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Tristan attempted to laugh while they rolled him gently onto his back. It came out in a wet and bloody rush, red leaking from either side of his mouth. A mouth that was not laughing anymore. Because his new position allowed him to catch sight of Ollie’s lifeless body beside him. And Tristan’s whispered “No” as he reached a weak hand toward Ollie broke Kit’s heart all over again.

“I’m sorry, Tris. I’m so sorry.” Tenny’s cry shifted into chest-heaving, heart-wrenching sobs. “It’s going to be all right,” she spluttered, grappling with her empty token. “You’re going to be all right. Just hold on. Please, please, just⁠—”

“Stars fucking damn it, no!” The rawness in Cedric’s voice was like a punch to the chest, crumbling yet another piece of Kit’s heart into dust as she turned to look at him.

Cedric’s face was pale, but he was standing and he was whole as he, too, joined the others around Tristan. Shep was right behind him, green light still flickering in his palms. But even as Kit backed up to make room for the two of them, even as they pulled crystal shafts from Tristan’s armor and worked together in tandem with Tenny to stem the flow of blood from each wound, a dark understanding came over Kit.

She knew that the sylvan’s magic was close to being spent, that he had already healed so many, that Cedric’s own grave injuries had used much of what was left.

She knew that Tristan was human. And the human body was not meant to take four arrows to the chest and gut and make it out alive.

Tristan coughed again, and more blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, painting the strands of blond hair stuck to his cheeks red.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Tris,” Cedric said, one hand gripping the knight’s shoulder, the other placed atop his heart. “Do you hear me? I command you not to die. You’re going to fucking live.”

With what seemed like great effort, Tristan tore his gaze from Ollie. There were tears in his sky-blue eyes as he huffed a weak laugh, laying a shaking hand over Cedric’s. “Well, if my king commands . . . then I shall have to obey.” His eyelids fluttered shut. “After all, there are still so many people left in this world I’ve yet to f . . .”

Tristan’s arm went limp. His hand fell away. The rise and fall of his chest grew even shallower.

“No, no, Tristan,” Tenny said, hands still pressed to his wound—one of his wounds—with desperate fingers.

“I said, no, dammit!” Cedric roared, golden light pouring from his fingers as he slammed his palm against his friend’s chest. And then Kit and Tenny and Shep were all gasping as more impossible things happened at once.

Cedric’s eyes shifted from a glassy brown to a radiant, gleaming gold. The veins under his skin lit up, luminous and incandescent, waves of holy power rolling off him. The crown atop his head flared with white-gold flame.

The ground rumbled.

The earth shifted.

And Kit’s gaze snapped toward the gaping crater behind him just in time to see the remaining mist of power churn into a vortex that sucked itself back into the earth.

It took the crater with it.

The edges began collapsing inward, the ground folding in on itself, yet also, somehow, growing anew in the open space between. Black stone settled where the crater stitched itself together—a door being shut, a wound being healed.

Kit ignored the pain in her side as she scrambled back to her feet, lunging at the closing crater. Her lungs burned as she sprinted for the edge, boots slipping on the blood-slicked ground. And then strong arms were wrapping around her middle, holding her back, and Kit screamed.

“Fuck, no, no—Ellie!” she cried, thrashing against Nox’s hold. “Let me—she’s still down there! Let me go!”

“You cannot,” Nox said softly in her ear, and a sob ripped from Kit’s throat.

The field shuddered violently as the final part of the opening sealed⁠—

—but not before a shadowy blur burst upward into the sky.

Elyria shot out of the collapsing crater, wings opening wide as soon as she cleared the edge. She floated there, a shadow against the sunlit sky, the aurora pulsing above her, crowning her in a halo of uncanny rainbow light.

There was her actual crown, too, the gilded spires gleaming under the bright sun, Ashrender gripped in one hand, her staff in the other.

New tears sprang to Kit’s eyes as she gazed up at the very picture of the divine.

A low whistle sounded from behind Kit. “Stars a-fucking-bove, Elle. That’s some entrance.”

Still folded in Nox’s arms, Kit turned.

And then she was crying for a whole slew of new reasons.

Because Elyria was here.