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“Do it!” he yelled.

I pulled the trigger.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, his body falling backward.

I tossed the gun away from us and caught his head before it could hit the ground, guiding him to rest on the softness of the lavender.

His eyes closed peacefully.

I leaned over his body, resting my head on his chest. His body cooling as his spirit left him.

The earth shook around me as I breathed in his scent of cinnamon and embers one last time. The third trial was beginning.

I was ready this time when the Earth took me, burying me with Adrian.

But unlike before, she didn’t spit me back out to a new location. Instead, she kept me within her, the dirt shifting around me.

This time, she was actually burying me alive.

The final test.

And my lungs had already run out of air.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

BRYN

Iwas twelve years old, sitting at the glass table in the honeycombed Dome on One.

Little Leo sat across from me, chewing on a piece of sweet grass, his soft hazel eyes darting away each time I caught him staring.

It was midnight, far past both our bedtimes, but we’d been told that staying up late was an exception tonight.

From this day forward, my main residence was to be on One. At Castle Esme, with the Malesa royal family.

My mother and father had asked me if I’d be willing to do this. Asked if I had wanted to go to another world and stay there, possibly long-term, with the king and queen’s son.

And I’d been quick to say yes.

I was an eager child. Always exploring and finding adventure. Even at such a young age, the romantic in me had dreamed about meeting the young prince for weeks before today. While the adventurer in me had longed for an escape from the rolling hills surrounding our manor back home on Two.

So, what better adventure than one where I crossed the stars and got to live in a grand castle with the hazel-eyed boy who now smiled shyly at me from across the table.

I didn’t know what love was yet, but I knew I liked the dashing young prince.

As our fathers talked politics and used big words I didn’t understand, I tilted my head toward the doors, hoping the prince would take the hint and sneak outside with me.

I itched to get out of this room, missing the feel of my magic that was muted in here.

When his eyes lit up eagerly, I knew I’d found a partner to join me on my adventures.

Slipping out of our chairs, we snuck across the room, our fathers paying us no mind.

Outside the front doors, I felt my magic come back to me at the same time the prince softly grabbed my hand. The air turning cold around us as his night powers cocooned us, hiding us from the royal guards stationed around the Dome.

My parents had told me the prince was a night-wielder, but being enclosed by his darkness was even more magical than I had dreamed.

A prince of night, holding hands with a princess of day.