This shouldn’t be happening again.
Kieran had thought that more than once over the last six months, but never with quite this much bitterness.
The battlefield stretched below the eastern ridges of the fae realm, a scar of churned mud and broken stone beneath a bruised gray sky. Once, this valley had been a quiet approach to the outer forests leading toward the fae capital, all silver-leafed trees and untouched hills. Now it was torn open by trenches, scattered barricades, and the black