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“I’m happy too,” he replied.

Elyria exhaled. Tomorrow still loomed at the edge of her thoughts, of course—the healers, the elders, the uncertainty, the possibility of pain or disappointment or, most likely, both.

But it didn’t terrify her.

Because whatever fate awaited her wings, awaited herself, she knew one thing with absolute certainty:

He would be there.

PART III

DESCENT

27

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

KIT

The woods were quiet as Kit strolled through the rainbow-leafed trees. The final dregs of sunlight filtering through the leaves painted the ground in shades of red and green, purple and gold.

She smiled.

It was easy to forget that outside the sanctuary, winter was arriving across Arcanis. Not while she was here, where things seemed caught in a state of perpetual autumn. Like summer had barely tucked itself in for the season.

And as much as Kit loved the cold, this was nice too.

Especially for Ellie, she thought, running her palm along the rough striped bark of a nearby silveroak tree. She deserved some warmth. Deserved some time in the sun after spending so long in the dark.

It had been three days since Elyria underwent the procedure to reattach her wings. Three long, quiet days of enforced rest, whispered consultations, and careful optimism from the sylvan healers who attended her. They all moved with a tenuous kind of calm, as though afraid the wrong move might cause hope itself to crumble at the edges.

Elyria, unsurprisingly to literally anyone who had ever met her, was going rather stir-crazy. She had probably spent more time in bed over the past week than she had in all two and a half centuries of her life combined. Her restlessness was understandable, to be fair. There was only so much to entertain in this place and only so far one could push aside the looming threat of Malakar and his followers.

Cedric rarely left Elyria’s side, and when he did, it was primarily to confer with the council of elders. Kit wasn’t sure exactly about what. More safety concerns about the glade, she supposed. Was the council taking him seriously? Or were they simply placating their golden prince? The elders met on their own far more often, issuing orders among themselves in low voices, but Kit had no idea what their meetings were about. She didn’t think it was her place to know.

The only other reason Cedric left Elyria was when it was his turn to pace through these very woods, keeping vigil at Elderglade’s entrance, guarding the sanctuary like a stalwart hound. And occasionally like a rabid one, with the way he barked orders, making sure the group kept a rigid patrol schedule—someone inside the gate, someone outside it.

Kit couldn’t blame the knightling.

She understood all too well how much it helped to have purpose. It was why she, too, had been more than happy to volunteer for guard duty. Why she had been so eager to throw herself into her Aerithian mission, into the audiences with her uncle, into trying to secure all avenues for aid . . . even if it did result in the less-than-ideal outcome of putting Elyria back into contact with her father.

So, yes, while Kit couldn’t deny feeling like Cedric was being slightly overprotective, she did understand it.

Still, his concerns about the faltering protections of the sanctuary did seem overblown. After all, why would Nox have sent Sid with Elyria’s wings if the protections of the sanctuary had been compromised? Surely it must have been because the nocterrian still could not enter themself. Because Young Shep was right, and Sid was, just like Elyria herself, exempt from the rules because of her bond with Cedric.

Nox probably had simply not been interested in spending days camped in the woods outside the entrance, waiting for Elyria to heal, waiting for the rest of their party to be ready, to move out. It would be perfectly understandable if that was the case.

It just also would have been nice to hear that from them directly.

Kit pursed her lips. Daeglen—and her last exchange with the nocterrian—felt like eons ago, and she hadn’t heard from Nox since they parted ways. Why hadn’t the right bastard sent at least some kind of message, some kind of letter? She knew they were perfectly capable of doing so. Their gifts—celestially given, as it turned out—outfitted them perfectly for being able to communicate despite distance and differing paths.

Made them the perfect spy for the Warden of Shadows too, she reminded herself bitterly. She hadn’t precisely been surprised to hear of Nox’s ties to the dark star god, but she would admit that she was less than pleased at not having heard it from the nocterrian’s own mouth.

Something that felt suspiciously like concern prickled the back of Kit’s neck. Is that where they were now? Running more of Noctis’s errands? Fulfilling more of the celestial’s tasks as part of their thousand-year-long contract?

Kit sighed and pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket—Tenny’s most recent missive. At least someone was keeping Kit in the loop. And what a revelation it was to know exactly what a person was thinking, to know exactly how they felt, because they actually told you as much.

Tenny’s elation at knowing Elyria was safe, awake, and lucid had been a joy to read, though even if the words themselves hadn’t said as much, Kit would have been able to tell. Tenny’s excitement radiated through the page, embedded in the way her normally tidy script had become slanted, the way the elegant, patient loops in her O’s and L’s had gone slightly wild in this latest letter.