Kissed by the Gods

Book 1: The Eternal Wars

by Caty Rogan

Genres: Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Epic Fantasy; Military Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

She might be deadly, but she is not their weapon. Fourth Wing meets Dire Bound in this captivating romantasy, brimming with romance, deadly stakes, and unforgettable magic.
 
Survivor. Rebel. Weapon.
 
Leina has spent a lifetime submitting, starving amid wheat fields reserved for the king, standing by while his men crush her loved ones. When soldiers come for her brother, her divine fury erupts in a bloody massacre.
 
She expects to be executed for her crimes—her people have met bloody ends for far, far less. Instead, Ryot, a gods-blessed warrior born to privilege, delivers her to a military fortress renowned for its brutality.
 
There, a gift from a goddess drags Leina into a realm of war, where her survival depends on her ability to ride a winged horse.
 
As Ryot pushes her to master the power she never asked for, a battle rages within her heart. Each lesson, every touch, binds them tighter—but love is a dangerous weakness in a world designed for war.
 
Soon, Leina must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to protect the family she has found…and the one she left behind. Because while her divine gift could save the kingdom, it could also shatter its very foundation.
 
With immersive lush writing, an unflinching heroine, and an inventive fantasy world, Kissed by the Gods is the gripping fantasy debut you won’t want to miss.
 
Featuring iconic romance tropes:

• He falls first
• Forbidden romance
• Found family
• Trial by combat
• She saves him
• Spicy slow burn
• Feminine rage

Release date: April 21, 2026

Publisher: Requited

Print pages: 496

Sample

When I remember Irielle, I think of lace. She wore it when she burned to death on her wedding day.

I remember how she carefully slipped into her gown six years ago, eyes bright with unshed tears as her fingertips traced the hand-worked floral designs.

How the decorative overlay browned and curled inward long before the flames lit it on fire. My vision narrowed and went grey, until all I could see was that meticulous pattern, even as I heaved out tears and snot and vomit into the dirt at my sister-in-law’s feet. Then, when her dress finally started to burn … I don’t think I’ll ever forget the smell. The assault of it choked me—that stench of charred lace.

It’s a moment I can’t escape. Not in the bright light of day, where the memories loom, hazy and throbbing. Certainly not in the darkness of sleep, where they come to life in nightmares so real, so vivid, that I’m trapped reliving it night after night.

Mother says it’s because I’m cursed, like Irielle. She’s right, of course.

Sweat drips down my face when I finally stop swinging my scythe and raise my eyes to the deep blue sky. The scalding heat from summer has long since faded, but the autumn breeze tangling the wisps of curly hair against my neck isn’t enough to cool me off.

 I wave at my youngest brother, who runs over with a bucket of water.

None of us—not even my mother loading the wheat in the two-wheeled cart behind me—comments on the water sloshing to the ground as five-year-old Leo skids to a halt in front of me, his crooked grin lighting up his face as he hands me the ladle.

“Thanks Leo,” I gasp between gulps. His chest puffs with pride.

“I’m a very good helper until I can be strong like you and Seb,” he tells me.

“You are.” I nod, serious. “The best helper.”

I take a full, deep breath. The vaguely sweet smell of the wheat is overwhelming, but I still pick up dozens of other smells, like the tangy musk of my 19-year-old brother, Seb, in the row next to me. A hint of tobacco clings to my father’s shirt, though he’s way out in the back of the field. Even the smell of the clean water in the bucket wafts to my nose, crisp and fresh.

Suddenly, the entirety of the landscape crashes into me in a torrent. It makes a swarm of bees buzz in my mind until my eyes start to blur from the biting pain of it.

I take another breath and focus on our cottage. Just our cottage.

How the thatched-roof slopes down the sides; how the door is slightly ajar and hangs crookedly; how the brown curtains, fashioned from old grain sacks, blow gently against the white-washed stone. How the lavender Mother grows underneath the windows waves at me, the sweet smell a soothing comfort. The sameness of it brings me back into myself, and I’m able to calm my racing heart.

