We start to see it when the trees clear up and as the road widens—Windonhigh. Windonhigh looming far, far above us and behind us, not much more than a speck tinted faintly green and brown and—horrifyingly—gray. Ash blown by the fires flits down, filling the potholes of the road with feathery gray softness, smearing on our skin. Lucien grips my hand tighter, and I can practically feel his unsurety of what to say. But there’s nothing that can be said. All I can do, all I want, is to hold his hand.

Nightsinger has to be safe. Y’shennria has to be safe. Crav, Peligli. Safe. They have to be. That’s the only thought that lets me move forward.

“No corpses fell down,” Malachite offers during our water break. “That’s a good sign, yeah?”

Fione jabs at his ribs with the handle of her cane, and he lets out a disgruntled yelp.

My laugh is small. “It’s okay, Fione. I’m okay.”

Her face softens. “The fact the island is still in the air is a good sign. They must’ve fought off the attack with those measures the High Witches spoke of.”

“Glass Tree roots, I’m willing to bet,” Malachite mumbles.

“And the hundreds of Heartless eclipseguard might’ve helped, too,” Lucien adds.

The comfort of their words only lasts so long. We pass a trading caravan, and my unheart skips a beat when I realize it’s completely covered in blood. The wagon leather, the wheels, the seat—all of it stained bright red. Fresh red.

“Gods,” Lucien swears under his breath. The caravaner tries to go past us without saying anything, but Lucien speaks up. “You there. What business have you looking thus?”

The caravaner glances at the prince the barest hint from under his hat. He sizes him up, and then whips his mule faster.

Malachite scoffs. “Should I get after him, Luc?”

Lucien’s dark eyes are focused on the horizon, far down the road, like he can see something I can’t. “No. Let him go.”

Malachite doesn’t question the decision, but I do.

“Why—”

“You’ll see,” Lucien asserts. “Soon.”

It’s a few minutes of twisting confusion until the grim reality comes into sight. White. White and red, long and broken open. Feathers, fur. A valkerax.

The corpse of one.

I dash toward it—Evlorasin? It can’t be. It’s splayed not far from the road, obliterated in the places where its body meets the ground. I hear Fione faintly say “it fell,” but I’m too riveted by the sheer lake of blood surrounding it. The cacophony of a murder rings down, a cloud of black crows circling, picking at the edges of the body. They can eat the blood, maybe. But sentient mortals are another story, according to Yorl.

“Careful,” I hear myself saying woodenly. “Don’t ingest the blood. It’ll kill you.”