QUICK LINKS: TL;DR Summary // Chapter Summary 1–2 | 3–13 | 14–25 | 38–49 | 50–61 | 62–63
Chapter 26
With Zavier, the Guardian, and Tillia all gone, Odessa acts. Brielle pays the supply merchant to take her “lady’s maid” to the nearby town of Ashmore. Odessa climbs in, the wagon passes through without incident, and she makes it to town.
Walking through Ashmore, Odessa spots the Guardian outside a tavern, completely focused on a beautiful blonde woman. Odessa ducks into an alley, watches him usher the woman inside, and tells herself the sick feeling in her stomach is annoyance rather than jealousy.
Odessa crosses to the inn, rents a room, and goes upstairs. The moment she closes the door, the Guardian speaks from the center of the room. He’s furious.
Chapter 27
The Guardian demands to know what Odessa was thinking. She apologizes halfheartedly, secretly proud that her disguise fooled the watchtower guards. When he tells her she’s never to do this again, she holds her ground, telling him she didn’t ask to be married off and shipped across the continent and that she’ll resist him at every opportunity. He stares at her in silence.
Then the Guardian asks, calmly, why Odessa never simply asked to leave Treow. A serving woman interrupts with Odessa’s dinner, and he leaves through the window.
Odessa eats alone, turning over her doubts about her father’s plan and whether she’s acting on blind faith.
Later, the Guardian comes back, takes Odessa’s pillow, and makes himself comfortable on the floor. He also tells her he’s known about her red hair all along since the dye smells too strong to mask. They trade barbs and settle into an uneasy truce for the night.
Chapter 28
Odessa wakes to a note from the Guardian telling her not to wander far. She takes it as permission and heads into Ashmore with her knives.
She finds Ashmore’s library burned to the ground. Cathlin appears and joins her, explaining that Ramsey has been pulling soldiers out of unprotected towns and suggesting it may be to force people into cities where they can be watched. Odessa asks whether the militia buildup is about control rather than the migration. Cathlin taps her temple but doesn’t elaborate.
Warning bells begin ringing across town. People drop everything and run. Cathlin grabs Odessa and tells her to run for the inn. Then comes the clicking sound Odessa recognizes from her night on the plains. Bariwolves.
Chapter 29
A pack of bariwolves attacks Ashmore. Odessa draws one away from a limping woman, buying her time to reach the inn. The Guardian takes down a second before it can reach Odessa from behind.
Odessa and Cathlin make it to the tavern, where a bariwolf crashes through the window and mauls the blonde woman from the day before. Odessa wounds it with a crossbow bolt but doesn’t kill it. They flee to the apartment above.
From the upstairs window, Odessa sees the Guardian fighting multiple bariwolves alone, bleeding and losing ground. She fires from the balcony, crippling one long enough for him to kill it. The remaining bariwolves retreat or are killed.
As Odessa climbs down, the balcony gives way. She drops to the porch below as the bariwolf that mauled the blonde comes charging through the window straight at her. The Guardian throws his sword and splits its skull.
The Guardian hauls Odessa to her feet, furious. The crossbow bolt is pressed between them, her finger still on the trigger. He tells her to do it. She can’t. He lets go and disappears before Cathlin reaches them.
Chapter 30
Seventeen people died in the attack, including Sariah, the woman who had opened the tavern door. Odessa helped dig her grave and is now lying awake.
The Guardian staggers in, drunk. His wounds have completely healed, making Odessa wonder whether rapid healing is one of his powers. When he drops to the floor she tosses him her pillow. She apologizes for Sariah’s death. He tells her not to play the martyr, that Sariah knew the risks, then admits he’s sorry too.
Odessa asks whether they’ll reach Allesaria before the migration. The Guardian says no. She tells him she thinks the bariwolves were sick, pointing to the green blood. He confirms it with a single word: Lyssa. Before she can ask what that means, he falls asleep.
Chapter 31
Cathlin meets Odessa and the Guardian downstairs, gives Odessa a book on Turan customs, promises more when they meet again, and says goodbye with the formal hands-over-heart gesture. The Guardian pulls Cathlin into a brief hug, which surprises Odessa.
When Odessa pushes back on leaving towns like Ashmore unprotected, the Guardian shuts her down, asking what solution she’d propose that he and Zavier haven’t already considered. She has nothing to offer.
The Guardian lifts Odessa into the saddle and swings up behind her. At the road, he steers toward the mountains instead of Treow and tells her they’re going to Ellder, where Zavier is waiting. Hours pass in silence. Exhaustion catches up with her and despite her efforts to stay awake, she falls asleep against his chest.
Chapter 32
Odessa wakes from a nightmare to find herself still against the Guardian’s chest. He has stopped at a cliff overlooking a river valley, telling her his mother once brought him there as a boy and made him sit still long enough to appreciate the view. The moment stretches until it becomes charged, their faces too close, until Odessa breaks it by saying she hates him. He tells her not to forget.