With measured calm, so I don’t trigger another episode, I widen my focus to take in more of my surroundings. Our cottage sits on the west edge of the property, backing up against the Weeping Forest that runs from here to the Kingdom of Faraengard, not that I’ve ever been.

I’ve only ever been to Lalica, the city that’s a two-day walk to the east from our little village, to help father deliver our crops to the market. Mother only lets me make that trip so that I can pray in the temples and beg the gods to change my fate. She doesn’t know that I’ve never actually set foot in a temple. The priests are uncompromising about the votive offerings, and the price is steep. Father and I spend the few coins we have on extra supplies, instead, to help us last through the winter.

I turn to the east, toward the overlord’s manor house. I shouldn’t really be able to see it. Six years ago the manor was a tiny speck on a horizon of waving wheat. Now, I can see it in all its glamour, with marble columns framing the large wooden door and a roof of black slate that wouldn’t dare leak. Three levels of luxury built and sustained by generations of free labor. It’s pretentious and vain, like the lord himself. From here, I can even see the termites that have taken up residence under the veranda. I hope they eat through every beam, pillar, and rafter.

I rub an unsteady hand over my face, and the sweat smears my forehead, gritty and rough.

Sometimes it’s like this, where all my senses open like flood gates and immerse me in wave upon wave of sensation. What I smell, touch, feel, hear, see, and even taste, until I’m drowning in our field of waving wheat.

A large, brawny hand reaches out to grasp my shoulder. “Leina? Are you alright?”

 Seb’s deep voice should be a comfort, but I startle and drop the ladle into Leo’s bucket, causing water to spill.

That does merit a response from my mother.

“Leina! Be more careful!” The command is sharp, angry. She’s on edge.

I can’t blame her. We all are.

I turn to Seb, who is staring at me with worry lining his young face. He’s the only person I confide in since these episodes started. It’s not that my parents haven’t noticed. Of course they have. We simply never speak of it and won’t start now. They won’t acknowledge that I’ve somehow managed to harvest three times as much wheat as Seb and two times as much as my father, though they both outweigh me by a solid 100 pounds of muscle. Six years ago, I couldn’t keep up with either of them.

The changes have been drastic. Unnatural. It’s one of the reasons I’m 24 and unmarried. No one outside of our family can be trusted.

But Seb shouldn’t be the one comforting me, not with what is coming for him. And soon. Wheat isn’t all that’s harvested in this kingdom every autumn.

The Collection has begun.

My nightmares have flared up again, forcing me to relive that cursed day six years ago when the Faraengardian soldiers came. The day they killed Irielle and dragged my twin brother, Levvi, and my beau, Alden, away in chains. The day we lost all three of them forever.

I force a smile. “Of course! Only tired.” I reach to put my hand on the small of Leo’s back to nudge him toward our father but pull back before I touch him. I haven’t had physical contact with Leo since I accidentally broke his arm last summer. If Mother wasn’t such a skilled healer, it might have killed him. It was a nasty break.

I nod in Father’s direction, instead. “I think Father needs some water, Leo.”

“Okay!” He says, eagerly scampering off across the field.

Seb studies me, head cocked, gauging my truthfulness.

“You’re lying,” Seb says after Leo is out of earshot.

Seb always knows when someone is lying. It’s an uncanny knack that makes him unbeatable at card games, not that Father allows him to play with the villagers very often. That would draw unwanted attention, so he only plays when we’re really, truly desperate. The last time was when we couldn’t afford to feed even Leo.

I sigh and wave a dismissive hand. “It’s worse today.”

His lips pull back in a grimace. “What happened this time?” He’s not quite whispering, but he’s still quiet.

I allow myself a small smile. “There’re termites under the lord’s veranda.”

Seb’s face freezes in surprise, no doubt marveling that I can somehow see a bug smaller than a fingernail when he can’t even make out the marble columns from here. Then his lips pull back in a small grin. “I hope they eat the whole damn place.”

