lucien’s muddy everything. Even exhausted and covered in dirt, he’s all sharp points and dark brows.

“They do share the same parents, don’t they?” I lean back against the debris, wood digging into my back. There’s a stillness, and then Fione heaves a sigh too, thumping me on the side of the boot with her cane.

“Come on. Let me show you how it’s done.”

“How what—”

She grabs my hand in her tiny one and pulls me to my feet with surprising strength. Haphazardly—but together—we march over to the thronging crowd around the prince.

“I learned very quickly that when one is in love with royalty,” Fione says, words clear over the food-fire’s gentle crackle, “they will always be busy. Always be in demand. One has to insert oneself into their lives, or you’ll become just another subject. You’ll fade away into the tapestries, and then they’ll ask you where you were the whole time, and when you try to explain, it all becomes a massive load of irritation. Excuse me, excuse me, behind you—”

She shoulders through the crowd, parting them with the force of her stride and the height of her chin alone.

“But you’re an archduchess!” I protest. “There’s no way you—”

“Nobility is nobility,” Fione says, weaving around a block of men. “Royalty is royalty. It’s another world entirely, and all we can do is look in from the outside. And occasionally yell, when appropriate.” She turns and barks shrilly over the crowd, “Lucien!”

I see his head pivot, his eyes widen, and he starts excusing himself and making his way over to us. Fione turns to me, the cold-tempered mask she’s worn since Varia left the slightest bit softer.

“You’re part of his life now. You get to take up space. You get to be greedy too, Zera. Never forget that.”

Coming from her, after she’s lost Varia…the words are as bittersweet as the sentiment. I try a smile and clutch her hand tighter. “Thank you.”

A call from the medical tent draws her periwinkle eye, and she releases me. “I should get back. Good luck.”

“Don’t work yourself too hard.”

“Impossible. Have you seen these hands?” She smooths her palms over each other. “I’ve barely worked a day in my life.”

“You’ve worked quite a lot! With your brain.”

“Brains are not hands.”

“They’re basically the same thing.”

“If they were, perhaps we’d have an easier time holding on to our thoughts.” She pauses, her grin miniscule. “This conversation is complete nonsense. You’re rubbing off on me.”

I grin back. “Unfortunately.”

Her mouse-curls fade into the night, vanishing as she steps inside the medical tent. A voice warms the air behind me.

“Zera.”

I turn to see Lucien standing there, all the villagers’ eyes on him. Some try to hide it better than others, but most don’t bother. He’s their prince, after all, and a witch. I glare up at him.

“I’m still trying to figure it out,” I say.

“Figure what out?” His black eyes gleam curious.

“Whatever it is about you they find so fascinating.”

His scoff is soft. “I’m sure you have at least some idea.”

“None at all, I’m afraid.” I turn on my heel and start walking away from the throng of onlookers, into the near forest. “Except the part where you saved a lot of them from certain death. But that’s not typically a quality I look for in a man.”

“And why would you?” he agrees lightly, following after me. “You’re immortal.”

“True.” I wave a finger. “But even immortals appreciate being saved from pain from time to time.”

A blazing heat streaks into my palm, fitting there against my skin. He pulls, the momentum whirling me around and into the crook of his arm, pressed against his chest.

“Were you?” His brows knit down at me. “In pain?”

His mouth is so close, his cheekbone smeared with mud, his hair disheveled in a way it never got in the palace. Breathless. Sincere.

“N-No.” The shameful truth squeezes out of me. “I—I just wanted your attention.”

He tilts his head, outline near-fitting like a hovering puzzlelock before my nose and mouth. “You have it.”

Warm ribbons wind down my throat, through my chest, pulling me closer to him. Enmeshed. When did it become so easy to touch him, so perfect? When did it become so easy to imagine him against my skin, over and over—

He swipes one finger along the bridge of my nose suddenly, then holds it up for me to see the gray smear.

“Ash.” He chuckles. “You’re covered in it.”

“Don’t bother forgiving my impertinence, but you’re no bastion of cleanliness yourself, Your Highness—” I dodge out of his retaliatory kiss, putting a young tree between us.

“Then…” He peers around the trunk. “Should we rectify our sullied states?”

“Common Vetrisian if you please,” I request, sidestepping his hand as he reaches for me. His dark eyes catch red moonlight.

“There’s a creek not far from here—the headman told me it’s where the well’s source begins.”

“And muck up what little water these poor people have left with our sheddings? I counted you better than that, my prince.”

