“Vhalla,” he whispered, just barely audible. “How do you feel?”

“I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Death was fitting. It had been because of her foolishness that Victor accessed the Crystal Caverns. The taint would be unleashed upon the world once more. Men and beasts would be twisted into monsters in addition to whatever great powers Victor had so clearly gained. She regretted so many of her actions, but the greatest ache was knowing that she had brought death upon the world and would never have the chance to fix it.

“My Vhalla, open your eyes and look at me.” She obliged, trading her guilt for the visage of the crown prince. “You are not dead.”

“But I . . .” She moved her good arm, wincing at the lightest touch on the bandage over her shoulder. “How?”

“You gave me life once; I gave it back,” Aldrik breathed, nuzzling her neck lovingly.

“I don’t understand.” Vhalla frowned.

“Quiet.” Aldrik glanced across her. “Or else you will wake them up, and I will be forced to share you prematurely.”

“Them?” Vhalla asked. Her body was stiff and ached as she tried to lift her head. Fresh skin pulled taut under the bandages, and Vhalla was careful of her healing body.

It was a small room occupied by five others sleeping cramped upon the floor. On the other side of Aldrik, the feet of the ever-tall Jax poked out from under the blankets that he had effectively cocooned around his head. Elecia slept with her mouth open, her limbs spread wide and her breathing heavy. Cuddled closely to the woman and to Vhalla’s immediate left was a messy-haired man; words could not describe the immense relief that filled her at the sight of him.

However, huddled in the corner were two people that Vhalla had never expected to see: Za was propped up against the wall, the princess clutched tightly against her. Vhalla scowled, remembering the arrow that had been shot for her heart.

Aldrik’s arm tightened around her, and Vhalla allowed him to pull her back down onto the straw and woolen pallet that covered the floor. She looked to him in confusion.

“What happened?” she rephrased her demand, keeping her voice low. There was seemingly no possible explanation for how she was alive or in the company she now kept. Least of all the questions swirling through her head was where, exactly, they were.

Her eyes scanned the room once more. There was one window, though it did not appear to have glass. Shutters were pulled over it, which did little to keep out the icy cold. The walls were well made, but a rough construction of cut logs layered upon each other, with river clay packed between to keep out the draft. There was no ornamentation. Nothing showed the careful hand of a craftsman. Even the small table and wardrobe looked to be slightly off-level, the rough edges having been smoothed from the oil produced by the rubbing of fingertips over sandpaper.

“Grahm found Fritz after he saw you leaving with Victor.”

“But Victor—”

“As a Waterrunner, Grahm saw through the illusion,” Aldrik preempted her question. “Fritz got Elecia, who went to me.” His dark eyes glanced toward the corner, his voice dropping again. “They were unexpected and insistent additions.”

“But Sehra knows about the crystals,” Vhalla filled in logically.

Aldrik nodded, continuing. “When Victor left the caverns, he collapsed the entry, leaving us for dead. Luckily, Elecia was waiting with Jax and Fritz. Fritz could hide them with his own illusion, and Elecia managed to reopen the caverns.”

“But, how did I . . .” Vhalla could logic together the events that led Aldrik to the Crystal Caverns and how he managed to escape alive. But he hadn’t had a wound from shoulder to chest.

“You were weak, dying.”

“I was dead,” she corrected morbidly.

Aldrik didn’t argue that point. “Elecia couldn’t heal you; there wasn’t enough life left in you for her magic to mend. So I returned to you the life you gave me.”

“The Bond,” Vhalla breathed, realizing while his magic had been taken from her when the barrier fell, her magic had still lived on within him.

“It was enough, thank the Mother, for your body to accept her healing.” Aldrik’s hands were back to touching her, as though he needed to reaffirm each second that she was real.

“Aldrik, giving me back the magic I used to form the Bond with you could’ve killed you.” Vhalla gripped him with her good hand. “What were you thinking?”

“That I wouldn’t be able to face the world without you by my side.” The prince’s proclamation held no hesitation or thought beyond instinct. “Vhalla, I—” His words stuck. “I need you to know that how you are now has no bearing on what I feel for you.”

“How I am?” Vhalla repeated, the moment too serious to merit a parrot comment.

“Victor took all your magic. It blocked your Channel like an Eradication . . . The magic of the Bond was enough to give you a spark of life and get Elecia’s healing to take. But it was only a spark . . .”

“I’m a Commons now, aren’t I?” Aldrik’s pained expression told her everything.

There was a time when that was all she wanted, and now the knowledge threatened to crush her. She remembered the pull of Achel, of Victor using his magic as a Waterrunner combined with the crystals to steal her magic. It was all gone.