A snort of laughter escapes before I can contain it.

“Seb! Leina! Stop fooling around. We have important work to finish here.”

We turn toward Mother, whose voice has gone beyond sharp; it’s almost hysterical. Her face is drawn tight in grief and pain, her mouth pulled back in a straight, bitter line. She was beautiful once, before they took Levvi in the Collection. Her face was softer then. She was softer. Now, she’s all sharp edges and hard corners.

I glance at Father, who’s staring at our mother like he does when he thinks no one will notice—it’s a weary kind of love he carries for her, and for us, too, I think. Sometimes, he seems small. Not because he’s physically small; he’s a very large man, standing a full head over most of the men from the village, with defined muscles in his back, arms, and legs from a lifetime of hard labor. But his confidence was shattered long ago and he keeps his head down. It’s what kept him alive in the Faraengardian mines when he served in the Collection.

He shakes his head at me and Seb, a silent command of don’t. Don’t push back. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t question.

My rage, always perilously close to the surface, churns, so I turn to start harvesting another row. I swing my scythe with all my might to exhaust my wrath on the wheat, but my arm stops a hairsbreadth from the waving stalks in front of me. I could’ve sworn a horse neighed, but we don’t have a horse. No serfs do. I squint my eyes toward the north, where our little dirt path meets the main cobblestone road leading into the Kingdom of Faraengard, and my heart pounds in my chest. Sweet Serephelle, no. The soldiers are here.

“Seb.” I whisper it, but the helplessness weighing down his name makes it land like a thunderclap in our little field.

Everyone freezes. My father stops his own scythe mid swing. Mother drops the pile of wheat she’d gathered, a groan of despair rising from deep within her. Leo drops his bucket, water quickly soaking the earth.

Seb walks back over to stand next to me, both our gazes locked on the horizon.

“I don’t see anything, Leina,” he says, his voice calm.

My hands clench on my scythe. “They’re here.”

My mother’s moan turns into a wail as she breaks. She gathers her skirts to run toward us. “Run, Seb! They can’t see you yet. You can hide in the woods. You know the woods so well!” She’s nothing but a flurry of hands, pushing against his chest. “Run! I’ve already lost one son and I can’t lose another. Run!”

She’s screaming it as she pushes with all her might against him. He’s only 19, but Seb takes after our father and is already a mountain. He doesn’t budge. He brings his hands up to hold her, restraining her with surprising gentleness for someone of his size. I’ll never understand where he finds the strength to nurture that inner peace.

He leans down to kiss her forehead. “You know I can’t.”

And he won’t. Seb would never leave us here to face his punishment. Each of us in turn would be strung up in the village center and left to die of thirst or exposure, whichever came first. The soldiers would eliminate our whole family and then work through every man, woman, and child in the village until Seb turned himself in.

 Little Leo’s lips are quivering now. He doesn’t understand. But then, I don’t understand the cruelty of the Collection, either. The soldiers take all the boys before they reach maturity and force them to work the Faraengardian mines. Some of them, like Father, come back to the farms five years later. They are changed, beaten, and defeated—but home. Others, like our older brother and my beau, die in the mines, and their bones rot in the depths of the earth.

The Kingdom of Faraengard tells us it’s our debt to pay for their protection from great evil. From the Kher’zenn, people whisper in low tones, like saying the name of the death demons from across the Ebonmere Sea too loudly will summon them to your doorstep.

I return my gaze to the horizon, where the four riders steadily approach. I imagine everyone has spotted them now, but I see the two swordsmen and two archers in perfect detail, even from this distance. The man in front already has a smirk on his face, like he’s going to enjoy wrenching us apart. He carries a sword sheathed at his side, but the shield he’s holding is what draws my eyes. It displays the royal crest of Faraengard. A faravar—the divine winged warhorses the Altor warriors ride—rears between two lances crossed at the top. That hot rage flares.

