Something clenches behind my sternum. I won't let it crumble. I know how much it means to her, that small, improbable house where she spent so much of her life, where Josephine planted roots and made it home. Elle will need something to come back to. Something that smells like her childhood, that holds the memory of who she was before the marks and the magic and the sacrifice.
I give Bryx a nod. "Be thorough. And be careful."
"Always careful," Bryx says, which is a spectacular lie, but I let it slide.
Vashael approaches me then, and I can tell by the deliberate way she moves that she's about to say something I don't want to hear. She places a hand on my arm, warm, steady, her pollen leaving faint golden residue on my sleeve.
"Kaelren." Her voice is gentle in a way that sets my teeth on edge. "You need to slow down. Elle would not want you running yourself into the ground like this."
I growl before I can stop it, low, instinctive; the corruption flaring dark beneath my skin. "Don't tell me what she would want. Don't you dare speak for her when she can't speak for herself."
Vashael doesn't flinch. She never does. "Nimor and I are going to scout the eastern territories today. See how the rot is receding and assess where regrowth needs support. I can accelerate the restoration in areas where the soil is still viable." She squeezes my arm once, then lets go. "When you're ready to talk, I'm here."
I don't respond. She didn't expect me to.
Sarnyx and I load up the bees within the hour. Mine is a dark-banded worker with silver markings that remind me of things I'd rather not think about, and it lifts into the air with the kind of effortless grace that makes riding feel like controlled falling. The wind is warm, thick with the scent of new blossoms and freshly turned earth. Wynmire healing itself, slowly, stubbornly, the way all living things do.
The flight to Willowmere takes less time than Sarnyx estimated. The settlement appears through a break in the canopy, a cluster of structures built into and around a grove of ancient willows, their trailing branches forming natural walls and walkways.
The settlement is larger than I expected. Several hundred residents, maybe more, all moving with the organized purpose of people building something from nothing.
We're met at the border by a woman who introduces herself as Thessara. She's tall, lean, with bark-textured skin that marks her as old-growth fae and eyes the color of river moss. She grips my hand with a firmness that says she's not interested in ceremony.
"Thank you for coming," she says, leading us through the settlement toward a central gathering hall—a massive willow hollowed and shaped into something between a council chamber and a cathedral. "I know you're busy."
"Sarnyx said you wanted to discuss a council structure."
"More than that." Thessara gestures to a carved table where maps and documents are spread. Other community leaders are already gathered, a mix of fae, root-touched, and a few I can't quite categorize. "The settlements are governing themselves, but we're isolated. Each one making decisions that affect the others with no coordination. Trade disputes. Resource allocation. Border disagreements that could turn ugly if we don't get ahead of them."
She lays out her proposal with the clarity of someone who's been thinking about this longer than the peace has existed. A regional council with elected representatives from each settlement. Shared trade agreements. A rotating mediation system for disputes.
Her plan is smart. Thorough. The kind of governance structure that might actually work if people cooperate, which they historically don't.
I offer what guidance I can. The little I absorbed from years of watching the old court operate, before the corruption and the betrayals made such knowledge useless. Sarnyx takes over the finer details with her usual precision, her thorns retracting fully as she settles into the rhythm of negotiation and logistics.
I try to stay engaged. I do.
But my mind keeps drifting to the locket against my chest, warm as a heartbeat, pulsing with something that isn't quite presence but isn't quite absence either. I reach for the bond, that impossible, stretched-thin thread connecting my now to her everywhere, and feel what I always feel. Fragments. Echoes. The ghost of her consciousness learning things that would unmake a lesser mind.
Still here. Still fighting. Wait for me.
Always.
I'm looking at the map, but my mind is somewhere else when the ground shifts.
Not dramatically. Not at first. A tremor that starts deep and rolls upward, rattling the carved table, sending documents sliding. The willow walls groan, their ancient branches swaying with a violence that has nothing to do with wind.
Around me, the meeting descends into panic. People shout, grab children, stumble for doorways. Thessara barks orders with impressive authority. "Stay calm, move to open ground, away from the structures,"but her voice carries an edge of genuine fear.
The tremor lasts maybe fifteen seconds. When it stops, the silence that follows feels heavier than the shaking.
Sarnyx is already on her feet, thorns extended, blood-colored eyes scanning for threats that aren't physical. She finds my gaze and I see the same calculation in her expression that's running through my mind.
"That wasn't natural," she says quietly.
"No," I'm already moving toward the door. "It wasn't."
We tell Thessara to stay safe, that we'll send scouts back to report. She nods, jaw tight, already redirecting her people toward damage assessment. She's capable. Good. Because I can't stay.
