I watch Malachite slowly shrug his broadsword off his back, assuming that low battle stance I saw with the valkerax. But this time, he’s not looking at a white wyrm barreling down a tunnel. He’s looking at me.

Lucien says nothing, his stare burrowing straight into my core.

Fione is the first to move. She steps forward, voice clear. “No one has been able to control the Tree forever, Varia.”

“Oh, Fione.” Varia laughs, but the sound is uneasy. “The Old Vetrisians very much did!”

“A new witch, every month,” Fione holds out an ancient-looking scroll. “They cycled them in because the magic of the Bone Tree was too strong! It would…” She trails off. “The Tree will eat a witch’s magic—until it kills the witch, Varia!”

Her words tinge desperate on the ends, and guilt wraps its strings around me and pulls tight, trying to cut me in half.

I don’t dare look over my shoulder to see Varia’s face—not with Malachite and Lucien bearing down on me like this. The look in their eyes makes me feel like a rabbit standing in the middle of a snare trap, encircled on all sides by rope. I search Lucien’s face for any sign of warmth, of mercy, but he is stone. I’m his enemy. I’ve helped his sister find the Tree that will kill her. I’ve betrayed him again. But did he—? Is he really—?

“I know,” Varia finally answers Fione. “I’ve known what it will take for five years now. I’m not ignorant, Fi.”

“Then you’re mad!” Fione keens. “If you take the Tree, you’ll…” She chokes on her words, tears pulling them apart. “You’ll die!”

Varia’s voice is barely audible. “I know.”

“All of this—” Fione throws out her hands, pleading. “All of this to enforce some temporary peace—”

“No,” Varia cuts her off. “Not temporary. You’re right—I will have only a few months’ time with the Tree. But I will make every second count. I will reshape the world. Not just Cavanos, Fi. The world. I will make craters in Arathess that cannot be filled with earth and covered up again, or forgotten. I will make craters Arathess will be forced to build cities in, and roads around.”

Lucien’s gaze moves from me for a bare second, his eyes narrowing imperceptibly at his sister on the peak.

“It’s easy enough to destroy,” he calls out to her. “You can build almost nothing in a few months of absolute power.”

“No.” I hear the smile in Varia’s voice. “But I’m not concerned with building, Luc. I will destroy what’s in our way, and Arathess will build in the aftermath. They will build for me, in the exact grooves I have left in the world, like a child tracing their letters for the first time.”