Renit exposes both his palms in innocence. This is the first time I've seen him this way, eyes so wide and full of fear that he doesn't know what to say, what to do other than to show he doesn't have a weapon.

"It's all right," he promises. "It's me, Renit Marron. It's me."

I lower my dagger enough to get Darlene's mother off her toes and she slinks down back to her original height, looking between the three of us. Bren is in the doorway, two daggers clenched in his fist and the sword halfway out of its sheath before he decided smaller weapons, something with compaction, was necessary in such a small space.

Our heads are nearly touching the ceiling. Part of the cottage is caved in but it's blocked off by what appears to be a makeshift wall of stone. The smell of the cottage reminds me of death, although different in its entirety from what we faced in the Ducoria streets. This is a death that translates over years, over the span of someone giving in to the Age Lock.

"Renit?" She asks, her voice barely above a whisper. "I thought you...there are rumors going around that you're dead."

Her sapphire eyes, twin to Darlene's, look Renit up and down. The wrinkles around her eyes prove she's given in to the Age Lock, and around her small mouth, frown lines have formed over the years—or months—of her aging. Darlene's mother is willing to die, she's aging herself like a mortal would.

Deciding she's no longer a threat, I lower my dagger the rest of the way and distance myself from both of them. This isn't my fight, I'm not the one that's supposed to be standing in front of Darlene's mother. Right now, all they need to see is each other after one hundred plus years of never coming face to face. I remember when Renit left a pouch of coins on their doorstep; how excited she was. There's none of that excitement in her face now.

Her hair, pulled behind her head into a tight knot, is fraying around her scalp. The pecan strands flutter around her full cheeks and tickle her jaw. It's not a noticeable fault, but blood stains her apron and her shoes are torn at the toe and at the heel.

"That's clearly wrong," Renit jokes, splaying his arms wide to show her he's still alive. "I'm here, and despite everything that has happened, I'm still breathing."

A shaken laugh leaves her and her shoulders droop when she walks over to Renit and takes her in his arms. They embrace, Renit's strength pulling her in gently. He holds her close as her small shoulders shake at the reminder of her deceased daughter and what has happened over these recent days. I don't know what she has faced, but I know it can't be anything good.

Bren and I exchange a look, wondering if we should leave them to talk alone. As much as this isn't my battle to fight, it's definitely not Bren's, either. I open my mouth, daring to ask if he wishes to step outside, when Darlene's mother speaks over me.

"Come, take a seat in the kitchen," she says. "I'll make you some tea."

She guides Renit in, her hand on his back, and with her free hand, she gestures for us to follow. This doesn't feel right; I don't belong here as much as Bren doesn't. I stand in the entryway, unable to move. Where I go, Bren stays. So we stay where we're standing until Renit looks over his shoulder, eyes going directly to me.

The kitchen is in the next room through an open, stone archway, and he'd started to pull out a chair at the wooden table before he realized no one was behind him.

"I'll wait outside," Bren whispers in my ear. "I'll keep a watch on everything."

No, he can't leave me here all alone. As much as Bren and I have distanced over the span of these months, I still want him to be there when these awkward moments swell up so much there isn't enough room for air. This is one of them, and he's my only escape if Darlene's mother decides I'm not worthy of the man that once loved her daughter so much that he created a family with her.

For emphasis, I grip onto Bren's shirt and keep him there. He doesn't fight it, and only moves to the other side of the room, scratching at the back of his head when Renit comes back towards me. Renit places both his hands against my arms and moves us into the darkness of the entryway.

"I want you here," he says quicker than I can blurt an excuse to leave.

"Renit, this isn't...I don't belong here," I tell him. "This involves Darlene, not me. I think you two need to talk alone."

Renit is shaking his head before I've finished speaking and he grips tighter onto my arms to draw my focus back towards him and not the woman making tea in the kitchen over an open flame. "This involves you, too. You're a part of my life, and that's much harder to explain to her if you're not in the room."

