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Cedric’s hand slid up her spine, steady and careful. “You did it,” he said softly. She wanted to cry at the warmth in his voice, even as she could tell the task had taken its toll on him, too.

Her crown was not hot anymore. It felt like . . . well, like a crown. As they had suspected, the power held within the Crowns of Concord did not appear to be infinite. It was not gone entirely, not empty. But it was sleeping once more.

Elyria lifted her head, blinking hard, forcing her eyes to focus. The sight before her was not particularly pretty. A jagged, uneven mound of land marked where the two sides of the Chasm had sealed together. It stretched to Elyria’s left and right, and though thick morning mist covered the ground and made it difficult to see more than a few hundred feet in any direction, she knew in her bones that it went on for miles.

She wondered what it looked like, where the scar began to tear open again. Was it like a ripped seam on a pair of trousers, widening ever so slightly, inch by inch? Would it be the same every time, to pull that thread and seal it up?

She supposed she would find out soon enough. There would be time to fix the rest later, when the crowns awoke.

For now, they still had a far more pressing problem to solve.

Tristan and Ollie had already approached, the two of them grinning as they clapped Cedric on the shoulder. Elyria turned to see Tenny’s luminous face, her cheeks shining with fresh tears. Beside her, Kit exhaled so forcefully, her entire torso seemed to cave in on itself—like she’d been holding her breath the entire time they’d been at work.

Jocelyn was smiling as she gave Elyria an approving nod, while Shep and Zephyr had their hands clasped in front of them, their heads bowed in reverence, like they were praying. Elyria shook her head at that and walked over to where they stood with the other sylvans.

“None of that now,” she said with a breathy laugh. “I am the last thing you want to worship, believe me.”

Zephyr bit her lip as she straightened. “Elyria, I—” She inhaled sharply through her nose. “I truly am sorry. For everything. You must know that⁠—”

Elyria stopped her with a lift of her hand. “I understand why you did it. What you were trying to save.”

Zephyr’s forest-green eyes grew glassy.

“That doesn’t mean I might not still get surly about it every now and again,” Elyria added quickly, folding her arms over her chest. “But fuck it all. I don’t want to bring grudges into the Arcanis we’re trying to build. So let’s just . . . not. Yeah?”

“If that’s what you want,” Zephyr replied, throat bobbing, “then of course it is what I want too.”

“Oh, fine, if you’re going to be all magnanimous and forgiving, I guess I can try too,” Kit grumbled, slinging an arm across Elyria’s shoulders and giving Zephyr a quick nod. “Damn fine bit of magic there, Ellie. Just in case nobody’s told you yet.”

“It really, really was,” Zephyr said softly, her eyes darting to the sleeping crown still gleaming atop Elyria’s head. The look in the sylvan’s eyes was once again so alarmingly reverential that Elyria was quick to vanish the headpiece with a wisp of magic.

None of that, she thought. She was still just Elyria, after all.

“Do you think there was a lot of damage done to the villages that border the Chasm?” she asked.

Kit gestured to Kinsgaith behind them. “You tell me. Sure doesn’t look like it. Felt no worse than a mild earthquake. I’m sure the fine people of Havensreach will be able to manage cleaning up a few potentially shattered dishes or overturned tables.”

“A small price to pay for a healed land,” offered Shep.

“Aye,” shouted Thraigg from where he and the other dwarves were laughing among themselves. “Nothin’ more than the damage we’d’ve caused at the Walking Goat, had we remained there last night.”

Elyria was still contemplating this when she felt Cedric step up behind her. She turned to look at him, taking in his brutally beautiful face and noting that he had already banished his own crown from sight.

He was a quick study, that solimaeus of hers.

“Where’s Sid?” he asked, pursing his scarred lip to one side.

Kit released Elyria, her silver eyebrows drawing together. “She was, ah, right here the whole time you were—where did she go?”

The conversational murmurs from the soldiers still standing nearby shifted into something that felt much more akin to alarm, and Elyria spun to see new shadows forming atop the freshly sealed seam of the world.

Multiple gazes shot to her as she watched the rapidly expanding pool of dark smoke with wide eyes. “It isn’t me,” she said warily, just before Sid popped out of the shadows.

But the relief was momentary—just a flash. Because the shadowcat wasn’t the only one who appeared.

48

THE NIGHT RETURNS