An hour later, the crimson silk of my empire-waist dress swirls around me as I scan the Velmaran encampment across the valley, a spring storm building that makes the air dance with electricity. This is the same place I stood three days ago as this battle began, with the hope of a decisive victory filling my chest. Now all I feel is cold resolve.

“Are you sure—” Nemesia tries to say.

“I’m sure. Be ready for anything.”

I stride down the hill and cross the expanse between the two war camps. Fallen fae litter the landscape, impossible to distinguish friend from foe. As I walk, the noxious mud squelches beneath my feet with blood and other gore. I try to avoid getting the bottom of my dress dirty, slowly picking my way through the maze of severed limbs and abandoned weapons. Halfway across the expanse, I realize that it’s pointless, and Mazus should see what walking across the battlefield he created causes, even if it’s just a ruined dress.

As I approach, Velmaran soldiers break out in hisses of “witch,” and my cheeks heat with shame. Mazus was the first to use the word, and it’s taken off in the last few months of war. Narrowed eyes and pursed lips greet me when I finally reach the edge of their encampment, the soldiers on guard wary of me. Air channelers probe my body for weapons using wind, and when they’re satisfied I’ve complied with the terms, they nod to a guard standing outside what must be Mazus’s personal tent.

I feel a tingle of Mazus’s magic along my shoulders and tense, knowing what’s about to happen and yet still unprepared for the jolt of aerstepping magic that brings me face to face with the Velmaran King. Internally rolling my eyes, I look up at the man who declared war on my kingdom, labeled me a witch, and claimed he had to defeat me for the good of the Four Kingdoms. As if my very existence threatened the safety of our world.

Mazus Vicant embodies his moniker—the Golden King, he’s called. Tall and tanned, he towers over me as his handsome face pulls into a glowing smile. Olive, green-brown eyes stare down at me, like a forest at twilight. Such an unusual shade that I’d know them anywhere. Despite his otherworldly beauty, the way he carries himself and the hollowness of his expression, like he’s chiseled from stone, make my skin crawl when I’m in his presence.

“I would have aerstepped you across the battlefield,” he says with a look of disgust on his perfect face, surveying the bottom of my dress. “I simply assumed you would use that deep well of power you keep hidden to avoid the filth now covering the bottom half of your dress.”