Father leans down and whispers something to Leo, which sends him scampering into the house. He’ll hide under the bed like he’s been taught. Failure to run to our hiding spot fast enough is the only time Father has ever taken a switch to any of us.

Father turns to me. “Leina, take your mother back to the house and stay with Leo.”

Mother is weeping helplessly now against Seb’s chest, her hands twisting great fistfuls of his shirt. Yes, Father is right. I should take her back to the house, so she doesn’t have to watch. The king’s soldiers won’t tolerate insolence.

Nevertheless, I can’t tear my gaze from the approaching riders. Threat, something whispers from inside me.

“Leina!” My father shouts it at me, and I startle. It’s so unlike him to raise his voice. “Now, Leina!”

Yes, I need to help my mother. She’ll be hurt if she’s out here when the soldiers take Seb.

Seb sends me a soft smile. “It’s alright, Leina.” He starts to pass Mother to me, but he’s having a hard time escaping her grip.

I’m frozen to the spot. Seb lets out a mirthless laugh. “Come help me,” he says and nods his head toward my hand. “And let go of your death grip on the scythe. It won’t do us any favors if they think you’re holding a weapon.”

My gaze falls to my scythe. It’s as long as I am tall, with a blade I sharpened myself until my fingers bled. A sharp blade cuts through the wheat faster, I reasoned as I sat hunched over the whetstone hour after hour grinding the blade into a razor. But … I relax my fingers and roll the snath around in my hand, sending the bladed hook at the end swirling.

A weapon. Yes.

It’s the key unlocking this new, dangerous part of my mind, and I start moving.

But not toward my mother.

“Leina!” Father’s voice is still urgent, but he’s lowered it from a shout to a whisper. The soldiers are close enough to hear us. Their horses’ thundering hooves make the earth vibrate beneath my feet. It’s a sound that sends Selencian serfs running for whatever shelter we can find—a house, a barn, a forest, a bale of hay. But right now, fear isn’t what moves me. That vibration powers something potent within me. I’m almost … aroused? That can’t be right, but I keep moving forward.

Time itself seems to still, even as I keep walking to stand in front of my family. Mother has quieted as she watches me stride forward, her mouth agape. I can taste the fear emanating from her, and it leaves a rotten flavor on my tongue. It’s both acidic and cloying, like I’ve swallowed spoiled tomatoes.

Father and Seb are coming toward me, radiating anger, confusion, and fear. The anger is spicy, the confusion metallic. Without turning, I swipe my hand in the air behind me, a command for them all to stop.

Don’t come any closer. You’ll get hurt.

I can’t say the words out loud. They’re stuck in my head.

The soldier leading the group—a captain, according to his insignia—has narrowed his eyes at me, but not like I’m a threat. Like I’m a bug beneath his boot.

In some distant part of my mind, I know why he’s looking at me like that. I take after our mother. I’m petite. Seb could wrap his hand around my wrist twice over and snap it with ease. My dark hair is sheared short in the Selencian mourning tradition, and my face is no doubt caked with dirt and sweat. My only weapon is a rusted scythe with a wooden handle.

But even so, this new, wild part of my mind is laughing at this captain and his three paltry soldiers.

The captain bears down on me, as if he’ll run me down with his 2,000 pounds of horseflesh and be done with it. Distantly, I hear Seb curse as he starts running toward me. I plant one foot behind me and another in front, balancing myself in a move as natural as breathing. I am going nowhere, horse or no fucking horse. I swing my scythe with my back hand, so it hangs above my head.

At the last second, the horse balks and stops, rearing. The hooves brush against my hair. When the animal comes back down, my blade nearly touches its forehead. Everyone is breathing in jagged bursts, even the massive beast. Everyone but me.

I’ve never been so calm.

Seb has stopped to my right, my father to my left. Mother is behind me, a hand on my shoulder trying to pull my arm down.

