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And there was one more thing he didn’t want to think about—whatever Skye and Taly did behind closed doors that had them both smiling so much. Ivain said, “You’re crossing back on your own timeline, and you know that I know what that means. I know what happens when time mages meddle in their own affairs. The Weave destabilizes, new timelines branch out. New worlds become reality when they should’ve died a passing thought.”

Cori idly swished the liquid in her glass. “You know, you never used to be so judgmental.”

Was it normal for a parent to want to kill their child?

“The last thing I need right now is a multiversal war,” he countered.

“You act as if I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Do youknow what you’re doing?”

“You never used to ask me that.” Finishing her glass, she placed it on the desk to be refilled. “I wonder what changed.”

“What changed? What—you’re my daughter, that’s what changed!” She’d ridden on his shoulders and fallen asleep in his lap, always drawn to his office late at night by the sound of his records. There would never be a day when he looked at her and didn’t wish, in some small way, that she could’ve stayed six years old.

Her expression softened. “I’m being careful,” she said, and the tightness in his chest eased a bit.

“Thank you.” He still wasn’t happy, but at least it was something. Reaching across the desk, Ivain refilled her glass. “I assume you already know why I called you.”

Cori settled back in her chair and swirled her brandy. She said with all the certainty of a time mage, “You’ve discovered the Time Shard’s intentions, and you want to know how to stop it.”

Ivain nodded. “Your eyes…” They were still the same startling shade of steel gray, aglow with magic, which meant— “Surely, there must be a way.”

“There is,” Cori answered. “But you don’t need me to tell you what it is, oh mightyKing Who Never Was.”

Of all his titles, Ivain hated that one the most.

“No,” he said roughly. “No, I won’t do that to her.”

“You were chosen, same as me. You completed the trials, you were crowned, the Shadow Shard revealed its face.”

And it had terrified him. All that power, the barely contained malice. He’d heard too many whispers of Genesis Lords losing their minds towards the end of their reigns.

So, he’d done the one thing he could to escape it. He’d carved out a piece of his soul and paid the price for it every day since.

Love, friendship, compassion, trust—it had taken him years to find the meaning in them again. To connect with a place, a person. He’d lost his footing in this world, or maybe the world had lost him. Even now, there were mornings when he would wake and find himself back at the bottom of that pit, barely able to breathe beneath the weight of the day stretching out before him.

Ivain sat rigidly at his desk, fingers pressed together as he exhaled slowly. “Are you really telling me that in the whole of this vast, wondrous world, there’s only one way to escape the wrath of a god? That if I want to save her, I have tomutilateher?!”

Cori sat silently, staring him down.

It was answer enough.

His stomach twisted viciously, and he leaned forward, placing his forehead on the cool wood of his desk. His head was spinning. He just wanted this to be over, wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before the world got so broken. He wanted his childrensafe.

“We all want a lot of things,” Cori said, as if she could see inside his head. Or maybe after so many centuries, she simply knew how to read him. “In this case, however, you’re asking the wrong question.”

“How do I save my daughter?” he grumbled into the wood. “That seems pretty straightforward.”

She growled a sigh. “Shards, you are so stubborn when you decide to get in your own way. All right, I’ll spell it out for you.”

Rising to her feet, Cori paced to the window. “A Shard-binding is a fusion of souls. That of the Shard and that of the host. It’s not a true joining—the bond can still be severed, though usually at great risk. But there does have to be a certain compatibility for the Shard to maintain the connection.”

Leaning against the windowsill, she stared out into the darkness of the Long Night. “When you scarred your soul, you made yourself less compatible. You altered the shape of yourself enough that the Shadow Shard lost its grip. There’s only one way to escape a Shard-binding, that much is true. But you don’t have todamageyour soul to alter the shape of it.”

Ivain lifted his head. She was right.

Eyes wide, he looked to Cori. “Is there another way to alter the shape of a soul?”