A memory of pain shocked through her. The knife. She felt for the wound in her shoulder but perfectly smooth skin was all she found through the hole in her dress.

“Is this what it felt like for you every time?” she asked Dell. “Whenever Corban healed you?”

Sympathy entered his gaze. “Exhaustion? Utter weakness? A complete disbelief in what occurred?”

“That’s about it.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Mari explained it to me once. His magic uses your body’s own energy to heal the wound. It takes a while to get it back.”

Kassander stood and reached a hand out to her. She took it and pulled herself to her feet, stumbling before gaining her footing.

Kassander scrunched up his face. “You stink, Len.”

A laugh burst free from Dell, but he covered it up with a cough. “Mari left some clothes for you.” He pointed to a small stack of linen clothing. “I’ll have someone bring a bucket of water. Sponge baths are all we have, I’m afraid. But we’ll be in Bela in two days’ time.”

Somewhat clean and freshly clothed, Helena found Edmund sitting on deck, his eyes scanning the direction they’d come from. He didn’t look to her as she sat beside him, lowering herself with care.

She let the silence soak into her, soothing her fraying mind. The loss still hadn’t quite sunk in. She’d seen it with her own eyes, her burning kingdom, but it still felt like it happened to someone else.

Finally, he spoke. “Alex is going to kill me for leaving his sister in Madra.”

“Alex is the Belaen king?” she asked.

He nodded. “But there was nothing I could do. Short of tearing the palace apart stone by stone looking for where Cole hid her…”

Helena took his shaking hand in hers. “You did everything you could.”

“Then why does it feel like I failed him?”

He wasn’t speaking of Alex any longer. “Edmund, you didn’t. Stev knew what he was doing. I would give everything to change his decision, but it was his to make.”

Edmund’s chin dropped to his chest, and a strangled cry rattled through his lungs.

Helena wouldn’t let him give up. Not now. “My mother once told me Madra was a glass kingdom.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t know then she was teaching me a lesson.”

Edmund’s voice was so low she barely heard it. “Glass kingdom?”

Helena smiled at the memory. Her father refused to let her attend council meetings to learn about the six kingdoms, but her mother served as teacher. “Madra has always been fragile, sitting on the edge of its own destruction. Constant wars and inept rulers sent fissures through the surface. Mother told me when Madra finally shattered, it would destroy everything. Glass doesn’t just break. It creates shards, weapons. And once it breaks, there’s no putting it back together.”