“Good.” Malachite narrows his eyes at the darkness all around us. “They get sloppy when they aren’t happy.”

“You included,” Lysulli cuts in. Malachite opens his mouth to retort but Lucien cuts him off with just a look, holding my hand firmly in his.

“Everyone should spread out and take positions,” the prince says. “I’ll head into the cave and wait for Varia to approach.”

“We have to let her near the Tree,” Yorl muses. “But not so many valkerax near that we’re overwhelmed. A tricky thing.”

“How will you know when she’s close enough?” I ask Lucien, my breathing finally evening out as the pain recedes and the fingertip wounds close.

“It’s a feeling.” He smiles wryly at me.

“This battlefield will be unpredictable.” Lysulli frowns, pale lips thin. “So stay flexible. The valkerax could do any number of strange maneuvers under a singular commander.”

“The Tree of Souls might seem tame now,” Yorl agrees. “But it’s very likely to react to Varia’s presence.”

“Hopefully to our benefit.” Fione perches on a boulder, crossbow deadly at her side.

“Nothing to do, then”—Lucien looks to me—“but wait. Would you care to join me?”

He motions to the First Root in the little cave, and I nod, following him into the low hole. This dim little crevice…our last haven. The two of us, sitting aside the gently bleeding First Root, hands in each other’s hair, around each other’s waists. Our last moments.

Our first moments.

I make sure to think it, but Lucien’s skinreading doesn’t seem to notice the slip. Or if he does, he doesn’t say anything, looking me over with gentle onyx eyes. Thinking. Thinking about us, him, Cavanos.

He can’t know.

He’d talk to me otherwise. Because this is our last chance to.

But he’s afraid like me. Nervous like me. How could we not be? His sister, the most powerful being in the world, maybe, is coming to kill us. And all we have is a hope, a prayer, and a plan made of an old book.

Time drips on, slower than the pearlescent sap collecting in the little pool to our left. It reflects us, our outlines wavy and tense, but clinging to each other to the last. Something like exhaustion pulls me under and into the darkest lake. It’s a different tiredness from the mental toll of staying awake for days—this feeling is more dire. More pointed, and pointed right at my core.

you will die here, forever.

It’s dug deeper than a thorn in my unheart, my empty chest stone-heavy all of a sudden. Resignation? Maybe. Or maybe this is simply what the beginning and the end of the world feels like.

monsters have no soul. you have no soul.