Seb raises his arms in the air in an attempt to draw the soldiers’ attention, but the captain doesn’t spare him a glance. He doesn’t take his eyes from mine. He raises his sword while the two archers behind him raise their bows, arrows knocked. “You should kneel, girl. Do you not know the punishment for disrespecting the king’s soldiers?”

My mother is crying again, blubbering. “She didn’t mean it. She didn’t⁠—”

But we can’t speak to the soldiers without permission. The captain raises a hand to signal and my mother is abruptly silenced as an arrow flies through the air and impales her in the forehead.

No! Oh gods, no! I want to drop to my knees, pull her in close, and accept my punishment for doing this to her. But instead, a red film hazes over my eyes and that shattered part of me is muted, like I’m listening to it from under water.

I begin to swing the scythe like it’s an extension of myself, except that it isn’t. No; it has become part of me, fused to my hand through heat or something else. Something magical. In seconds, I’ve unseated the captain from his horse, and blood pours from the wound in his throat as he stares at me in horror.

There’s a roar and I swivel my head to see my father charging toward the archer who shot my mother. The soldier was taking aim at me, but he turns at the inhuman sound my father made and lets his arrow fly toward him instead. A second follows it as the other archer responds to the new threat, but that doesn’t stop Father from reaching the first and ripping him from his saddle. Father stabs the shell-shocked archer with one of his own arrows, then falls to his knees with two arrows protruding from his chest. His collapse rattles the ground beneath my feet.

The grief starts to swell again, a wave of it threatening to swallow me whole, until one of the soldiers swings his massive sword to cut me in half. I’m fast, though, and it swipes through nothing but air as I keep moving, the rhythm of battle humming to life in my blood. Swing, pivot, dodge. I strike the center of the swordsman’s chest with my scythe. It isn’t sharp enough to cut through the armor, but the force of my blow unseats him. He tumbles to the ground in a cacophony of clanging metal.

The last archer takes aim and fires, but somehow I catch the arrow an inch from my chest. I flip it around and throw it back at him in one movement. It sails through the air as if I had launched it from a bow, striking him in the eye he aimed with. He falls from his horse with a mangled scream.

Now, it’s me and the downed swordsman. The horses have all scattered away from the threat. Away from me.

I stalk toward the soldier, the scythe in my hands dripping blood. He’s on his back staring up at me, trying to crawl backward.

“M-m-m-mercy,” he’s mumbling. “Mercy, please…!”

But there is no mercy in me. I plant my boot on his chest and slam him into the ground, raising the scythe over my head.

“Wait!” Somewhere in my mind I know the voice is Seb’s, but I don’t have time for him right now. I’m not finished.

But Seb grabs my arm with his trembling hands. “Leina, wait!”

I turn to face him, and the red haze begins to clear from my vision. His eyes are frantic, sweeping from side to side. I follow his gaze, and the carnage in the field will join my unending nightmares. Lace browning and curling inward. Fires and burned flesh. Desperate screams that go forever unheeded. Bones rotting in the earth. A darkness that crushes.

Now, blood seeping into the soil.

The scythe wobbles in my hands, and my mouth works, trying to form words. What have I done?

The soldier beneath my boot grabs my leg and tries to twist.

I kick him in the face, and blood spurts from his nose. The man is freakishly pale under all that red. I’m about to bring down the scythe when he starts to stammer, eyes rounded.

“I-i-i-i-impossible. It’s not possible.”

I lower the scythe until it rests against his throat. I don’t have to fight Seb now. He’s released my arm and shifted to stand next to me.

“What’s not possible?” It’s a shock to hear my own voice. There’s a command in it that’s never been there before.

But the man is shaking his head and muttering while staring at me as if I’m the monster.

I’m not sure what to do next. Battle was as natural as breathing. But this? What do I do here? Torture? I need the soldier to talk. He might know what is happening to me. He certainly seems to have a better idea than I do.

But it’s Seb who takes over, kicking the man in the side. The soldier makes an oof sound, but he can’t double over because my boot has him pinned.

