“But what if I can’t do this?” I asked, staring up at him with tears in my eyes. “What if I can’t find a way to stop Oren?”

“You wil,” he assured me. “You’re the Princess.”

“Tove,” I sighed.

“Come on.” He held out his hand to me. “Sleep now. We can look more in the morning.”

I let him take my hand and pul me to my feet. He was already in his pajamas, and his hair was even more disheveled than normal. I guessed he’d tried to sleep without me, but he’d gone looking for me when I hadn’t come to bed.

My mind was racing, thinking of al the things I had to do. I didn’t think I’d ever realy be able to sleep, but as soon as my head hit the pilow, I was out.

15. Oslinna

It looked like a bomb had gone off. I’d never seen Oslinna before to have a real comparison, but everything was devastated.

Oslinna was a smal town, even smaler than Förening. It was settled in a valey at the base of several low mountains. By the looks of what was left of some of the buildings, it had been quite beautiful.

Al of the trackers’ homes were smashed. Trackers lived in smal cottages, most of them nestled in trees or the mountains, and the floors were usualy just dirt. They were very easily destroyed.

But the nicer homes of the Markis and Marksinna were mostly decimated too, with parts of the roofs missing and wals colapsed.

The palace in the center was the only thing stil standing. It was like a version of my own palace, except on a smaler scale and with fewer windows. While the back of my palace overlooked the river, this one was built into the mountain behind it.

Half of the palace had crumbled, and it was blackened, as if burnt. The other half looked okay, at least from the outside. There had been some obvious damage, like broken windows and a destroyed fountain, but it looked much better than the rest of the town.

We’d driven slowly through the town, in awe of the carnage, and Tove had to swerve a few times to miss debris in the road. He stopped in front of the palace, parking next to an uprooted oak tree.

“This is too much for us to handle,” Aurora said from the backseat. She’d been complaining about helping the entire way here, but we’d left her without a choice. She was the strongest healer, and the people of Oslinna had been hurt.

“We’l do al that we can,” I said. “And if we can’t do any more, then so be it.”