Page 95 of Shattered Crown

“This was hers,” Agnes explained. “One of the first focusing crystals, created when the Eldergrove was young. She left it in my keeping years ago, said I'd know when to bring it back.”

Thorne touched the crystal hesitantly. Memories not his own flooded his mind: Elder Willow as a young guardian, facing her own transformation, her own doubts. The weight of leadership had crushed her too, at first.

“She felt this?” he asked, voice rough. “This... isolation?”

“Every leader does.” Agnes placed the crystal in his hands. “But she learned to bear it. As will you.”

“How? Half the forest has abandoned me. Sebastian grows stronger by the hour. Even my bond with Silas...” He couldn't finish the sentence.

“Feels different?” Agnes nodded. “Of course it does. You're different. But different doesn't mean broken.”

Briar climbed onto Thorne's shoulder, their weight familiar and comforting. “We're still here,” they said softly. “Those of us who believe in bridges, not walls.”

Thorne stood, Elder Willow's crystal trembling in his shaking hands, its light dimming as if reflecting his own fading hope.

“Show me what you salvaged,” he said, his voice hollow. “Show me what's left of our legacy.”

Agnes's hands moved with reverent care as she unwrapped each artifact, though her fingers trembled slightly. The treasures seemed diminished somehow, their magic stuttering like dying flames.

“This is all I could save,” she whispered. “The rest burns with Thornhaven.”

Thorne picked up a binding ring, its ancient metal cold against his transformed skin. The ring had once channeled the power of dozens; now it felt empty, abandoned. “Tell me how it fell. I need to know.”

Agnes's shoulders slumped, age showing in lines that hadn't been there days ago. “They came like locusts, Thorne. Not just soldiers, but corrupted scholars who knew exactly which texts to destroy.” Her voice caught. “They made the apprentices watch as they burned the archives. Made them choose between joining the corruption or dying with their books.”

“And they chose?”

“Some fought. Some... didn't.” Agnes wiped her eyes roughly. “I found young Mira's body clutching the covenant manuscript. She died protecting it.”

Mira, barely sixteen, with dreams of becoming a lore keeper. Another life lost to his failures.

“The covenant speaks of unbinding,” Agnes pressed on, though her voice wavered. “Of guardians who could move freely, fight without chains of location. If we could just?—”

“Words on dying parchment won't resurrect dead children!” Thorne's shout echoed through the grove, sending birds fleeing from branches. His power flared uncontrolled, scorching the ground at his feet. “Where were these solutions when Elder Willow gasped her last breath? When the council shattered? When I needed guidance, not archaeology?”

Agnes flinched but held her ground. “I was saving what I could. Just as you're trying to do here.”

“And failing!” The admission ripped from Thorne's throat. “I'm failing at everything!” His legs gave way, and he collapsed to his knees, the mighty guardian reduced to a broken figure in the dirt. “The power she gave me... it's like trying to hold the ocean in my hands. I'm drowning in it, Agnes. Drowning while everything I love dies around me.”

Briar wrapped small arms around Thorne's neck, their tears soaking into his collar. “You're not failing,” they whispered fiercely. “You're fighting. There's a difference.”

“Is there?” Thorne's laugh was more sob than sound. “Tell that to the corrupted groves. To the guardians I couldn't save. To Silas, whose face I can barely remember through all this cosmic awareness.”

Agnes knelt before him, gripping his shoulders hard enough to hurt. “Listen to me. You are not alone. That bond you share with Silas? It's still there. Faint, yes. Strained, certainly. But unbroken.” Her eyes blazed with conviction. “He feels everything you feel. Your pain, your doubt, your fear. And he's still there, still fighting for you in his world as you fight for him in yours.”

Ironbark's most trusted dryad stumbled into the clearing, her bark blackened and cracked, sap oozing from wounds that glowed with corruption. “Lord Thorne,” she gasped, barely able to remain upright. “The northern grove... Ironbark's sanctuary... it burns. They're dying, all of them. The corruption—it's unlike anything we've seen!”

The news shattered the last of Thorne's composure. He pressed his forehead to the earth, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Ironbark, who had stood beside Elder Willow for centuries. Ironbark, whose pride had led to division. Ironbark, who would die believing Thorne had failed them all.

“We have to try,” Briar pleaded. “Even if we fail, we have to try.”

“If I leave the heart grove now, Sebastian wins,” Thorne whispered into the dirt. “If I stay, Ironbark dies. There's no right choice anymore. Only different ways to lose.”

Agnes's hand found his hair, stroking gently as one might comfort a child. “Then we choose the loss we can live with. The one that lets us look at ourselves in whatever tomorrow brings.”

Thorne raised his head, dirt and tears streaking his transformed features. Through their bond, he felt a pulse of warmth from Silas—wordless support, love that transcended distance and difficulty.

“Go to them,” he told Agnes, the words like ground glass in his throat. “Take whoever will follow. Save who you can.”

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