“You heard her! What’s impossible?”

The man’s eyes are twitching between the two of us now. He tries again to lift my boot but doesn’t budge me even an inch. My boot might as well be a boulder on his chest.

“Speak!” I command.

“There’s nothing you can do to me that will be worse than …” He stops mid-sentence, looks directly at me. “There’s nothing you can do that will be worse.” There’s true fear in his eyes, but not of me. Unacceptable.

I drop the scythe to the ground. It’s too long, too impersonal. I reach an arm behind me, palm out and fingers extended. I’m guided by a knowledge, by a knowing, that is beyond me yet comes from within.

My pruning shears land perfectly in my palm. My fingers flash with heat as they curl around the metal handle. Another extension of myself.

The soldier’s eyes are completely dilated, his gaze locked on my hand with the shears. He’s beyond words, shaking his head in denial.

I drop to a knee on the man’s chest and bring the shears to his left ear. I lean forward, to whisper. “I know all about ‘worse’.” I smile, but it’s ugly, pained. Bitter, like my mother’s. “After all, I was taught by the king’s best.” I nudge his ear with the shears—another tool I sharpened until my own fingers bled—and am rewarded with a trickle of his blood.

“A-a-a-altor!” the man finally spits out. “You fight like an Altor.”

What the hell? Selencians don’t have Altor, the warriors blessed by the gods to fight the Kher’zenn. If we did, we sure as hell wouldn’t be baseborn serfs for the Kingdom of Faraengard.

Seb must be as confused as I am, because he kicks the man again.

“What do you mean? Only Faraengard has Altor warriors,” Seb says.

The man opens his mouth, as if to speak, but instead of words, a green foam bubbles out.

“Leina, get off him! We need answers.”

Seb tries to pull me aside, but I’m already scrambling to get off the soldier’s chest. It makes no difference. The man is convulsing now, choking on his own bile. His face turns unnaturally red, his eyes bulging as he grasps desperately at his throat. He stays like that for an agonizingly long minute, his tormented eyes meeting mine one last time, before hundreds of little black bugs start crawling out of his ears, nostrils, and eyes to devour him from the inside out.

Seb and I pull each other backward so fast we nearly fall on our asses, but in the next moment the man and the bugs are gone.

I stare at him in shock. “I didn’t do this, Seb! I swear I didn’t do this!” I may be cursed with unnatural strength and uncanny senses, but I’ve never pulled man-eating bugs from nowhere.

Seb’s arms wrapped around me, his eyes taking in every detail. He’s always been one to see the broad strokes. “I think that was the ‘worse,’ Leina.”

My mouth drops open. I close it, open it again. Try to speak.

“You think he was … cursed? Or something?” I finally get out.

Seb’s eyes are wide, staring at the place where the man was. Not even bloodstains remain on the grass. “Or something.”

A keening cry behind us yanks me out of my stupor, and both of us turn to see Leo kneeling next to our mother’s body.

Oh gods. His cries bring into sharp focus what we’ve lost. What I’ve done. Tears form in my own eyes, and the nausea churning in my stomach makes me certain I’m going to retch.

Seb races over to Leo and snatches him up, hugging Leo so tightly against his chest I’m afraid he might suffocate him.

“S-s-s-e-e-e-b,” I start, but my teeth have started to chatter. I stop and try again, clenching my mouth closed tightly to try to control the rattling. “Seb. Can Leo breathe?”

“Gods, Leina! He can’t see this!” Seb’s large hand trembles as he cradles the back of Leo’s head, pushing him deeper into the linen of his shirt. Leo flails, trying to get back down to Mother.

I try to nod, but my head feels both too heavy and too light.

Seb takes a shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes closed. When he opens them again, he seems to have aged a decade. The rage and grief painted across his face shouldn’t belong to a 19-year-old. Seb shoves Leo into my arms. “Get him inside, away from … Get him inside. Start to pack.”

