Cyrene might have clung to her ferocity, but deep down, she was dying.

Her heart was a black hole.

Her soul was a black hole.

Even her magic was a black hole.

Standing up and fighting Kael another day had been the only thing keeping her going. And, now, she didn’t even have that. He had saved her life. He had protected her. She might hate him for things he had done in the past, but she couldn’t seem to hate him now.

That brought her back to reality. And the reality was that she was constantly staring down the abyss.

This was her fault. All of this was her fault.

He had said that, and he was right. Maelia was dead because of her. Dean had abandoned her because of what she had done. She had scattered her friends and lost them all because of her own hubris. Avoca hadn’t even come for her.

Now, she was faced with the possibility of returning home to a place she worried she wouldn’t even recognize. A world that wouldn’t accept her.

They had docked a half hour ago, and still, Kael had not come for her. Still, there were guards at her door. Still, she was imprisoned.

She hadn’t seen the light of day since the attack, except to switch from a warship to a speedier vessel for the ride up the Keylani River to the capital. Then, she’d been shocked to see the river so depleted. Usually, the snow from the Taken Mountains replenished the river every spring, but it was barren on both banks. The Fallen Desert was blowing into Albion, taking over the White City in Cyrene’s absence.

She feared what she would see of Byern. She had grown up here, spent every waking minute exploring the city and then the castle. She couldn’t imagine what could have happened when she hadn’t even been gone a year. And, despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t hate her home either.

Just when she was falling back into that black hole of despair, the door to her chambers opened. Kael Dremylon stood in the doorway, resplendent in all black dress attire with gold slashes across his chest and a Byern green cloak. He looked like a model image of the crown prince he was. She had chosen the red dress once more for her appearance in court and knew that they would appear as a matched set if they rode into the castle dressed as they were.

By the gleam in Kael’s eyes at the sight of her, she knew that had been his plan all along.

He held his arm out. “After you, Affiliate.”

She took a deep breath and then glided toward him. She could do this. She tilted her chin up and acted the part. No matter that she had denounced her title of Affiliate, that she had run from the king himself, that she was technically still betrothed to the prince of Eleysia…

Her hand burned at the ring still sitting heavy on her finger. Kael hadn’t asked about it, but his eyes constantly drifted toward it. Just as they did right now.

“Are you going to wear that?” he asked before they exited the chamber.

She glared at him, hating that he was breaking their temporary truce on the subject.

“Okay,” he said with a grin. “Touchy subject, I see.”

“It isn’t,” she said.

Kael turned to face her, and she braced herself for that look in his eyes.

“Are you truly going to wear an engagement ring into the Byern castle?”

She pursed her lips.

“An engagement ring to an Eleysian royal,” he prodded further.

She gritted her teeth and ignored him, turning her face away. She did not want to discuss Dean. She did not want to discuss the ring. She didn’t want to think about it. Yet she couldn’t take it off.

“Cyrene, consider where you are going and that you will be watched like a hawk. Consider that my brother has been anticipating your return for a long time. Is wearing this really your best idea?”

“What would you have me do?” she snarled.

“I have no qualms with you wearing it,” he said easily. “I suspect most people will believe that it belongs to me.” He arched an eyebrow in question.

She snapped her head back to face him and glared harder. “You and I both know that you have not proposed to me, Kael.”

“Not yet,” he conceded with the boyish grin that she had not seen in so long. “But people will talk. Unless you want them to…”

He was fishing. And she let the hook dangle. She would not be caught. Marriage seemed like a far-fetched, foreign concept to her, and she couldn’t fathom anyone ever proposing to her again. The first time had been one time too many, considering the circumstances.

However, if she was to play the part, walking in on Kael’s arm while wearing an engagement ring was not the part she wanted to play.

“Why are you telling me this?” She knew he had an angle.

“When everyone thinks you are wearing my ring, it will be because I have proposed, and you are wearing my ring. I will not share you with anyone, Cyrene.”

She knew he truly meant that, but it took every ounce of strength in her not to recoil at the way he had said it. The boyish grin had disappeared, and something deep and possessive had taken over him. A touch of darkness, a hint of madness, brimmed at the surface. She hadn’t seen that from him since that night he rescued her from Eleysia.

What part of owning me brought him to the brink of insanity? And why did the thought frighten me so?

“We’ll see,” she finally said with a cool tone.

