Page 62 of The Crowned Queen

They walked through the night, cutting through the countryside instead of going back to the road. Loren remembered this as farmland, dotted with clusters of homes where entire generations of fae had lived and worked the land. How many times had he ridden through here with his father, traveling from Tirnavel to Aetheris?

“The Arcanum drove all the fae who lived here into the cities,” Finn said quietly. “Humans tried to settle it at first—but there was too much trouble with the forest.”

Loren watched his shadows ghost across the remnants of an old stone foundation, only the hearth and chimney left standing. “How much wild magic does it take to keep humans from taking something that doesn’t belong to them?”

Finn chewed his lip. “There’s no good way to explain it,” he said finally. “You’ll just have to see.”

They reached Elvanfal just as the sky was starting to lighten.

Loren stared out over the cleared ground at the fortified timber wall, trying to reconcile what he was seeing with his memory. Twenty-five years ago, there hadn’t been a wall. The forest had come right up to the buildings, sheltering the bustling town under its spreading branches. He’d spent the night at the inn here the last time he left Tirnavel—staying up too late in the common room drinking and laughing with Thorne and their friends. They had all been so young then, unshadowed by doubt and guilt.

That was all gone now.

In its place, the wall jutted up from barren earth, logs the height of two men driven into the ground and lashed together, with watchtowers spaced at measured intervals. Sentries—no doubt armed with bows and iron-tipped arrows—paced the top, staring out across the wide swath of ground the Arcanum had cleared in every direction.

She was in there somewhere. He hadn’t felt her since Faerwyn—not with Serafina stopping him to make sure he chugged back another few swallows of that horrid tea every few hours—but he knew she was in there. Trapped and suffering.

Then go get her, the shadows hissed. Tear down their wall and lay waste to their camp. Teach them what real magic can do⁠—

“There’s too many of them, Loren,” Finn said softly. “They’d shoot you dead before you made it to the gate.”

Loren ground his teeth together, glaring across the open ground. Nothing grew there—not even the hardy scrub that had scratched and pulled at their clothes all day. Even the shadows refused to touch it, their many voices rising in a furious hiss that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“Our intelligence says they seed it with salt and iron every fortnight,” Finn said. “And burn it to ashes twice a year to keep the wild magic back.”

Loren stared at the barren ground, taking in the fortifications with new eyes. “That seems excessive.”

Wild magic didn’t behave like that. It could be dangerous, certainly, but there was no will behind it. No direction that would make a decades-long campaign like this necessary.

“We don’t have all the answers,” Finn agreed. “But they’re fighting something out here. So everyone keep your guard up.”

They moved deeper into the trees, the silence broken only by their soft footfalls and snorts of the horse carrying Serafina and their supplies. It tossed its head as they moved under the branches, the whites of its eyes rolling until Serafina leaned forward, calming it with gentle hands and soft words.

The scrub thinned out the further they went, giving way to a soft carpet of old leaves and moss. New green shoots pushed up through the decay, reaching eagerly for the sunlight that filtered down through branches heavy with unfurling leaves.

“Oh,” Caela whispered, craning her head back.

The shadows slipped away from him, spreading out through the trees that rose like pillars around them, their crowns tangling together to form a soaring canopy. Below, thick roots heaved through the dark earth, knobbed and gnarled with age, moss clinging to their ridges like thick green velvet.

“These trees must be hundreds of years old,” Brynn said, resting her hand against a tree trunk it would have taken three of them to circle.

Loren pushed back his hood and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of birds chattering in the canopy. Something small and quick darted through the leaf mold, scurrying away from them. He took a deep breath, holding the cool air in his lungs. It tasted like damp earth and sap and growing things—like home.

“They are,” he said, his chest tight. “But you should have seen Tirnavel. The palace was built in and around trees that were thousands of years old.”

“I would have loved to see that.” Serafina smiled, reining in the horse. She tilted her head back, looking up at the branches above them. “I always wanted⁠—”

“Stop!” Naeva’s voice rang out, panicked. “Everyone, stop!”

Everyone froze. Naeva was breathing hard, her wide amethyst eyes fixed on something no one else could see.

“Naeva—” Finn carefully didn’t move his feet, his eyes darting around their surroundings searching for the threat. “Talk to us. What are you feeling?”

“I—I don’t know.” Her voice shook, sweat standing out on her forehead. “But something is wrong.”

She turned, looking around at each of them until her gaze landed on Serafina.