Grayson kisses me softly. “One more battle. One last fight.” I nod, wanting to believe it. It’s always one more battle and one villain, one more injury and loss. I know I can’t keep doing this. “The tsar is in the dungeons down below, with your mother watching him along with injured guards. She wants to come visit you when you’re ready, but she thought you might need us first.”

“Terrin’s sister?”

“She is under the watch of the Shadow Dragons and Terrin…” Grayson rises to his feet. Arden picks me up and tucks me into the bed, making it clear where I’m staying. I’m not even strong enough to fight him off, despite Lysander healing me. “I’ve just heard something on the way up here. The Air Court is under attack. They’re slaughtering them.”

My blood goes cold. “How the fuck did you learn that?”

“Emrys’s cousins and close friends got out in time with a bunch of children from the school…but they were the only survivors so far. I’ve ordered for portals to be sent but carefully, as we don’t need Aphrodite getting in here again. We had to help as much as we can, but there’s so many islands. Without the air king and the secrets of the Air Court, there’s nothing we can do to get them all,” Grayson softly explains, but I hear it in his voice, the same feeling echoing in my chest…horror. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the Air Court.

I push the cover back off my legs. “We have to go?—”

“Fuck no.” Arden covers me back up and shakes his head. “You’re injured and weak.”

“He’s right,” Lysander agrees. I must look like shit if Lysander is agreeing with Arden of all people. “I’ve healed you the best I can, but you need to rest. You need to sleep it off. You used an extreme amount of power and nearly died.”

I huff. “No. Where’s the sword? I’ll get the sword, and I’ll open a portal to?—”

“No,” all three of them say at the same time. Suddenly, having more than one insufferable mate doesn’t seem like the best idea. Especially when they team up and use common sense.

Grayson sits next to me and picks up my hand. “I can’t let you go there. Ares…well, Emrys, he’d be forced to kill you. You said that he nearly killed you before, and you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself.”

“We can’t just leave the people of the Air Court to die!” I shake my head. “They are innocent.”

“If we go in now, when we are all weak and injured…we are killing the best hope the rest of the world has. I don’t want to leave them, but we cannot go in there right this moment,” Arden gently explains. “Princess, they chose the Air Court for that very reason. It was easy to take and hard to defend. It’s a really bad strategic move for us to go in, princess.”

“I don’t care about strategies. I want to go after Ares, and I can’t just leave Emrys and his court to fall. I already had to leave him in the last test, and now he’s been taken from me again! It’s all my fault! He stepped in. He killed Ares for me. It should have been me.” I suck in a breath. “And now I have to leave his people to die?”

“What would Emrys want?” Lysander asks. Shadows are pouring in around the room, and I barely notice them, notice my powers reacting to me. None of my mates move. They’re not scared of it. Not the darkness in my soul. They neverwere. Emrys, least of all. My favourite moments of Emrys flash through my mind, every protective moment, every time he told me he loved me, every time I loved him too. “He’d want me to make a plan and attack with a strategy…not like this. We need to gather the armies, and we can do that. We can do it in a day. We just need time. Emrys, he wouldn’t want me to risk my life. He wouldn’t want us to risk you all.” All the fight leaves me as I lie down, hearing them softly whisper to me that it will all be okay. It’s hard to believe them.

I barely remember going to sleep. I must have passed out, and I don’t dream. When I wake up, all I can smell is bacon and butter. Bacon sandwiches, to be exact, on a tray with juice and fruit, and a purple flower in a vase. Grayson is leaning against the window, looking out at the smoke that makes the daylight seem darker. Arden has his eyes closed as he sits on a plush chair in the corner of the room, scattered paperwork and scrolls on his lap, book piles pressed against the side of the seat. He isn’t sleeping, I don’t think, because he is so silent. Both of them have changed clothes and had a shower by the looks of it.

“Where’s Lysander?” I ask. Arden nearly jumps from the sound of my voice, and I wince. Maybe he was sleeping.

Grayson turns, his eyes bloodshot, and he looks so tired it hurts my heart. “He’s gone to help his brother with the healers. He’s a good healer himself, and to save lives, he needed to leave.” I raise an eyebrow. “Yes, surprisingly, he’s grown a heart after becoming yours.”

I grin just a little, but the smile leaves me the minute I think of Emrys. I clear my throat. “I’m feeling better now and?—”

“I hate to interrupt your battle plan, but you’re not leaving that bed until you have eaten.” Arden points at the tray. “Try it, princess?”

I pout a little at him as he comes over, picking the tray up and dropping it in my lap, but the minute I take one bite ofthe sandwich, I end up devouring the lot. I was starving, and I barely noticed, but my mates did. I feel guilty even eating when Emrys is… My mother knocks the door twice as she steps into the doorframe of the open doorway. She looks as exhausted as everyone else, and there is a cut on her forehead, but she has changed clothes at least. She bows her head to Arden and Grayson before walking to the bed. “Darling, how are you feeling? I checked up on you, but you were sleeping earlier.”

“Good,” I tell her as she leans down and kisses my forehead.

“I saw you fighting out there, and you reminded me of your father…the last time I saw him.” She gulps. “I couldn’t save him, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to…” She pauses. “I’m so happy to see you are okay, and I’m sorry about King Emrys.”

“We will get him back,” I firmly state, feeling certain that I will have Emrys back. I have a plan…and no one is going to like it. “I had?—”

The door’s knocked again, and a guard stands in the doorway, his head bowed low, and he doesn’t rise. He is covered in blood, a massive wound on his stomach, and behind him is Jinks, barely managing to hold the man up as he passes out. Jinks half carries the man in, dropping him on the chair where Arden was with a grunt. “He just appeared in the middle of the castle, your majesties, and demanded to see you.”

Arden leans down to lift the man’s head up, and Grayson goes still. “It’s Remy. He is a trusted royal guard and a friend of Grayson’s.”

“I barely recognised him with all the blood,” Grayson claims, looking at Jinks. “Tell me you’ve called for a fucking healer?”

Lysander rushes in, heading to the man with only a quick glance my way. He heals him with water, the brilliant clear sea-like water washing the grime from Remy’s face, and he finally wakes up. Grayson is in front of him but not close enough totouch. “What are you doing here? Where is my sister? You’re her guard!”

“She’s gone and you should kill me for my error.” Grayson literally drains of colour, stumbling back. I climb out of the bed, rushing to his side.

Lysander swears. “What the fuck do you mean, gone? Dead or…?”