“I’ll give him that, too,” I muse thoughtfully, looking innocently back at Malachite as he glowers my way. I make a little finger wave at him to rub salt in the wound and duck just in time to avoid his throwing knife. He wasn’t even trying hard—it quivers in the wall miles away from my head. “Rude!”

Lucien’s heat envelops my shoulder as he walks up behind me and plucks the dagger from the packed earth, inspecting it nonchalantly. “What are you taking, heart? Something flashy, I’d imagine.”

“Nonsense.” I smile up at him. “I’ve got Father’s sword and my own teeth. Anything else would just slow me down.”

“Not even this?” Fione dangles a bracelet of stunning amethysts.

“Oooh!” I coo, hurrying over and grabbing it appreciatively. “You know me so well, Your Grace!”

“Doesn’t look like a weapon,” Lucien muses, taking it gently from my hands and fastening it around my wrist for me.

“S’not,” Malachite agrees brusquely. “It’s an offering.”

“For what?” I blink.

“A grave.”

“Amethysts for the dead,” Yorl agrees softly. “Always.”

A quiet descends. Lucien starts to take it off me, but I stop his hand.

“Everyone who’s died: Vetris, Helkyris. Y’shennria’s family. Mine. Yours. Everyone who died because of these Trees. I’ll keep it. I’ll fight with it. For them.”

Lucien squeezes my hand tight. Yorl nods, satisfied, and Malachite seems proud of me somehow—a thin grin on his pale lips. Fione catches my eye, and then looks somberly away. I stare down at the gleaming purple stones as we leave, Malachite directing us to the River Gate.

This bracelet will be my offering, too.

It’s a pity we don’t have time to sample the wonders of Pala Amna, because it is wondrous. Malachite leads us through only half of it, the great stone widow’swalks we march on looming high over the city of stone and gems. It’s nestled on the bottom of a fearsomely huge cavern, something Yorl calls a “lava tube,’” the buildings stacked and mashed into one another like huddled stone children. Protecting it are seven stone gates, all of them accented with fierce lines of weapons similar to the one I saw in the ceiling of Evlorasin’s arena—a spear mechanism wound tight inside a hole, ready to spring forth and huge enough to pierce even the largest valkerax. Smaller weapons adorn the belts of every guard, and unlike Vetris, every civilian is armed to the teeth with broadswords, axes, and curved blades—the glint of metal bright in the thronging streets below.

An entire city, devoted to the spiral and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.