23
I emerged from the portal into the shadows of the German forest.
How much loss was acceptable for the victory we’d achieved? One person? Twenty? Or the thirty-three who’d died fighting because I’d asked them to? Was putting Malik on the throne the right decision, even in hindsight? Yes. But everyone who’d died had been a friend, a family member, and now there were holes in all those communities because of me. It was almost worse that none of the dead were my inner circle. Don’t get me wrong, I was beyond thankful that my people had made it, but it didn’t feel right. Why did I get to keep the ones I loved?
Catriona, one of the triplets who had been in my group, chanted an invocation in an ancient language, circling the body of one of our fallen. The words were unfamiliar; the intentio
