But then she sorted past all that, to a glowing orb of light.

Keshel’s voice grew quiet, focused, as he said, “Pull from your center, and bring the energy into your hands.”

Marai concentrated. Pulled. Warmth traveled up her torso, through her ribcage and arms. She opened an eye. The ball of light floated between her palms, shining, a miniature sun.

“That’s your life energy, a physical manifestation of your whole being,” Keshel explained. “Fae lore states that Lirr planted a piece of her life energy, a seed, into the ground, and that’s where we came from. You must know the difference between this, and your magic. Without life energy, you die. Pulling from the wrong source can extinguish it. Make sure you never tap into your life energy. You must always know your limits.”

Marai turned the orb of light over in her hands, and then sucked the light back inside her. She felt it settle in her core, winking like a star in the distance.

This time, Keshel closed his eyes, long dark hair draped over his shoulder; a serene ethereal creature so out of place in the Badlands desert. Her people didn’t belong there. Fae normally lived in forests, amongst pallets of green, yellow, and brown. Not copper. Not dust. She wished she could move them someplace better. Andara still called to her across the raging waters . . .

“I imagine the shield first in my mind,” he said. “I imagine it expanding and shrinking, adjusting over the land. I can mold the shield to my desires before the magic exits my fingertips.”

Without the slightest bit of tension, a shield snapped into place around Marai. If she hadn’t felt the magic in the air, smelled its bubbly, earthy scent, Marai wouldn’t have known. The shield was entirely translucent. It shimmered if Marai cocked her head and peered at it from a certain angle, but a human could walk right past it and not realize there was magic in front of them.

Marai placed her hand on the shield and felt it fluctuate, a zap of magic rushed up her arm. From the other side, Keshel shuddered.

“Can you feel this?” Marai asked as she traced a finger across the shield, seeing how far it stretched around her.

“Yes,” he replied, eyes focused on her blackened fingers. “I can feel your magic against mine. It’s strange . . . the others have interacted with my shields before, but even with little power, you feel so different.”

Marai sent a pulse of her own weak magic against it. The shield stayed strong, but shimmered.

Keshel stared at her with such intensity, a blush staining his cheeks. Marai felt heat on her own face that wasn’t at all from the sun. She removed her hand. For some reason, touching the shield suddenly felt like an intimate act.

He cleared his throat. “Now you try.”

Marai closed her eyes and did as Keshel instructed. She imagined the shield, formed it in her mind, and raised her hand. Feeble magic wobbled out, creating a barrier in front of her. Marai could instantly see the difference between hers and Keshel’s. Hers was more visible, flickering, trying to stay in existence. It was a paltry imitation of Keshel’s forcefield. The moment Marai stopped concentrating, the shield disappeared with a pop.

“How are you able to control multiple shields at once?” she asked with a scowl.

Keshel had at least three shields up around the boundaries of their territory: walls at each end of the canyon, and a domed ceiling above them across the gorge. Those shields hardly ever dropped.

Strangely, Keshel smiled. It was off-putting. Marai had hardly ever seen that expression on his inscrutable face.

“You have tremendous power, Marai, but so do I. Where yours is offensive, mine is defensive.”

“We’d make a good team, then,” Marai said.

Keshel’s eyes opened wider. He hadn’t been expecting that response. His face softened and he continued to smile. “Yes, I think we would.”

Keshel had changed. Before, he’d always been the strict older brother, denying Marai of every freedom she desired. Suffocating her with rules. Talking at her like she was trouble, as if she was a hindrance, a bother. Now, he regarded her as an equal. He’d seen her through flashes, watched her from afar.

Or maybe it wasn’t Keshel who’d changed. Perhaps it was Marai who had grown up. And she knew why . . . she knew why she’d softened. She understood why she’d changed.

Because a human prince deemed her worthy of his friendship and his trust.

Ruenen slipped through the cracks again. The chink in her armor. Ruenen brought down the walls, even if he wasn’t there.

Even if he would soon be dead.

“You have great control over your magic, Marai,” Keshel said, bringing her back to the valley, away from the dusty devils on her conscience. He was no longer smiling. He’d watched her go to that dark place within her soul. “I’ve always seen that. Your basic elemental magic is strong, but the power you’ve inherited from somewhere is stronger than regular magic. It will take more strength to control. Right now, you don’t have the energy to light a fire. Until your magic recovers, practice your focus. Practice breathing. Imagine your power in your mind. Flex it. Shape it. Wield it. That’s how I learned.”

Keshel left her alone outside, contemplating his words and the gentle way in which he’d said them.

Marai seemed to have a knack for walking in on conversations between Thora and Raife. Before dinner, Thora had asked Marai to pick cactus fruits from Kadiatu’s garden. When she’d returned to the cavern, Raife and Thora were quite close, barely a breath apart. Raife tucked a strand of Thora’s brown hair behind her pointed ear and smiled down at her with such genuine affection that Marai’s own heart stuttered. Someone had given her that look before.

Light on her feet, Marai entered the cave quietly. Raife and Thora weren’t aware of her presence, so she cleared her throat and the two leapt apart. Their faces flushed, and Raife immediately hustled from the cave, mumbling about washing up before dinner.

Thora busied herself with stirring the pot of stew boiling over the fire. Marai deposited the cactus fruit onto the wooden table and faced Thora, crossing her arms.

“What?” Thora snapped, worrying her lower lip. “You can stop looking at me that way, and cut up those fruits.”

Marai took her knife and started slicing the fruit into perfectly equal pieces, enough for seven people. “Do you and Raife have feelings for each other?”

Thora dropped the ladle into the pot of stew. Frazzled, she plucked it out with two fingers. “We’re all very close here. We’re all each other has.” Her voice was higher than usual.

Marai popped a piece of fruit into her mouth. “You always told me never to lie.”

Thora scowled. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever feelings Raife and I have . . . it doesn’t matter. And you shouldn’t lie.” Her ginger eyes flashed in that stern, motherly way Marai was used to.

“I should think those feelings matter a great deal,” said Marai, having learned that herself recently.

“It’s complicated.”

Marai stared back blandly.

Thora stopped stirring the stew and sighed. “We can’t, Marai. It’s not safe.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why are you so full of questions tonight?” snapped Thora.

Marai couldn’t help it—she gave Thora a knowing smirk.

Thora sighed and tucked that loose strand of hair back again. Her expression changed. Her eyes saddened, lips pouted, making her appear younger, more akin to her age of twenty and four. “We’ve managed to survive this long because we’ve stayed hidden, always alert, always ready to run if we need to. There’s never a moment when I don’t fear that we’ll be found. You and Keshel have assured us that will happen. And I cannot bring myself to love someone in that way only to have them taken from me.”

Marai’s heart sunk. Thora wasn’t wrong. There was certainly a chance one of them could be killed at any moment. Marai understood that fear. It was one of the reasons why Marai had spent the past four years trying not to feel, untouchable and unattainable. She’d experienced the loss of love once, and she never wanted to feel that powerless again.

But she had. She’d let Ruenen into her heart. Now every part of her ached from the loss of him.

“Do you ever think that maybe it’s worth it to have a few days of happiness?” Marai asked her, making Thora pause. “That if death comes for you or him . . . at least you had some time together.”

Marai wasn’t asking about Raife.

Thora studied her for a moment, as if she could read Marai’s thoughts and knew she was struggling. “Sometimes I feel that way, but then I worry about children.”

Children? Marai had never thought about children before. No new fae had been born in nearly two decades.