Page 305 of Blade of the Nightking

I gave a disbelieving scoff. "It can't be in Midland."

"I'm almost certain it is." He pointed to one of the lines sweeping across the map. "A Vein once passed directly beneath it. One that fed into the Thornlands."

"Rìan." His name tasted strange now, bitter. "I lived there my entire life. I never once felt what we did at the other two wells. Never once sensed even a trace of that magic."

He folded up the map and tucked it back into his pocket.

"You couldn't even sense your own magic while the Veil stood. With the mortal lands drained for centuries, either your senses were dulled, or the Well remained dormant, preserving its power while severed from the rest of Elantis."

“But…” I couldn’t make sense of it. “How…?”

“It doesn’t matter how, Eidra. All that matters is getting there as quickly as possible and bleeding into the damned thing.”

His dismissal stung more than I would have liked, a flare of anger tightening my mouth.

“Saskia,” he said, just loudly enough for her to hear. She turned and strode toward us. “Midland it is.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek, her expression darkening. “That won’t be easy. It’s crawling with the Bone-Wrought.”

My heart clenched. My town. My home. All those people…

Laurie.

His face surfaced in fragments, like a memory already beginning to fade. The scattering of freckles across his nose. Kind brown eyes. An easy smile. Everything else had already begun to blur.

“Are you certain?” My voice came out thin, almost pleading.

Rìan's gaze snapped to me, but I had eyes only for Saskia.

She gave me a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, Eidra. The place is infested. No survivors.” She rested a heavy hand on my shoulder, the hooked talons of her bone gauntlet catching lightly on the fabric of my shirt. “No survivors anywhere. The mortal lands have become a place of death.”

A strangled laugh escaped me, shrill enough to make worry flicker across her face. “They always were.”

She ran her tongue along the outside of her teeth before turning back to Rìan. “We cannot make it there before nightfall. And I don’t recommend wandering those lands after dark.”

“That’s fine,” he said briskly. “We’ll camp here tonight and continue at daybreak. Thank you for your help, but we’ll continue alone.”

“Ha.” She let out a quiet laugh that sounded more like a bark. “We will accompany you to the settlement.”

“That’s unnecessary. And dangerous.”

“Trust me, my Prince, our kind do not fear death.” She pressed her palm to her forehead and bowed her head. “We will accompany you to the end.”

We settled in a nearby clearing long before dusk surrendered to true darkness, choosing one far enough from the creek that the sound of water bubbling over stone wouldn't drown out the approach of anything moving through the forest. Even if Rìan and I could smell the Infected long before they reached us, the Bone Women had survived these lands by trusting their own ways, and they had no intention of abandoning them now.

We lit no fires. Raised no tents. There was no idle chatter to fill the evening, no stories shared beneath the fading light. We ate in silence, passing strips of smoked venison from hand to hand alongside fistfuls of dried berries and nuts. As night fell, two women rose without a word, bows in hand, and disappeared into the trees while the rest of us settled onto the ground, propping our packs beneath our heads as pillows.

I lay awake for a long time.

I listened to the sounds of the forest. The endless drone of insects, the distant call of an owl somewhere high among the branches.

There had never been anything but silence and death in this place. But now life poured back into it with eager determination, creeping across the land and reclaiming every inch that had been taken. It didn’t mourn the centuries stolen from it. It simply returned, as though the land held no memory of the suffering it had endured, refusing to dwell on what had been in favor of what could still be. As though it understood that death had never truly been an ending, only a passing season.

Across the clearing, Rìan lay upon his back, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting loosely across his chest. Even from here I could see it—that faint silver glimmer in his eyes, subtle as starlight caught upon deep water. Awake.

As though he felt my gaze on him, he turned his head.

Our eyes met.