“P-p-p-a-a-ack?” The chattering of my teeth is uncontrollable now as my entire body shudders. I’m so cold I could swear there’s ice in my veins. Leo’s shrieks threaten to shatter my sensitive ear drums. I panic as I try to hold on to him, terrified I’ll crush him, but my strength has deserted me. I can barely keep the frantic boy in my arms.

“Pack all the food and supplies we have. We can’t stay here now.”

Of course not. They’ll come for us—all of us—because of what happened here today. Because of what I did. We’ll be hunted. But where will we go? There is no safe place.

“I’m so sorry, Seb. I’m sorry for what I did, for what happened. I didn’t mean to, I just …” What? I just what? There was nothing but rage, and now there’s nothing but a hazy cloud of grief that I can’t see my way out of.

Seb has his head lowered, his fingers pressing so firmly into the base of his nose that the tanned skin there turns white from the pressure.

“By Lako’s hells, Leina! Not now! Go pack while I bury them. They deserve that much.” Mother and Father. He has to dig graves and bury our mother and father because of me.

I’m shuddering now, from my toes in my boots to my hands that clutch Leo closer. My knees knock together, though I’m trying to hide it under my dress.

“They’re going to come for us. Maybe if I turn myself in …”

“Think, Leina!” Seb shouts. “Even if they believed you were the one who did this, what would happen to Leo after they execute you and send me to the mines? Who would take care of him, assuming they don’t kill him anyway out of spite?”

No one. No one else would take in another mouth to feed. Not one that can’t work yet.

His voice gentles, but only slightly. He’s not shouting, but he sounds harsh, like he’s talking over sand in his throat. “We don’t have another choice, Leina. Go. Pack. We won’t have much time before someone comes looking for them.”

My voice lowers. “What if they send Altor, Seb?”

Seb rubs the back of his neck and stares up at the sky before bringing his gaze back to land on me. His smile is bitter now, like Mother’s was.

“Well, apparently we have an Altor of our own,” he says, gesturing toward me.

Oh gods. And then everything starts to waver, my vision narrowing in rapid bursts. Seb is reaching for me. Worry lines his face.

What have I done? is my last thought before everything fades, but not into blackness. Instead, I fall into the softest light, the glow from a candle maybe.

“Seb! Seb! She’s waking up!” Leo is shout-whispering from my side, and that is enough to start a vicious pounding at my temples. I furiously work my eyelids, fighting this suffocating darkness, and when they finally lift a fraction, sunlight is dappling through a thick cover of trees. Forest. We’re in the Weeping Forest.

My eyelids fall back down, and I drag a deep breath in through my nose, expecting to smell the crisp coolness of the leaves, the musk of good soil, and sweet pine. Instead, I smell incense and wax and just a hint of something … old. I try to reach out to comfort Leo, but my arm won’t move. I fight to open my eyelids again, but they remain fused shut. Panic blossoms in my chest, my heart squeezing.

I flail, trying to thrash my entire body. I manage to lift a finger.

Finally, when I open my eyes again, Leo’s face peers down on me, his eyes full of tears and his lips drawn in a worried frown. I draw in another breath, and cloying incense is gone, replaced by the freshness of the forest.

It was a dream.

It’s the first dream I’ve had in six years that wasn’t about Irielle, Levvi, or Alden. But still. Just a dream.

I blink again, and I realize I’m snuggled with Leo under a pile of our mother’s quilts in the back of our farm cart. Our donkey has stopped in the Weeping Forest, where the mighty pine trees always look as if they’re crying. Their sap is clear and seeps down the trunks and falls off branches in a continuous drip, no matter the season.

The sunlight dapples through the trees, reflecting brightly on the large collection of swords, daggers, and armor piled up next to me in the cart. The pile contrasts sharply with the small pile of sentimental things packed from home—the family quilt mother worked so hard on in the days before Levvi was taken; the old book of Selencian fairy tales, its pages brittle and worn but irreplaceable; father’s recorder, which he’d play at night by the fire.

Reality