Endless hours of remaining off the trail, as well as watching the scouts and spies have all the fun by jogging through the tree lines, coming dangerously close to the trail that would reveal to any number of guards or king's men that we're close, is draining. But it has come to an end.

Bren, the leader of this mission, finally signals that it's time to stop for the night. The scouts return from their spying near the trail to search for anyone that might be out at such a late time of night, but they find nothing. Either way, we're instructed to nestle deep within the trees and keep ourselves hidden.

Some opt for climbing up trees and resting themselves on branches, including Tesha. Others, the remainder of our group, chooses to keep ourselves hidden and safe underneath the canopy of thick branches and dark trunks. We can't risk fires; if guards or the king's men spot the faintest hint of smoke rising into the sky, there's no chance we make it out of these woods without fighting those that spot us.

I nestle myself down against a thick trunk and rest my back against it. My feet ache, my legs ache, my entire body aches. Even worse, my eyes won't remain open long enough for Renit to sit down across from me. He searches through his satchel for something, brows furrowed, and pulls out food wrapped in a cloth.

The smell is strong and salty. I grimace. "So that's what I've smelled all day," I mock, unwrapping the cooked fish. Despite it being cold and tasteless after hours of sitting in his satchel, tasting of leather rather than ocean, my mouth waters. As if the food awakens a deep part of hunger within me, my stomach rumbles.

"I figured you were getting tired of apples and cheese." Renit pulls out exactly that, an apple and cheese, and feeling obligated to do so, I set the fish between us and silently pick off pieces, him doing the same.

The woods are quiet except for the rustling of our rebels. Hours ago, the sun set and left us to travel in the dark; Bren was kind enough to light a lantern to help us through, but kept it for himself so he wasn't the victim of stumbling over rocks and slamming his shoulder into tree trunks. I happened to face a similar challenge.

My hand clutched tight in Renit was the only thing that kept me standing, and I promised myself that if I went down, he would go with me.

Our journey to the capital is not soon over. The castle is looming close, but we haven't received word or intel on how strong the security is. If we look hard enough, we'll find it, if we capture a king's soldier, we'll discover it, but Bren is playing it safe. Every chance we risk getting caught is one more fight we must win. And we can't win against an entire army discovering us after one false move.

The king will have our heads.

I force myself to keep eating through these horrible thoughts. Like everything else, there's a chance it happens. There's a possibility someone is caught, and it could be anyone. Through the dark, my eyes scan the many huddled figures settling down for the night, and I listen to Tesha's voice high in the trees as she sings to herself. A crunch muffles her words and the cursing of a rebel below proves she's eating an apple and isn't being clean about it.

Are similar thoughts going through the heads of those around me? I wouldn't dare ask Renit; his answers are vague and hardly what I'm searching for. The last thing I want to do right now is deciphering what he has to say.

Bren, on the other hand, might tell me. As will Binx. I spot him through the haze of my exhaustion, leaning against a trunk and sharpening a blade. He's slouched down so far; his entire body is nearly against the ground but not quite there. At the sight of my stare, he jerks his chin in my direction and I wave him over. Not because I want to know the answer; he's sitting alone.

The rebellion accepts him as one of their own, but he doesn't fit in anywhere specifically. Binx doesn't complain about it, but he shoots up from where he's slouched, relieved that someone asked for his company, and plops down next to me. Hiding his snarl, Renit bites into his apple and stares off in the other direction.

"What's your plan?" I ask immediately.

Binx stares at me sidelong. Underneath the stars, his brown skin shines and his eyes are black against the moonlight. "My plan?" He echoes.

"Your plan." Renit's jaw tightens, but he makes the conscious decision not to rile himself to alert the other rebels of commotion, and in return, alert anyone else nearby. There are cottages spread throughout these woods, some empty and others not, and their alliances can go either way. "She wants to know what your plan is to get inside the castle without us getting caught, illusion boy."

His nostrils flaring, his knuckles going white as he clenches his fists tight, Binx looks to his lap. I glare at Renit through lowered brows, but he glares right back, crossing his muscled arms over his chest and huffing an impatient breath through his nose. The last time I was able to have a conversation with Binx without someone butting in...it was on the cliff sides. And I was still under the king's control at the time. I nearly ripped out Binx's throat.

Binx makes the smart decision by avoiding a retort. "I was planning on creating an illusion that we're not there. But, in turn, that means only a couple of you can go into the castle. My power can only hold so much at great distances."

"I thought you put an illusion on all the king's men?" I question.

He shakes his head. "No, after the first few, the king became strong enough to provide that himself. With the more soldiers he created, the stronger he became. I didn't have to do anything other than provide him with the potions and as you and I did, give them to the prisoners."

I remember faintly. Their terrified faces, screaming for help as they tried to squirm out of the chairs we tied them to. Back then, I relished in their misery and desired to watch more. The king chuckling, whispering everything would be all right, I believed him as well as the prisoners did when they ingested the potion. Some died, and I hadn't cared about that life. Now I do.

Their faces blur together in my mind, and when I try, I can't make out a single one. They're lost to me, and it pains me to think their deaths are unnoticed by the person that did it. Whether witches or human, they didn't deserve the fate they were receiving. Esaria's leader made me believe there was no other choice but to convert them; my freedom was granted, theirs should be, too.

"Since I know the castle, I'll go in," Renit says. "That's all we really need, everyone else can stay out and monitor the castle grounds." He makes a point not to look at me.