“There’s a pool downstream. It’ll be fine. More than fine—clean. Possibly even romantic.”

“You are exceedingly good at precisely two things, Your Highness.” I rest my chin in a branch and smirk up at him. “The color black, and wooing a woman with the idea of basic hygiene.”

His gaze is a carefully kept smolder. “You’re not going to let me kiss you right now, are you?”

“No.”

“Very well.” He rounds the tree. “Onward to basic hygiene, then.”

With the most unsuitably giddy smile on my face, I follow him over the forest floor, the two of us picking through roots and around mossy boulders in wordless rhythm until the sound of the creek welcomes us. The pool is deep and small, the creek’s waterfall a gentle patter as it empties in and then back out. Summer graces the little oasis with hanging strands of moss threaded with ground violets and white starflowers, the scent like melted sugar and the best parts of an apothecary. The tendrils float in the water, white and purple petals skating over the surface in a gentle, effervescent swirl with the current.

“Far more beautiful than I thought,” Lucien breathes. “He made it sound like a mud hole.”

He turns, and I hear him turn around again when he realizes I’m halfway through pulling my shift over my head. All I can see is gauzy white, and then freedom, my clothes pooled around me and the night air caressing my bare skin and the prince’s back to me.

“Lucien,” I start. “Aren’t you coming?”

“In…” I hear him swallow. “In a moment.”

If my smile gets any bigger, I’m fairly certain my head will split in two. And not in a way that can be healed back up with magic. Triumphant even in nakedness, I hover at the pool’s edge and then slip in.

“Oh! It’s perfect. A little cool, but that’s never stopped me before.”

“I remember it stopping you once,” Lucien counters, unbuttoning his shirt. “When we first met.”

“You were awfully cold, weren’t you?” I laugh, wetting my hair. “Blackmailing me every chance you got.”

“A precaution,” he argues with zero bite to it.

“A way to test me, more like.” I swim over to the side of the pool. “Well? Did I pass?”

I watch him shrug his shirt off, sword-muscles and thief-muscles and prince-muscles rippling beneath skin. His shoulder blades are as wicked sharp as I remember them—his spine a beautiful curve into the hem of his pants.

Pants.

Oh gods.

I look away just in time, the sound of a belt hitting the ground. My skin prickles red-hot under the water, goose bumps and tightness and…I can’t let him see me like this. Cool. Composed. Zera Y’shennria is always cool and composed and ready with some quip. Worldly. Experienced. Never shy. It’s one thing to see myself naked, but seeing him—

“I thought you said the water was cold?” His voice filters out from somewhere to my left, the water rippling as he slides in. “But your face is bright red.”

“It—it is! Cold!” I start, my throat suddenly sand and gravel. “I was just—”

And then he’s there, in front of me, standing chest deep in water and close enough to feel his body heat radiating through it. Droplets gleam on his collarbone as he leans in, putting one broad hand to my forehead.

“Do you have a fever?” He pauses. “Is it foolish of me to even ask if Heartless get sick?”

I can feel the outline of him, the barest skimming of skin against skin—my thighs, his wrist, his ribs, my fingers. Touching me. Just the lightest touch—

he used that against you, the hunger faintly calls from the depths. touch.

My eyes dart up to his face, points crystallizing in the mush he’s made my brain into. I start, my laugh fragmented.

“I was so happy to be with you again, I almost forgot. You—Varia said you’re a skinreader. All those times in Vetris, that kiss—”

Lucien’s hawk eyes close for a moment, then open with renewed determination.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For all of that. The first time was a mistake—I didn’t know I could do it. It just…happened.”

“All your powers?” I press. “Just like that?”

“It was a dream.” He nods. “Varia used to tell me witchbloods became true witches in dreams, but I never understood it. Until it happened. That night I called you to the West Tower, with Malachite and Fione, I dreamed of a tree.”

I slide my fingers through the black-silk water uneasily. “The Bone Tree?”

“No. Just a tree. One of many, in a barren forest of red. It glowed faintly pearl, faintly rainbow, but it was just a tree. I dreamed of it, and it—it didn’t speak, per se. But it stood there, and I watched it, and it made things happen in my head, feelings that weren’t mine. Places I’d never been to. Moments I’d never see.”

“It wasn’t…it wasn’t covered in stained glass, was it?”

“Like from the Hall of Time?” he muses. “No. Though I suppose even that’s gone, too.”

