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Dom smirked at Corayne’s handiwork, a jagged line torn across Taristan’s cheek. The wound was healing but slowly, an ugly thing.

It was not alone.

There were burns on his neck, pink and shining as they trailed down to his exposed collarbone. Cuts crisscrossed his knuckles and a half-healed bruise peeked out beneath the sleeve of his shirt, yellow against a muscled forearm.

Dom felt his own eyes widen, shock coursing through his veins. He sucked down a gasp of air through gritted teeth. It tasted like smoke, tinged with the iron of freshly spilled blood. A monstrous hope leapt up inside him.

He can be wounded.

He can be killed.

“Today is not the same, Taristan,” he whispered, raising his own blade. The edge glimmered red, still dripping knightsblood.

Something shifted in Taristan. The wolf in him snarled, cornered.Dangerous as ever. But vulnerable, Dom thought.

Dom had never seen fear in Taristan’s hateful eyes, but he knew it now.

“Gifts easily given are easily taken away, it seems,” the immortal said.He took a sliding step forward. Centuries of training took hold and he sank into the stance of a skilled swordsman.

For once, Taristan held his tongue.

Dom angled his head, letting his senses flare. Another heartbeat sounded in the room behind him, her pulse thrumming. He could hear the Queen breathing, out of rhythm, ragged. She was afraid too, and rightfully so. Her palace burned and her own knights lay slain behind Domacridhan, with only her prince between them.

“You are alone,” Dom said, tasting the sharp tang of blood in his mouth. “No wizard. No guards.”

A flicker of rage crossed Taristan’s face, the only answer Dom needed.

“I’m surprised your queen has no manner of escape from her own bedroom.” Dom took another step. “Though no passages out means no passages in, either.”

Taristan mirrored his footing. With a jolt, Dom realized the bastard moved to defend, not attack. As he watched, Taristan’s eyes flared red, a ring of flame bursting to match the burning room.

What Waits loomed, like a shadow on the wall. Dom could almost feel Him, the air heavy with His cursed presence. But strong as the Demon King was, He could not cross into the realm.

Yet.

Dom bared his teeth, to Taristan and the dark god inside him.

“I did not think you capable of caring for another. Not even your wizard,” he taunted. “But the Queen of Galland?”

Taristan kept still, his voice strangled and forced. “Talk all you like, Elder. It will not change the end of this tale.”

“A king of ashes is still a king,” Dom cut back, throwing out Taristan’s own words spoken long ago.

He felt dangerous, lethal. Once Sorasa called the immortals somewhere between man and beast. In this moment, Dom believed it.

“Will Erida be ashes beneath your feet like the rest of us?”

Silence was Taristan’s only reply, louder than the crack of flame.

“If you burn the world, she burns with it,” Dom hissed.

Behind Taristan, Erida’s heartbeat quickened.

It was not meant to convince Taristan of anything, to turn his heart or mind. Dom held few illusions about Taristan’s capacity for remorse. Or love.

To his surprise, Taristan’s grim face shifted, a smirk twisting his lips.

“Do you think about her?” the Prince of Old Cor asked in a low growl. “The Elder, the one who died in Gidastern. Died right in front of you.”