I snort. "That's not happening. If Binx's power can only hold two people in that castle, then me and you are going in. I'm not letting you go in alone."

"She's right." I straighten a little at Binx's proclamation. Renit stares him down, death in his eyes. "We need eyes around every corner if we're going into the castle—that means at least two invaders."

I jerk my chin in Renit's direction, smiling gleefully, and he rolls his eyes. After all this time, I can still annoy him in all aspects. He pops a piece of cheese into his mouth and his cheek bulges with the effort to chew the stale, unflavored clump. Hundreds of years of eating court food has taken a toll on his habits lately, he spits out nearly everything he eats after not being accustomed to simple, underdeveloped tastes.

He leans forward and rests his forearms on his knees. "What do you know about the king's plans? You were at his side for months, you have to know something."

Before Binx has the chance to get any words out, Renit is already deciding to threaten him. It's laced through his words, prepared for the lie and prepared to not accept it. "He didn't reveal much," Binx responds as if he's ignoring Renit's harshness. I'm not. "Nothing more than expanding his army to the point it spans the entire eastern part of the kingdom. He wishes to use that army to take the Edogrith land, and then Saebia, and other kingdoms to the east, as well. He'll kill everyone in sight."

"What does he want the Edogrith land for? There's nothing of significance except the remnants of a long-dead kingdom," I say.

"It'll be a base for training soldiers, building warriors, and for transforming innocent witches into those through the potion. He wants to expand his experiments away from the castle as his halls are becoming too cluttered."

Binx's words snap a memory back into my mind. I remember the king saying something about the castle being too confined, too small for the soldiers he needed to create. At the time, he didn't have a plan, but apparently, he does now. Edogrith, the land that has faced so much death already, will become a new form of destruction. It'll create warriors, breed killers, and lives will never be remembered as they once were. I shiver at the thought.

"And Saebia?" Renit asks. "I understand his want to take their land, but why them specifically?"

Even after everything he's done, Binx doesn't falter against Renit's harsh stare. He meets it dead-on and embraces the prince's molten silver eyes. "Saebia never surrendered after the war. The king never received a formal letter; Saebia is still standing. The king wants them gone."

The silence goes on a little too long, and I am aware there are thoughts being had without me. Both of them are thinking, calculating—all without me. They're going through this plan by themselves, whether or not I'm involved. I'm going into that castle, whether they let me, or I go in kicking and screaming to alert the king we're there. Renit doesn't go in by himself, I'll knock him out of consciousness before that happens.

"We killed them all on the battlefield." The words taste like bile on my tongue. I remember that day, killing more and more soldiers. "Why won't they surrender?"

"Believe it or not, there are more than a few reasons why the king hates you." Binx grins. "The king of Saebia recognized that you, not the king, took down his battlefield; killed his soldiers. He will not surrender until he spots a volatile reason to do so."

Renit's laugh holds no amusement. "He's not going to surrender until Esaria's army storms his castle; kills his servants and his people, and takes the crown for themselves. It's foolish." He shrugs.

"Exactly so," Binx affirms. "But Roux is the one reason there's a delay. The king has soldiers working for him, and the leader of Saebia wants only to face the king. The soldiers don't matter; the leaders with the crowns, on the other hand, do."

Renit's eyes glow when he adjusts his stare to meet mine. "As much as I hated the thought of you on that battlefield, I'd love to see it."

I don't hold a similar amusement. Flashes of the battlefield come back to me, following the king as he boiled witches alive. I sent out whips of stone at soldiers and relished in the sounds of their bones cracking underneath it—their screams of pleading. The entire world shaking underneath my feet, the battlefield raging on around me but no one, no one, could touch me.

That confidence, the lightness it gave me, lasted until my power decided it had nothing left. And then Renit was there, and despite hating him through the illusion that I had to, I used the reserve to save myself. Not him. Myself.

I sent a spiraling tornado of sharp rock and sand towards fleeing soldiers. They'd given up, would rather have their lives, but I killed them anyway. My mentality held a similar goal as the king's—don't let anyone believe you're lower than what you are. Put them on their knees, don't let them believe you belong on yours.

Renit will get the chance to witness me on a battlefield. Whether in the next few days or weeks from now after we retrieve Silas, somehow, and make it out of the castle without a scratch. Either way, it'll happen. And the castle, the courtyard, everything—it'll be reduced to dust through my power or the next.

We'll take the king's crown from his head.

Conversation dies out shortly after that. Binx is called over to Bren to discuss his idea for an illusion, and the food settling like a rock in my stomach is what helps me drift off to sleep. It doesn't take long; I curl up with my satchel as a pillow and Renit, on the opposite trunk of my own, rests his legs against mine to provide the slightest presence of warmth. To remind me he's there, to remind me that the war isn't here anymore.

He can tell by my silence that the memories are dragging me back under. I can't lose myself in the middle of the woods, not in front of anyone. I fall asleep, deep and comfortable until somewhere in my sleep, an invisible fist knocks on my mind and reminds me of nightmares. If I have them, I'll make a scene in front of everyone.

My eyes fly open, my body running cold. I look down, but Renit is already asleep on his side, chest rising and falling in steady motions. I stare between the rows and rows of thick trees, dark and empty, and try to make my mind believe that it's all right to sleep.

Hours later, when the sun rises, it comes to the point that I was never close to getting enough. The rebels start moving around and preparing themselves for departure, but I've barely started settling down.