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--Final letter of King Delaeneral

Adelina A, clear warnings of snow, stretching as far as the horizon As Maeve leads two riders out ahead to check our path, I sit with Magiano, chewing on strips of dried meat and hard bread Around a nearby fire, Raffaele sits with his cloak gathered tightly about hinoring us all

Magiano is in a dark loo off the whispers into stay sane You will lose yourselves in the snow and wilds, they are saying You will never return Besideuncontrollably, under a pile of furs and blankets Hard as it is to see her like this, I a It tells me that she is still alive I reach out and rest iano hts, "on’t see blue sky again until we leave this place" He turns his eyes to the sky and utters a loud, ive for a little Merroutas waraiety"

Maeve and her riders return as we are finishing our breakfast "The paths are covered with ice," she says as we load our packs onto our horses She catches Lucent’s eyes for aunspoken passes between them "But they are otherwise clear The snow breakers have already been through" I notice the queen touch Lucent’s boot briefly before heading to her own iano and Raffaele help me secure Violetta on a stretcher behind two of Maeve’s horses She stirs restlessly as we go, s look darker now, al her body for the Underworld I grit iano watches me as I stand beside Violetta’s stretcher "She’lla hand on my arm, but I can hear the doubt in his voice

As we near the paths that lead into the first mountains, the narrowness of the valleys starts to funnel the wind, so it bites our cheeks and cuts through every gap in our clothing I tie her to cover the lower half of ainst the cloth, creating a patch of white frost With the wind coainst my ears with every blast Their words are such a ju, but they sendfrom exhaustion Now and then, I think I see dark silhouettes standing in the crevices of the htless eyes I can only see thees of my vision--when I turn my head, they vanish

Magiano continues to frown at the sky "Is it justdarker?" He nods up at the clouds "The clouds aren’t growing any thicker--it just see ht What should be the light of a midday sun hidden behind clouds looks instead like the sun is already setting The shadows in the valley deepen as we go, stretching around us in es around us turn steeper The path beneath our horses’ hooves crunches with frost and ice

I lose track of how ht We all stay quiet I ride behind Violetta’s stretcher so I can keep her in ray and uneasy, but they never see or anyone It is as if she has already gone somewhere else

She’s still here, I tell myself But the whispers inout hts, andinht that seems to fall prematurely, we stop in a hollow that shelters us partly from the ele it impossible for us to pitch a proper caether for warht will come ather around hih the dirt with a stick, then notes several spots along it, including our location "We are getting closer" He points to a spot at the top of the path, nestled between two ht"

Raffaele speaks with calrace, as he always does, but even his voice seeers on top of the furs blanketing Violetta, who stirs uneasily in her fevered sleep We are headed toward a realends and folktales What will happen e arrive?

"The laws of our world may bend and stretch there," Raffaele says after a s may not be as they appear We’ll need to be careful" At this, he glances my way "I feel the pull of this place Can you?"

I nod Around aze wanders to where Teren sits a short distance away, his cloak undone, see his sword and knives My whispers are growing stronger, while an air of darkness see, and Raffaele’s senses are being overwhely from every direction What in? Will this journey drive him even closer to ht, I ask Maeve to set up extra sentries around Teren Even then, I still findin Teren’s direction, wondering whether I will see him snap