She could see it now: Ongrum, Nadya, and Sigrid, returning from a trading expedition, laden down with medicine and weapons they couldn’t forge in the north. The sweet, smoky scent of human had clung to everything. The traders had sent gifts, eager to keep a relationship that brought them elk meat and rare furs. Ongrum had plucked a doll made of old corn husks from the pile and handed it to Ranka. She’d been just a witchling then, only a few years into her life with the Skra, and yet it’d seemed so distant—that scent, those gifts, those people. A world to which she no longer belonged.

After Belren, Ongrum sent two witches to Kravist to trade. They never came back. The villagers stole their goods and burned them alive.

Ongrum never sent the Skra south again.

“I went north once a few years ago,” Foldrey said slowly. “But everything had changed. That land, those people—the Bloodwinn treaty isn’t just a concept to them. It’s a promise, one we didn’t keep. I’m sure you feel the same.”

Ranka froze. She searched his face to see if he was joking, but the guard’s pale eyes were steady. “The Bloodwinn treaty has brought us peace,” Ranka said hesitantly. “I am grateful to continue its legacy.”

Something like sadness touched his features. “You’re learning fast.”

The truth burned behind her teeth. Ongrum always said the covens knew the treaty wasn’t a fair deal, but it seemed like the only option. Give the humans a share of the resources, and maybe they’d be left in peace.

They’d been wrong.

In recent years alone entire forests had been felled for illegal logging. Miles of thicket burned, hillsides where rare trilliums blossomed blasted flat, entire wetlands drained to make way for farmlands north of the border. Witchik was being gnawed from the edges, and the prince who was supposed to enforce the border wasn’t even reading the laws he signed.

There will never be enough for them, Ongrum had warned. The humans have tasted Witchik—and unless we stop them, they’ll suck her dry.

“The Council loves the treaty,” Ranka said carefully.

“The Council is chosen from noble families,” Foldrey snorted. “Most of them have never been north. Other than the last Bloodwinn, most of them have never even spoken to a witch. I know the north in a way they don’t. I was twenty-seven when King Alus—Solomei rest his soul—gave me this office. We swore we’d change the world.” He took a drink. “That was twenty years ago.”

Again her attention caught on the battle stars. There were an awful lot of them.