Deciding then that Kael had a point about the ring, she hurried back to the drawer and removed a long gold chain from a cabinet. She regretfully tugged the ring off her finger, slipped it onto the chain, and clasped it around her neck. Then, she tucked it down her dress and out of sight.

Kael seemed irritated that she hadn’t simply gotten rid of the ring entirely, but he covered it immediately. “Good choice.”

She sent him a dazzling smile at the praise and let him escort her above deck. The first glimpse of her home was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much Byern had been calling her. She knew that she was bound to the country and the Byern throne, but, even if that weren’t the case, it would still sing in her veins.

The peaked mountains that grazed the horizon. The Nit Decus castle nestled in its depths, made of the same gray slate stones from the Taken Mountains. The capital city sprawled out toward the fading green hills in the distance. Her parents had a summer home out that way and would surely be taking Elea there for her last trip before her Presenting.

Cyrene’s stomach twisted at the thought of Elea’s Presenting. With everything else going on, she hadn’t considered that her very sister might end up at the castle with her. Her oldest sister, Aralyn, was in Kell as an Ambassador, and her brother, Reeve, was a High Order. It seemed as if the Strohm family had been bred like horses for the highest positions of the land. And, for the first time, she feared that instead of relished in it.

Trying to clear her head, she took a deep breath and then walked off of the ship that had been her prison. A delegation for their arrival was waiting at the end of the dock, which meant that someone must have informed the court that they were on their way back.

Before they reached the end though, her steps began to quicken, and a true smile graced her face. “Creator,” she whispered.

Kael’s eyes landed on her, and he smiled. “I thought you would like to see them.”

And then she couldn’t hold back. She ignored all decorum and outpaced the crown prince, dashing to her family standing on the end of the deck. Her mother, Herlana, was bedecked in a soft pink dress and was glowing from head to toe. Her father, Hamidon, looked ever the part of an upstanding Byern lord. Having been part of the High Order, he now spent much of his time controlling the provinces surrounding the capital. Reeve stood resplendent in black High Order garb. His dark hair was pushed back, and his eyes shone with unshed tears at seeing her alive.

But it was Elea who had changed the most in the time Cyrene was away. In nearly a year since Cyrene had become an Affiliate, Elea had grown from a gangly teen into a gorgeous woman. She was taller than Cyrene now. Her dark hair was a mirror image of Cyrene’s own—glossy and full. Her plum-purple dress was a good imitation of the style Cyrene herself had debuted at her first Affiliate ball. And she looked ravishing.

And it was in Elea’s arms where Cyrene fell into first. “Oh Creator, Elle, I have missed you so much!”

“Cyrene, it’s so good to see you,” Elea said. “I cannot believe you’re alive and that you have finally come home.”

“We were so worried,” her mother said. She joined her two daughters and pulled them both into a hug.

“I’m fine. Really,” Cyrene insisted. It might not actually be true, but she was alive at least.

Cyrene released her mother and sister and fell into her father’s arms. He held her like he had when she was a child. She might be an Affiliate, but she would always be his little girl.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” he whispered against her hair.

Then, she moved to her brother, Reeve. He was the last member of her family she had seen before she left on procession to Albion…before she had run away. He hadn’t approved of her relationship with King Edric, and they hadn’t left on entirely amicable terms.

But the look in his eyes said that was all forgotten. He held his arms out, and she rushed him, squeezing him tight.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

Cyrene shook her head. “I won’t.”

That, she absolutely meant. She didn’t know where her story was going. She didn’t know what path she was on. She couldn’t care less about some prophecy that was trying to lead her in whatever direction it wanted. Her future was her own from this day forth.

Then Kael reached them, and Reeve released her. Her family bowed and curtsied to their prince. Cyrene turned to face him again. He gave her that same warm smile. She hesitantly returned it.

“Thank you so much for saving our girl,” her mother said with blatant gratitude on her face.

“It was my pleasure,” Kael said. “I’m very glad that she is back and that her official delegation is so welcoming.”

Cyrene felt Reeve’s gaze on hers as she stared back at Kael. She knew he was probably wondering what had happened on the boat for the last two weeks while she was alone with Kael. Not that she was about to discuss that with anyone. Even if nothing had happened. She had been scrutinized in the Eleysian court, but it was nothing compared to Byern. Kael was right to say she needed to be on guard.

