“Okay, go then,” I reply. “I’ll just go throw myself in a river or something.”

She sighs, exasperated. “Callen.”

“Rowan.”

We stare at each other a second, but it passes like a lifetime. I think of every time we must have touched: hand in hand climbing rooftops when we were children, or swimming in the rivers with Vera and our other friends after sparring days. I want so badly to hold her now. To go back to how it was between us just minutes ago.

She turns abruptly and heads back the way we came. “I’m sorry, Callen. I have to go now.”

I follow behind her, giving her a wide berth. The Sun River, I think. That will be the best one to throw myself into. All at once, Rowan’s steps get faster. She throws back the blanket covering the entrance and dust flies into our eyes.

I curse. “Rowan, what the skies—”

“Listen.”

Then I hear it, too. Bells.

I count the tolling, ready to decipher whatever signal is coming from the palace, but it’s too early in the day for the closing ceremonies. Even if it weren’t, the High Summer festival calls for highest bells, the ones that spark curiosity and joy.

These sounds are low, each one a different shade of midnight. In seconds, wings are lifting from the streets in the distance as warriors and warriors-elect answer the call.

Grief and fear drum together in my chest, alternate beats of the same instrument. Rowan turns to me, sunlight making the gold in her eyes glow with fire. Determination.

“We have to go,” she says, referring to the Glass Tower. Because of our ranks, she’ll be in the back half of the Tower, and I’ll be with the other warriors up front. “I’ll find you. After. To talk about … this.”

“Okay,” I reply. “Let’s go.”

She takes her lioness form. Wordlessly, I call my magic and do the same.

There is one thing every Leonodai, every warrior, places more honor on than anything else: loyalty. Loyalty above all. Rowan may not be a warrior in name, but she is one in soul. She must answer the bells’ call.

We are being called to our king, and we cannot wait.

Rowan breaks away from me toward where the warriors-elect gather, whereas I go to my place closer to the thrones. I beat my wings forward to slow myself as I cross beneath one of the palace’s hundreds of white stone archways.