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I take her hands in mine, twisting her palms upward. I hover my own over top. That kernel that remains in me, the one still clinging to the roots of Castletree, I summon it. A dusting of snow wisps into her hands. You’re not alone. Have hope, my Rose.

She cups the small amount of snow, then holds it to her heart, closing her eyes.

I inhale, waiting, holding on to my own hope.

Then she nods. “I’ll try.”

“Then it’s decided.” I turn back to the council. “We’ll attempt to open the Celestial Landing.”

Ezryn sighs, the sound reverberating in his silver helm. “Alright. Let’s say we find our way to this forge. Who’s crafting these weapons?”

I raise a brow and look around. Everyone’s giving Ez the same expression.

He throws his head back. “I can smith a sword, but I have no concept of how to imbue it with the magic of a divine weapon! Rafael’s secrets are lost!”

Something moves in the room’s corner. I leap backward, reaching for a sword that doesn’t exist.

A shadow detaches from the rest. A shadow wearing a bright pink garment with a terrifying depiction of an orca on it.

Wrenley strides toward the table.

“I thought you didn’t want to come to the meeting,” Rosalina says.

“I said I didn’t want to be part of it. Listening is another matter,” Wrenley responds with a sneer. She lets loose a sigh, then looks up as if she can’t meet our gazes. “Look, it’s probably taboo to speak his name in these chambers, but Kairyn near dedicated his life to discovering the secrets of the divine weapons.” Her eyes fall on Ezryn. “I know where he kept all his research. I can show you.”

Ezryn stands perfectly still for a long moment. Then he nods.

“It’s decided,” I say. “Tonight, Ezryn and Wrenley will collect Kairyn’s research. We leave for the Celestial Landing in Winter at first light. There’s no more time to waste.” I cast my gaze to the ceiling as if I could pierce it. “We find a way to the Above, or the Vale will follow in its footsteps. Another ruined world.”

13

Ezryn

My breath comes out in deep reverberations, the only sound in the echoing chamber of Queen’s Reach Monastery. The air is cool and ancient. Each lungful feels as if it has been drawn by thousands of fae before me.

The chamber I’ve found myself in is not one I’m familiar with. There is a well-made bed, sheets pulled tight. A layer of dust has fallen over it, but there still appears to be an outline of a small body, where someone may have lain for hours upon the blankets. A wardrobe opens to several identical hanging black robes. Chunks of rubble in the corner—parts of the stone wall smashed in—reveal exactly whose bedroom I’m in.

Kairyn spent countless lonely nights here, far up in the tower of Queen’s Reach Monastery, able to gaze down on the city that shunned him. The brother who abandoned him.

I regard the imprint of the body on the bed. Too small for my brother, even before he was transformed into an underfae.

Maybe his nights weren’t always lonely.

Not after he found someone as hurt and angry and ambitious as he was.

I turn back to the sprawl of papers before me. I’m sitting at a mahogany desk, facing the corner. Over twenty notebooks are laid out, all covered in my brother’s handwriting.

And his artwork.

He’s drawn diagrams and sketches: weapons, forges, measurements, temperatures. This hammer for that procedure, this technique for a sword, and that one for a lance. Theories upon theories of Rafael’s long-lost forging process, backed up by references to texts and oral reports.

The air shifts ever so softly beside me. I don’t turn, but my ear twitches. Beneath my helm, I ease my gaze to the side and watch as a shadow detaches from the wall.

She loves to do that.

A part of me wants to chide her for always moving within the shadows, feeling like she has to sneak up on me. But instead I say, “I never knew my brother was such a talented artist.”

Wrenley stops walking toward me. Pauses. Then she crosses the distance, looking over my shoulder. Her hand drifts over the pages of an open notebook, caressing the lines of ink. “He could paint too,” she says quietly. “Beautiful sunrises and sunsets. He’d never keep them though. Never thought they were good enough.”