"What if—" My eyes dart back to her again "—What if she doesn't like me?"

Renit snorts. "She's not my mother, you don't have to worry about that. Please, just come and sit at my side and it'll be much easier for me to talk to her. I need you there."

This heart needs you. I need you.

Looking back now, those words had more meaning than Renit claimed. Looking into his eyes now, I know they weren't faked like he wanted his reputation to uphold. Renit needed me back then, and he needs me now. So when his fingers slide through mine, like twines of glass twisting together, I nod and allow him to lead me into the kitchen where he finishes pulling out that chair for me to sit down.

There is no head of the table. Only four chairs around a chipped piece of flat wood on legs. Bren sits in the chair opposite of my own, meaning he'll have to sit next to Darlene's mother, but he doesn't seem to care all that much. Renit's hand is already on my knee, warming my skin through the fabric of my pants.

Her hands shake when she brings over the four cups and fills them with the kettle. It's not the fine porcelain in the castle, the cups are rusted copper and seem brittle in my hand, but I thank her anyway. Ducoria has since fallen on hard times and although she can search for better cups, stealing from the dead, she keeps what she has.

I wonder if Darlene ever held the cup in my hands. If she sat in this chair and wrapped her hands around it, sipping tea with Renit sitting on the opposite side of the table. I can't imagine it, yet it seems wholly normal—him sitting here.

"You gave me quite the fright," she begins with a small, innocent laugh. Her chair scrapes across the wooden floorboards when she sits down, and it doesn't stop until she's scooted in all the way.

My hands are shaking. Through involuntary movement, my knee is bouncing underneath Renit's hand but he gives my thigh a firm squeeze in silent order to stop before I bring the entire house down.

"We weren't certain if you were still alive or not," Renit says. "The rest of Ducoria is..."

His voice trails off and her eyes dart towards him, as bright and smooth as silk fabric. "Slaughtered. I know." The sip she takes of the tea is short-lived and nothing in terms of flavor, but she acts as though it's a refreshment to sit at this table and talk to another living being about anything other than their final moments.

So far, she's the only survivor we've witnessed of Ducoria's destruction. I don't want to ask about her husband and whether he's still alive or not, but she doesn't appear to be wholly broken. A stoned expression is all she reveals, and it's plausible to think she's been helping the survivors—if there are any at all—through the troubles of the next few days. Maybe she did steal from the dead already.

She props her elbows onto the table, one hand gripped tightly onto the handle of the copper cup. Her skin is scarred and some wounds don't hold the presence of age. Some are new, handed to her recently, and they're clean and healing.

"It was a massacre." She doesn't look at Renit, or me, or Bren. We're sidestepping introductions, then. "They came through without a hint of warning and started killing—no questions asked. The first sign of anything wrong, for us at least, was the endless screaming. It carried all the way out here; warnings shouted, moans of pain...I remember those sounds of terror in my sleep." She takes a sip of tea, licks her lips, but from the hollowness in her eyes, doesn't register the taste.

"Was the king here?" Renit asks.

She shakes her head, finally meeting his eye. "Not from what I saw. I climbed a tree and watched it all unfold; there was nothing else I could do. The king wasn't here, but a blonde woman wearing a suit of red and black armor was. Innocent little thing, I've never seen someone so tiny, yet fully in charge."

Renit and I exchange a glance. "Hallie," I sigh.

I press a hand to my forehead as if trying to rub the thought of her alliance from my brow. Renit's finger traces lazy circles on my knee. He, too, is considering what the healer must've gone through to make it here, to lead an entire legion, and to slaughter innocent people. Hallie was never one for death—through the right ways, maybe. But never to halt the rebellion. By doing this, she's placed herself completely on the white line drawn between our two forces. She's entirely on the king's side now.

"Did she behave like the remainder of the soldiers?" Renit asks.