He stares into the water, the perfect dark reflecting his own face back at him. I can see the destruction in his head, playing out in the iron memorization of his home, his city. He knew every street, every street urchin. He knows what Vetris looks like destroyed without even having to try.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “About Vetris.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I got her the Bone Tree. I—”

“You know my sister by now. You know how determined she is. She would’ve gotten it one way or another. And my father—” His next inhale comes sharp. “Vetris has no idea how to fight against valkerax. No one does. No one but the Old Vetrisians, and they’re long dead and gone.”

“The beneathers,” I try.

He thinks about it, then nods. “If we could get their aid—if I could speak to the ancestor council, I might persuade them. But—”

His shoulders faintly shake. Gingerly, I raise my hand to him, warm skin on warm skin.

“But what?” I press.

“It takes twelve beneathers to take down just one valkerax. And a majority of them die in the process. They’re strong, immune to fire. The human death toll to kill just one…it’s not feasible. The sheer amount of valkerax we saw with Varia that day on the mountain—there’s too many of them. Even with the beneathers’ help.”

“But we can try,” I say. “Maybe—when we explain to the High Witches what’s going on, they’ll want to help. And then we get the beneathers, and what’s left of the Cavanosian army, and maybe the Helkyrisian armada, and together—”

“It’s just the four of us.” He sighs. “We can’t remake the old concordats. That was a thousand years ago—and it took decades of valkerax violence before the Mist Continent caved and made them.”

“But we can try,” I stress.

My hand slides down, and he captures it with his, bringing it to his lips. Featherlight, still, molten beneath the satin sheen of water.

“Just for a night,” he murmurs against my palm. “Just for one night, I don’t want to think about it. Is that…selfish of me?”

My laugh is half breath, all nerves. “You’re allowed to be selfish once in a while, Your Highness.”

His eyes dart up to mine, the unspoken future written out, chosen by my word choice. Choices, made one by one, to bring me standing here, in a starlit pool with the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.

I reach my free hand out to his left one, wanting so badly to interlace our fingers. He’s looking at me with so much softness, but his hand doesn’t move. Doesn’t give. It just hangs there, my fingers working into his clumsily. Doesn’t he feel it?

He glances down, and I see his eyes widen. But still, his fingers don’t move.

“Is…is something wrong?” I ask.

“No.” He pulls his hand out of mine. “I’m just tired.”

Cold, slow horror crawls into my lungs. The teleportation of the four of us from the airship all the way into the village. And then the water snake, winding and enormous.

“Lucien, your magic—”

Suddenly, he pulls his whole body away from mine, and his hawk eyes harden. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” I step in, the water feeling like tar. “What else makes you lose function in your body? Surely you weren’t poisoned when I wasn’t looking?”

Lucien turns, bracing his hands on the rock wall like he’s going to pull himself out of the pool. But he just hovers there, clutching on to the harsh, wet rock, to the cracks and crevices of it, one hand limper than the other.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” A plead tinges my voice, and it’s so strange. Uncomfortable and pinching like a brand-new pair of shoes.

“It’s my magic,” he asserts softly.

“You’re my witch,” I fire back. “I’m your Heartless. It’s my magic, too.”

He falls silent at that, and I watch the water ripple around the small of his torso with a helplessness bubbling in my veins.

“You said,” I start, “that whatever I choose, you’d still love me. So I’m telling you now: whatever you choose, I’ll still love you. But I won’t stand by and watch you hurt yourself over and over. You’ve done that enough for the both of us.”

He’s quiet, and then he tilts his head barely over his shoulder, nose and mouth strong. “There’s no other way to stop her.”

“There might be. You don’t know that for sure.”

“I know that when the time comes, I’ll have to fight her,” he says. “Witch to witch. And the thought terrifies me.”

“She—she won’t kill you—”

“No. But I might kill her.”

A thousand weights settle on my chest in an instant. His own sister. The sister he looked up to so fervently, the sister he missed so dearly. The sister who grew up with him, who looked after him. Family. If I could remember what family meant…would I fight them? Knowing I might have to kill them?

No. Not in a million years.

From somewhere completely unknown, I fish up the courage to speak. “It’d be different, I suppose, if you hated her.”

His laugh is the bitter, quiet kind. “Yes. It would be.”

I wade over, ungraceful and uncaring and desperate to touch him. To make things right. Or even just a little righter. I wrap my arms around him, pressing all of me into his back to let him know I’m here. Always.

“I’m sorry.” I say the only thing I can say. His voice this time is hoarse, and on the verge. Of what, I have no idea. I might never know. But I don’t need to know.

All I need to do is be here.

“As am I.”