Still, they were both staying with Cordelia, surrounding her—including her—and she needed them now more badly than she ever had before … because there was no closing off the land around her anymore. Every one of her internal barriers had been ripped away for good on the slopes of Mount Corve. Now, every step she took, whether by hoof or by foot, cast echoes ringing through her ears as a thousand voices cried into her head at once.

Broken! Broken! Broken! Heal us!

I’ll try, she promised them, again and again.

She still didn’t know how to heal the crown itself. None of them could work it out, no matter how many times they’d argued over different possibilities or even tried to press the pieces together with their hands—but she’d carried it with her in that sack anyway. Their long trip, along with her visions on Mount Corve, had taught her something that she could never forget: her family wasn’t all that needed saving.

Still, if her triplets hadn’t clustered around her nonstop, asking her endless questions and demanding her responses—if she hadn’t had their constant reminders of who she, Cordelia, was at her core—her own stubborn internal voice would have been drowned out by the end of the first day.

She’d spent all of her life desperate to escape the confining walls of Mother’s castle and plunge into the wild forest and world outside. According to her triplets’ new theories, the land had probably been calling to her all along—and it had finally managed to make real contact when she’d fallen asleep on the grass after her arrow wound. That had been the first time in her life that she had slept outside in her own true form, leaving herself entirely unshielded.

Now, whenever she closed her eyes at night, lying on hard ground, she could reach out with her senses and feel all the miles around her as if they stretched out from her own skin, pulling her body taut … and sinking her mind deep into the awareness of the earth that cradled all of them.

Humans moved across the ground in groups; one horrifyingly large, loud group busily burned and tore at the soil as the land shrieked in agony. Its attackers clanked with metal armor as they slashed down ancient trees, and the land cried endlessly to the only pair of ears that heard it:

Broken. Broken. Broken. Heal—

“Cordy!” Giles leaned over her, frowning as her eyes flew open. “Didn’t you hear us calling you?”

“Sorry.” She took a deep breath and pushed herself up. Dawn had broken over the nearby farmland. Rosalind—several feet away—looked as if she were finally nearing the end of her usual morning exercises, which had been increased to include new, magical elements ever since her battle at Mount Corve. “Just give me a minute and I’ll be ready.”