She shakes her head. "No, they moved...in patterns, like they received orders to do a certain thing and as soon as it was done, they moved onto the next. This woman, Hallie, was different." She speaks with a pointed look in my direction, a silent thank you for putting a name to the face. I've kept my tattooed hand under the table and will continue to. Darlene's mother doesn't need a reason to hate me yet. "She moved with ease, fluently, and shouted orders. They listened to her command."

"She's not under the potion's influence," Bren chimes in. He leans back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest.

Darlene's mother furrows her brows. "A potion?"

There's no other person in the room that can explain it better than I can. Renit was there when the potion was administered and Bren was only there to watch my hellacious attempts at killing everyone in my path, but neither of them was under the king's control. They don't know what it's like to have their hearts yanked on so thoroughly that mental stitching no longer does anything to keep the pieces together.

"The king, through magic of the original witches, created a potion that, when mixed with his blood, gives him full control over witches. They do as he says with no remorse, or remembrance, for their actions," I explain, eyes darting around to the faces around me. I bring my hand to the table and her eyes widen at the sight of the royal emblem on the back of my hand. Just as I expected, they narrow. "I was one of them."

The symbol of the kingdom was once just that. The thought of the king's destruction didn't come to mind, and when anyone looked at the sword dripping with blood and flame, they recognized the sacrifices the Marron bloodline has made to create a strong kingdom. That is no longer the case. When I display the royal emblem, anyone nearby sees a truth to alliance. And Darlene's mother believes I'm not on their side—I'm on the king's.

"You sided with the king?" She asks coldly.

Renit's hand tightens on my knee. "She did it to protect me from facing that," he defends. "She became the king's third hand to protect me from what the king planned to do."

"Ah." She clicks her tongue in disappointment. "I heard of the king's third hand. A ruthless killer that smiled as she did it. When you walked into my home, I didn't believe that to be you."

The lump in my throat keeps me from speaking, but I swallow down my fear and force myself to sit up straighter. I fought on a battlefield, took lives, and to this day, plan to kill the king and leave nothing of him behind. I can sit across from Darlene's mother and face her without fear and regret trickling through my blood, swirling inside my thoughts.

I was the king's third hand. But Renit has convinced me, more than once, that I'm no longer that person. The title may be engraved into my skin, but it means nothing. It's a visible reminder of my past, but it doesn't define me.

"I love Renit. I would do it all over again if that means he doesn't face that pain," I confess with ease. That hand tightens on my knee again, traveling up to squeeze my thigh, and I can take that as Renit's response being: I love you, too.

"I assume you are also Renit's Grounding, the witch of ground stolen from Arego and forced to live in the castle? Forced to become his fiancé?"

A guilty and subtle smile blossoms onto Renit's face. I relish in every smile he displays, whether small or a full-out flash of his white teeth. "We've both come a long way, as you can see."

"Yes, that is evident." She quirks her mouth to the side upon looking at the table, running her finger over one of the deep cracks along the surface. "Why are you here, Renit? What do you wish to know from me?"

Suddenly, the tone in the room has changed. She's not as lighthearted as she once was and I know it's a direct result to who sits at her table. When I meet Bren's stare across the table, his silent telling proves he's feeling the same way. It's the pursing of his lips, the raising of his brows in response to her tone, that makes my heart sink.

I've received similar looks from fellow rebels. I supported the king's operation, willingly gave into the potion instead of trying to take the castle down, but that wasn't good enough for them. Protecting Renit was supposed to be the last thing on my mind and killing the king with no restraints while we stood in the same room should've been my main goal. But my happiness wanted to come first, as well as Renit's.

I saw more of a chance for us by willingly taking that potion than attempting to kill the king at that moment. If I sent that castle crashing down around us, it wouldn't be just the king that died. It'd be Renit and Silas, too, the last of the Marron line. Through all their faults, the kingdom of Esaria is not quite done with the Marron line. They will sit on the throne once more, but the true new day in Esaria comes when the crown rests on Silas's head.

