I can’t keep forcing all of this water down into the underground caverns, and there are millions of cubic meters of it in the dam above.
The dam.
Pain screams through me as I turn all my focus upon its stone walls. Rock turns molten, hissing with steam as I force it to fuse, until there are no more cracks, no more mortar. Simply an enormous expanse of solid rock forged together.
And then it’s slipping through my grasp as a spearing slash of pain drives through my right eye. Behind it.
I stagger away from the tree, and suddenly Ayelet’s the only thing holding me up.
“You’re safe,” I whisper, running my hand through the fringing of hair that shields her face.
She starts crying, but she only squeezes me harder.
And it finally hits me.
We’re alive.
We’re all alive.
The street lies in ruins, and I’m ankle deep in water, but nobody was swept away. The Wayfarer’s Oak still stands. Indeed, it seems to be growing as I watch, new buds unfurling from the ends of its branches, and bright green leaves bursting into life.
Did I do that? I can feel it still, its roots anchoring deeper and deeper, almost…. Almost as if it reaches for the ley line.
A shadow falls over me.
I’m so weak I can barely keep my feet, but as I sway a dark figure lands in front of me, strong hands capturing my arms.
Thiago.
“I think I broke your city,” I rasp and try to smile.
I lean against him and one of his wings tucks protectively around me.
“Vi.” There’s a look upon his face that I’ve never seen before. “You were supposed to get out.”
“You were supposed to fix the dam situation.”
Curse it, my throat feels like I’ve swallowed pure fire.
“I thought you were—” He bites off the words, his jaw locking as he turns to the side. “I didn’t think I would reach you in time.”
And my bleary eyes take in the crowd of people gaping at us.
Distrust fills their eyes and the way they look at him—and his wings—hurts my heart. They slosh through the draining water toward us, barely daring to let go of each other.
He is the monster they all fear.
Even in losing this hand, my mother wins.
Until a single woman breaks the spell, daring to step toward us.
“Ayelet,” she whispers, and then she’s no longer tremulous. She runs toward us and snatches the little girl up into her arms. “Ayelet.” Drawing back, she runs both hands over the child’s face as though she can scarce believe she’s still alive. She looks at me over the top of the child’s head, tears sliding down her face. “Thank you. Thank you. You saved us all.”
And as I look around I realize they’re no longer looking at Thiago’s wings, they’re looking at our feet, where the water has finally cleared.
Flowers bloom around us, little blades of grass pushing through the crevices in the cobble stones. A thin vine curls its way up my leg, caressing my calf.
What in Maia’s name?
“I’ve heard them say that when your mother bound herself to the land, the earth blossomed at her feet for her,” Thiago says. “There is summer in your veins. The city blooms for you.”
It starts with one man.
He goes to one knee, bowing his head. “My queen.”
And then the handsome fae youth at his side lands harshly on his knee. “My queen.”
One after another they fall to their knees, and it’s no longer a whisper, but a rising chant that pulses in time to my heartbeat.
“My queen.”
“My queen.”
“My queen.”
It echoes through the streets until there are hundreds gathered, all of them bowing toward me.
Thiago looks around. Something raw touches his expression; a mix of awe and love and admiration. And then he too is going to one knee, capturing my hand and squeezing it between his. “My queen.”
Every inch of me aches.
Burned fingers. Bruised ribs.
But more than that, the heavy cloak of fatigue that hovers over me like a pile of boulders about to collapse.
“Get me out of here.” I know too well the power of symbols. “Before I fall flat on my face.”
And my dark prince sweeps me up in his arms, cradling me close. “As you wish.”
Then he launches into the sky, not bothering to hide the sweep of his wings.
Because nobody’s looking at them anymore.
Chapter Eighteen
“What in Maia’s name just happened?” Finn groans, sinking into a seat at the council table. “I stopped to sit on the dam wall for a second and now I have thorns embedded in my ass.”
Thiago woke me an hour ago and I’d crawled out of bed for the meeting. He’d been wearing muddied leathers, and his dark hair was grimed with blood and dirt the last I saw him.
And now he’s late.
Finn and Thalia are the only ones pacing the council chambers.
I couldn’t be bothered dressing, so I simply drew a dressing gown over my nightrobe and ventured down here with bare feet.
“Maybe if you ask nicely, Eris might remove them,” Thalia tells Finn with a sweet smile.
Finn cuts her a look. “If I asked her to remove them, she’d pour salt in the wounds.”
“Few rewards are won without enduring great hardship.”
The pair of them bicker back and forth, while I lean forward and steal a handful of dried figs off the plate in the middle of the table. It groans with soft cheeses, hard-baked biscuits and dried fruits. Thalia’s doing, no doubt. She seems to take it upon herself to feed us at any and all opportunities.
“Speaking of Eris, where is she?” I stretch and yawn, tucking my feet up beneath me on my chair.
“Ransacking the city,” Finn says absently, staring at the map on the table.
“Cleaning the blood from her sword,” Thalia replies.
The double doors to the room slam open and Thiago strides in.
“Torturing our enemies,” Thiago says curtly.
Baylor follows at his heels, his green cloak swirling around his boots. I didn’t see him
