He nodded, fingers stroking the bare skin at my shoulder. “General Marchess said his people were hungry. That’s why they had tried for peace before and why he went mad trying to capture Vyrinterra.”

“We offered them trade,” I countered. “If they wanted food, they could have had it.”

“But after years of us denying it to them, it’s hard to discount their anger.” He sighed. “If there was any truth to what he said, then I want to know it for myself. Maybe we can learn the land better and start to heal it. But if you don’t want me to go, I’ll stay.”

I did want him to stay. Everything was still so overwhelming—my own grief, my mother’s. The city’s. But if he wanted to go, I respected that. He could stay close to Seth, and his volunteering would look great in the eyes of the sentinels.

“Go,” I had told him. “I’ll miss you. But you should go.”

Back in the present, Ox escorts me back to Storm’s End, taking the long way over the still-broken Northern Gate and down through the outskirts of the city. In the water, I spot the flick of watchful sea-folk’s fins. Even though the Heliana has regained her place above the sea, she sits much lower than before.

I can only imagine how baffled the scholars must be to not come up with answers. But in my opinion, it is high time we start seeing things as they are and not as we always believed they were.

With a quick hug goodbye, Ox takes off for the Warriors’ Hall. I peek into my mother’s room to check on her. She’s already asleep though it isn’t past tenth bell. I know it was a lot for her to come to the ceremony today.

Closing the door quietly behind me, I tiptoe to her office. The murmur of chirping birds outside is the only sound as I light some candles to illuminate the dark. Sitting down at her desk, I run my hand across the steady, familiar surface. I don’t remember the last time I was in this room alone. I must have been Isla’s age.

Isla. I think of her more often than I admit out loud. One day, if the peace Noam seeks and Callen is helping build becomes real, I’ll go back for her. It isn’t right that she is living without knowing her full self. Part of me expects the girl to show up on the Cliffs at any moment, having made the trip herself. I would gladly teach her to fly.