Renit sidesteps the tension. "Do you know what direction they left in? Did they say anything to you?" He asks.

"They headed out the same way they came and none of us were stupid enough to follow. If they said anything, I was too far away to hear. The words, if anything at all, were said right before the cut of a blade along someone's throat." Her eyes dart to me and I'm met by cold indifference.

Instead of opting to stare at her, I look down to my lap where Renit's hands continue to trace the inside of my knee. It takes me a moment, one too long for me to realize as I'm too distracted, but he's not making idle circles. He's tracing out the same thing, over and over again.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

He traces it over my pants, on the inside of my knee, while he's having this conversation with Darlene's mother. I give a subtle, yet loving tug on the Grounding bond to ensure him I know what he's doing. His thumb applies gentle pressure to my knee to prove to me he received my message.

"Were any powers displayed in the fight?" Bren asks when the room grows silent. Renit and I are too distracted.

"There were few. If they displayed anything of strength, it seemed like the soldiers made a point to keep them alive. Through the chaos, I don't believe I know what came of those witches, but I haven't seen them again."

The tea is growing cold along with her hatred towards me. She doesn't have to look directly at me for us to know it's there. Displayed by her rigid posture and flat stare, she's saying all that she needs to say without actually spitting the words in my face. Darlene was better than you. She loved Renit more than you do. My daughter should be alive; not you.

"It's possible the king will transform them into soldiers of his own, instead of what we came for," Renit explains, dragging a hand down his face. "That means their trip to Saebia might be delayed."

"It's too dangerous to risk the potion on the road," I venture. "It's possible they headed back to the castle, but took a southern route to avoid something."

Renit scoffs. "To avoid us. My father knew we were coming in this direction and has aligned all the pieces perfectly to make us rush to Saebia. We have time, more time than we need."

Although Darlene's mother is out of the know for this part of the conversation, she listens very carefully. I don't know what her power was before she gave into the Age Lock, but the heat of her eyes on the side of my face every time she looks at me is blinding and painful. Then again, I can't stand to sit across from her without staring her down, too.

Renit would tell me not to appear weak. Don't let her gain the advantage.

"You are part of the rebellion, are you not?" She asks.

"We are indeed." Now that Renit's cup is empty, he's free to fiddle with it. "We came here in search of supporters in the rebellion, hoping we could find some Ducorians willing to expend their powers for the rebellion and kill the king. We need forces, and it's impossible to find those when the king is on our back the entire time."

"I wish I had names for you, but the survivors fled to Lona or south, to hide in the market in the Blood Desert. Right now, those seem like the only two safe places. They don't wish to head east, because well..." She shrugs.

"That's where the king is," Bren finishes. "They're wise, but that's not what we need." He chews on his lip.

Suddenly, the door bursts open, revealing a silver-haired man with dull brown eyes. He studies us in shock, going from Darlene's mother, to Bren, to me, and then to Renit sitting at the far end of the table. There is faint resemblance, but Darlene is there in his face, too. My heart sinks even more than it has in the past few moments.

Darlene's father is in the room. And my hand is still on the table. He looks from the royal emblem to me, a fire lighting in his stare when I hadn't thought it was possible for there to be one at all. His wife doesn't try to stop him, and Renit is too late, as the bow in his hands draws a single arrow and aims directly for me.

It all happens so fast. Renit throwing his arms around me, Bren leaping across the table, Darlene's mother remaining completely motionless and doing nothing to stop the man standing in the archway to the kitchen. My power is too late, I can't use it here in such an unstable cottage, and there's no choice but for the man to release that arrow.

Either I've been through too much already or Bren is quicker than he has been in the past. He throws his body over mine at the same time Renit braces against me, protecting anything vital. The arrow flies, but it doesn't hit me or Renit. Instead, it lodges itself into Bren's side and the entire room goes silent.