“If that is all, then we shall depart in the carriages,” Hamidon said. He gestured to the row of carriages awaiting them off the docks.

Kael nodded, and her family stepped back to allow Kael to precede them. Traditionally, royalty was first, and then it followed by position and rank, which meant her parents, Reeve, Cyrene, and then Elea. But Kael offered her his arm for her to walk with him at the head of the line.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and then stepped to his side. Appearances were everything, and she knew how this all appeared. Exactly how Kael had wanted it to. But she wouldn’t snub him in this way. She knew there was a longer end game here with him, but she couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

She placed her hand on his elbow and felt her magic stir for the first time. Her eyes widened in shock, and she glanced up at his face. He tilted his head, as if he also was surprised by the change. It was as if Byern itself was reawakening the powers that had lain dormant within her. As if coming home had loosened something in her chest.

Kael grinned, as if he knew a secret, and then they started walking off the dock and onto Byern soil. And it was as Avoca had always said it would be. The earth called to her. It wasn’t even her first element, but the energy seemed to wrap around her feet and lighten her steps. The air was easier to breathe. The light brighter. The world better. Byern itself was more alive with Cyrene on the ground.

A guard opened the door for them, and Cyrene practically floated into her seat. All the elements felt more alive, more real, more welcoming. Like this very place knew her and her magic. Kael slid into the seat next to her, and then they were off.

“Something has changed,” he said intuitively.

“Tell me about the Rose Garden Ceremony,” she said, throwing him off guard. The ceremony was the only thing she could think that made sense.

If she was bound to the land and royalty, as she had been in the Rose Garden Ceremony a year ago, then surely, those things must work in the same way as how her magic connected with Avoca’s. The land itself had an interest in her.

“As you know, we are not supposed to talk of such things,” he said evasively.

“And who are you to follow the rules?”

The carriage jostled them into the city, and dust kicked up in the open windows. Kael slid them closed for this portion of the ride. She frowned at the sudden loss of seeing her homeland.

“It’s just a ceremony, Cyrene.”

“Is everyone bound?”

“What did you see?” he prodded.

She did not want to reveal her vision to him. Becoming Third Class, leaving the man she loved, giving up her baby, and Kael becoming king. They were visions, memories, past, and future. They could mean nothing…or everything.

“Nothing,” she lied. “How does it work?”

“You know the rules,” he said with an arched eyebrow.

“Magic can only be bound to magic,” she whispered.

That was what troubled her the most. What had troubled Matilde and Vera as well.

What magic am I bound to here? The Dremylons themselves? A Dremylon like Kael with his own magic? The magical energy from the land of Byern itself? How could the spell be completed without magic to tie it together?

Her head was spinning with questions, but she saw that Kael was not going to answer about the Rose Garden Ceremony. And she refused to give him the information he’d inquired about. It felt too personal to let him know that she had seen him become king.

They bustled into the city on brick-paved roads that rattled them worse than the dirt roads. Kael wrenched back the curtains once more and showed her her city. And what she saw was…horrifying.

Her once clean and prosperous city looked beaten down and filthy. Desert sand coated the streets. Beggars stood on corners. Signs hung in taverns that read, Water supply low, with a number beneath it that she had to guess meant how much anyone could have at any given time.

“What’s happened?” she whispered, aghast.

“It hasn’t rained.”

“In how long?”

“Not a day since you left.”

Cyrene’s head snapped back to Kael. “Not a drop of rain?”

“No rain. No snow. It was as if…you took the water with you,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

She sat back in the carriage and let that thought sink into her. Is it possible that I pulled the moisture from my homeland just by being away? Could it be that being bound to a place rather than a person could devastate an entire country in such a manner?

That sinking depression hit her fresh anew. It was as if everything in this lifetime was her fault. Even the drought.

They clattered onto the castle grounds and to the front of the Nit Decus castle. Kael exited first and offered her his hand. She took it and stepped out to the place she had thought she would never see again.

Her eyes found Kael’s for a brief minute. He seemed to sense both her excitement and caution. She took a steadying breath to try to regain her strength.

“The world is yours to take, Cyrene.”

He bent down and placed a kiss on her hand where he had helped her out of the carriage. She watched him the entire time that he did it with that low buzz in her stomach from his touch. Then, she felt a great swell, as if her insides were sizzling, and she whipped her head toward the front entrance of the castle.

And there, standing in all his glory, was King Edric.