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Ridha put a hand to her sword. “This will not come to pass.”

“I’m afraid it will,” her mother answered.

Heat flared in Dom despite the chill of the hall. “Throw down the branch and take up the sword,” he demanded. “You must send out word to the enclaves, to the mortal kingdoms. Summon them all.”

Cieran heaved a breath. “And do what?”

Desperate, Dom felt his teeth snap together in a near snarl. “Destroy the corpse army. Close the Spindle. Put Taristan in the ground. Throw What Waits back to His hell.Endthis.”

Isibel rose gracefully from her throne, her eyes dancing over Dom’s wounds. He froze as she crossed the floor to him, one hand outstretched. Her finger traced a gash from hairline to jaw; it tore through one side of his mouth and sliced his brow in half. It was a miracle he had not lost an eye.

“It is not like us to bleed,” she whispered, stricken.

Domacridhan of Iona went cold. For the first time in his life, he felt hatred for his own. It was so much worse than he knew.

“You’re afraid,” he said dully, glaring at her in accusation. “You’re terrified.”

She didn’t flinch. “We are already beaten, my dear. And I will not send my people to die. You will find no monarch who will.”

Gods damn you,he thought. Both fists clenched at his side. “We die if we do nothing. We are of the Ward as much as any other.”

“You know we are not,” Isibel said sadly, shaking her head. “Glorian waits.”

Dom found himself envying mortals. It was their way to rage and snap and curse, to lose control of themselves and retreat to raw emotion. He wished to do the same.

“Glorian islostto us,” he forced out.

His aunt reached out again, but Dom shifted away from her touch like a petulant child.

He squared his body to the winged statue of Baleir. The warrior god was supposed to grant courage.Grant some to these immortal cowards,he cursed.

“The balance of Spindles is delicate. Our way back was lost to us, its location destroyed, and so we are doomed to remain here for our long eternity.” She pressed on, undeterred. “But as Taristan hunts his Spindles, tearing what he can, the boundaries will weaken. Spindles will cross back into existence, both new and old. I wish it were not so, but Allward will crumble, and her Spindles will burn. If we can find the realm of the Crossroads—or even Glorian herself—we can gohome.”

Dom whirled in shock. “And abandon the Ward.”

“Allward is already lost.” Her face hardened, unyielding as stone. “You have not seen Glorian. I do not expect you to understand,” she said heavily, returning to her throne.

Dom saw his own frustration in Ridha’s eyes, but the princess remained silent, her hands knitted together. She moved her head slowly, an inch to either side. Her message was clear.

Don’t.

He ignored her. His control unwound.

“I understand the Companions were slaughtered in vain.” He wiped a hand across his face, scraping blood from his skin to the stone, spattering the green marble with crimson stars. “And I understand you are a coward, my lady.”

Toracal rose, his teeth bared, but the Monarch waved him down. She needed no one to defend her in her own hall. “I am sorry you think so,” she said gently.

Voices and memories roared in Dom’s head, fighting to be heard. Cortael’s dying breath, his eyes empty. The Vedera already fallen. Taristan’s face, the red wizard, the Army of Asunder. The taste of his own blood. And then, further—tales of Glorian, the legendary heroes who journeyed to the Ward, those courageous, noble men and women. Their greatness, their victories. Their strength above all others upon the realm.All lies. All nothing.All lost.

The floor seemed to move, the marble rippling like a green sea as he stalked from the throne, from the Monarch, from all hope he’d had for the world and himself. His only thoughts were of Cortael’s twin and cutting the wretched smile from his face.I should have ended it at the temple. Ended him or me. At least then I would have saved myself from this disaster and disappointment.

Isibel called after him, a thousand years of rule in her voice. And some desperation too. “What will you do, Domacridhan, son of my beloved sister? Have you Corblood in your veins? Have you the Spindleblade?”

Dom kept silent, but for the slap of his boots on stone.

“Then you are already defeated!” she called. “We all are. We must leave this realm to its downfall.”

The prince of Iona did not falter or look back.