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Just a few more minutes, I beg, burrowing into my magic.

Sweat drips down my temples, my nape.

“What’s wrong with the Fae Isles, Grandmother?” Riven asks.

Rosemarie shrugs.

He lets out a frustrated growl. “Look at her.” He gestures to me with his free hand. “She can’t hold on much longer. Is there anything you can tell us that will help me and our people?”

The lines around his grandmother’s mouth tighten. “I think I’ve meddled enough.”

Death laughs, and Rosemarie smiles.

The latter glances between Riven and me, her eyes lingering on where our hands are joined together.

“Rosemarie,” he pleads. “I’m so sorry for what my grandfather did to you, for how our people treated you. I know I’ve been a shitty grandson, but I’ll do better. I’ll do right by you, by Archer. But to do so, I need to stop the blight.”

Her focus drifts to the stars, to the constellation of the bow and arrow twinkling in the night sky.

“When whispers of treason reign, a mother’s fear shall bring forth pain. But what was cursed and self-denied will be mended by an otherworld bride,” she whispers. “Only when Thaelon blood joins with other will the curse break and the Fae Isles recover.”

Riven staggers backward. “She didn’t.”

Your time is up, Death says.

Pain flares behind my eyes as a sharp, insistent pounding rings in my skull, drowning out whatever Rosemarie says in response to Riven.

I can make out the single sentence on her lips, though.

Riven Thaelon has been cursed.

And not by a witch.

Death presses a kiss to my forehead. Goodbye for now, eternal one.

The world around me bursts into vibrant color, just to be swallowed whole again by endless darkness.

Chapter 13

RIVEN

Color returns to the world around me the moment Gwyn collapses. I suck in a sharp breath as if I’ve emerged from the depths of an ice bath.

In one fluid motion, I catch Gwyn before she can hit the snow-packed earth.

“Sovereign Sisters,” Arkyn hisses. His fists unclench from where they dangle helplessly at his sides, his hair sticking up at odd angles as if he’s run his hands through it one too many times. I glance at the muddy earth where he paced a trench into the snow outside of the ring Gwyn drew around us. “You were gone for hours. I nearly snatched you out of whatever black hell she dragged you into.”

“Hours?” I ask, voice unusually hoarse. “That’s imposs⁠—”

I cut myself off the moment I notice the smooth blend of pale pink, golden yellow, and bright orange bleeding across the horizon as the sun begins its quiet ascent beyond the mountains.

Fuck me.

How can it be dawn? It had felt like we had only spoken to Rosemarie for minutes.

Just enough time for her to turn my entire world upside down.

When whispers of treason reign, a mother’s fear shall bring forth pain. But what was cursed and self-denied will be mended by an otherworld bride. Only when Thaelon blood joins with other will the curse break and the Fae Isles recover.