I sat up. “Really?”

She nodded and handed me the book, opened to a page near the end.

I scooted closer. “What does it say?”

“‘Two hearts beating now as one; the bond must break to come undone. Free them from the spell they’re under. What was made now tear asunder.’”

It was possible I had skimmed over the spell when I didn’t recognize the language, though the page itself didn’t look familiar, and once again I had the feeling it had kept itself hidden on purpose. “You drink our blood and say those words?”

She nodded. “I believe that’s all there is to it.”

I sighed and lay back down. “If only I could have gotten Ceren’s blood. It would have saved us from having to make the exchange tomorrow. Our only hope is that Talin can get to Ceren while he’s exposed on the field. If I’m right, he’s already weakened, and his hold over his soldiers should be slipping.”

She was quiet for a long time, and I felt my eyelids growing heavy in the silence. “There is one more thing I wanted to talk to you about,” she said finally. “The dreams you and Ceren shared?”

I blinked sleepily. “What about them?”

“From everything I know of blood magic, it stands to reason that Ceren drinking your blood connects him to you mentally. And it follows that you can create that same bridge by cutting yourself. But the dreams... Nor, a blood bond can’t be formed in just one person’s body.”

I shook my head, too exhausted to make sense of what she’d just said. “So?”

“So, you would have to have Ceren’s blood in your system to complete the bond.”

She still wasn’t making sense. “Ceren never gave me his blood.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I thought back to my time at the castle. The only time I’d seen him bleed was the night I escaped. There was no way I had his blood in my system. “I’m sure.”

Adriel curled onto her side. “I suppose I’m wrong then. You know, I could come to the field with you tomorrow for moral support.”

I turned to face her. “Thank you for offering, but I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe.”

“When are you going to learn that this works two ways, Nor?” She shook her head. “You can’t always be the one riding off to face danger. There are a lot of people who would be devastated if something happened to you, including me.”

I knew there were people who would miss me if I was gone, but there was something about hearing Adriel say it that made my heart clench. She wasn’t a relative or a lover; she was simply a friend. The best friend I’d ever had. “I’m sorry, Adriel. I know it’s selfish to always want to be the one who goes ahead. I think I believed that if I made sacrifices on behalf of the people I loved, they’d see how much I loved them, too. And there was the very real possibility that if I didn’t jump first, I’d have to see if anyone else would jump for me.” I couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. “I think I’m afraid of what would happen to me if I were the one left behind.”

“We have that fear in common.”

I glanced into her blue eyes and remembered what Ceren had said on the field about how my desire to be loved was my greatest weakness. Maybe he was right. But everyone needed to be loved, even Ceren. He had allowed that need to twist into something ugly and hateful, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a weakness. I just had to figure out how to use it against him.

* * *

To Talin’s dismay, Talia agreed to the plan. Talin and his men had left at midnight, riding for the forest closest to Ceren’s camp, where they would wait until our signal. After another sleepless night, Zadie and I rode out in the morning with a dozen soldiers led by Grig. Zadie was dressed in my clothing from yesterday, while I wore the same leather armor as the soldiers. From far away, there was no reason Ceren would recognize me, especially with my hair pinned up tightly on my head. Zadie’s hair was down, which helped hide her features. Even Sami had been momentarily fooled when we showed him the disguise.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Zadie asked.

Ceren’s pale hair was always his giveaway. The bloodstones in his crown glowed faintly, pulsing, I realized with a start, in time with my heartbeat. “Yes.”

Zadie’s voice was tight with fear, and I saw her fingers start to lift to the star-shaped scar we’d painted on her cheek. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea, Nor.”

She was mounted on Titania, who fortunately was as calm and steady for Zadie as she was for me. I rode a borrowed mare who, while perfectly well trained, could never compare to my Galethian steed.

“Just breathe,” I said to Zadie. “Don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary, but remember, Ceren has never met you before. He has no reason to think you would come in my place.”

She nodded briskly. “It’s going to be fine.”

“It is,” I assured her, though my scalp prickled with cold fear as Zadie continued forward while the rest of us remained behind.

They stopped just a few feet from each other. I couldn’t hear their conversation from where we waited, but they dismounted simultaneously. Ceren barely glanced at one of his men, who raised his arm at what I could only assume was a mental command. At the signal, one by one, the Varenians began to emerge from the tented camp.

I breathed a little easier, knowing he had held up his end of the bargain. Maybe it was wrong to deceive Ceren when he had been honorable, but I couldn’t care. Not when I knew what he was capable of.

Mount Ayris loomed behind the camp, its peak shrouded in mist. It took longer than I expected for all of the Varenians to gather on the field. There were somewhere between four and five hundred men, women, and children, and I couldn’t make out individual faces, though I scanned the crowd for my mother and father anyway.

I flashed back to when I’d returned to Varenia and how vulnerable the village had looked. Seeing all my people together as one, I had hoped they would look as strong as I knew them to be individually. But New Castle had taken something from them, just as it had me. Even from here, they looked like they’d been set adrift. How would we ever recover from this?

Ceren took a couple of items from his guard, what I could only assume were a silver bowl and a knife, and my gaze snapped back to Zadie. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure Grig could hear it. I pulled out my own small blade and pressed it to my exposed wrist, ready to draw blood as soon as I saw Zadie turn to look at us, the signal that Ceren was about to cut her.

When she turned, I immediately ran the knife across my skin. There was a long enough delay that I was convinced it wouldn’t work, but then light flashed across my eyes and it was as if I were in Zadie’s head, with Ceren standing just before me. It took an agonizing minute for Ceren to gather the bowlful of blood, but when he had finished, Grig reached over and gripped my shoulder tightly to bring me out of the vision. I could see Zadie press a cloth to the wound in her arm, and then the signal was given for the Varenians to cross the field toward us.