They reach Ellder at nightfall, where the Guardian is greeted with barely concealed awe. He takes Odessa to a private suite in Zavier’s house, tells her she won’t be returning to the encampment, and that Brielle and Jocelyn will stay there for now.
Before the Guardian leaves, Odessa grabs his wrist. He notices she’s flinching from where he gripped her arm the day before and apologizes. He traces one of her curls and tells her she doesn’t have to hide who she is there. Alone, she pours her jar of hair dye out the window.
Chapter 33
After a week at Ellder, Evie leads Odessa to the fortress dungeons, where Luella has been hiding books from Ramsey’s soldiers. Odessa spots a cell full of scrolls she plans to return to alone, but Luella catches them. Cathlin is also there, assembling a stack of books for Odessa, including one on Calandran myths and legends.
Luella sends Odessa to take Evie home, but they linger and eavesdrop. Luella warns Cathlin that if “he” finds out, there will be consequences.
Back at the house, Zavier returns unexpectedly, reunites with Evie, notices Odessa’s red hair, and says he thinks it’s prettier. He invites Odessa to dinner.
When Odessa reaches her suite, the Guardian is waiting with a sword. He tells her she asked for one and walks her downstairs to begin training.
Chapter 34
After a week of sword training, the Guardian tells Odessa she’s improving, which she takes as a genuine win. During one exchange at the end of a session, the tension between them surfaces before he shuts it down.
Wandering Ellder afterward, Odessa reflects on her stalled mission. The dungeon scrolls have disappeared, no one will discuss Allesaria, and she’s starting to wonder whether the city even exists. She decides to stop mentioning it entirely.
On her way back, she finds the Guardian carrying a screaming Evie over his shoulder. Zavier has left again without saying goodbye, and Evie is devastated. The Guardian calms her, holds her while she cries, and promises to take her somewhere special. He tells Evie he’s riding to Treow tomorrow to retrieve Odessa’s horse, Freya, then looks up and invites Odessa along. Evie begs her to come. Odessa agrees.
Chapter 35
Riding toward Treow, Evie accidentally reveals she’s a princess. The Guardian tells her it’s all right to share that with Odessa.
When Evie falls asleep against the Guardian’s arm, Odessa asks about Lyssa. He confirms it’s an infection spreading among monsters, making them more savage, and that Zavier and two hunting parties have been tracking and killing infected creatures across Turah. It spreads only by bite. When she asks what happens to people who are bitten, she figures it out before he answers.
The Guardian pulls back his cuff to show Odessa the scar on his forearm, jagged teeth marks from a bariwolf bite four years ago. He has Lyssa. As far as he knows, he’s the only person who has survived a bite. When she asks what can be done, he says they kill every infected monster. She understands what that means. If he’s infected, the plan includes killing himself too.
He tells her that her father will be thrilled when he’s dead, and she can take the credit.
Chapter 36
The Guardian explains that Lyssa heightens natural abilities but fuels bloodlust, costing him more self-control over time. Before Odessa can ask why he’s telling her this, two soldiers arrive in a panic. A tarkin has attacked their scouting party and may have followed survivors into Treow.
He puts Evie onto Odessa’s horse, orders the soldiers to flank them, and rides ahead. At Treow, he drops them at the treehouse and charges toward the commons.
Odessa hides Evie under the bed. From the balcony, she spots a tarkin prowling below, but it moves on. Then she sees a girl and a young boy hurrying toward her ladder. She climbs down to help them up, but the tarkin picks up their scent and charges. She grabs the boy and climbs one-handed as it leaps at the ladder. On its final lunge, it snaps the ladder from the balcony, and they fall. Odessa throws herself over the boy to shield him. The Guardian arrives and kills the tarkin before it can strike.
The Guardian pulls Odessa to her feet, takes her face in his hands, and drops his forehead to hers. The moment is brief before shouts pull them back. The tarkin bleeds green. It had Lyssa. As Odessa processes this, the High Priest appears at the edge of the commons.
Chapter 37
Tillia takes Odessa to the infirmary. Both tarkin had Lyssa and had behaved unusually, hunting as a coordinated pair rather than as solitary creatures.
On her way out, Odessa passes a room where the High Priest is performing a ritual over the Guardian’s bare chest and bite scar, causing him visible pain. The priest slams the door before she can see more, but she’d noticed his eyes were the same dark green as infected monster blood.
Brielle finds Odessa outside. Over dinner, Odessa shares what happened in Ashmore and Ellder but leaves out Evie and Lyssa. Brielle mentions that if Allesaria is a myth, it would explain why no one has ever found it.
That evening, Evie takes over Odessa’s treehouse. After putting her to bed, Odessa goes to the balcony where the Guardian is waiting. He tells her the High Priest has been siphoning Lyssa from his blood and that Laine alchemists believe it shares similarities with fenek tusk powder and korakin, suggesting it may have been created rather than occurring naturally. He doesn’t yet know who’s responsible.
Odessa asks to help find the source. The Guardian refuses, then relents when she pushes back. For the first time, he thanks her by name and leaves her rope ladder attached all night.