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“My undoing …” He says this so quietly that I almost miss it.

A split second later, his body dissipates back into the darkness, and once more I dissolve into the night and chase after him, preparing myself for another hit of magic.

It never comes.

Galleghar reappears in one of the royal courtyards, his body forming in an instant. I join him a second later, the two of us facing off.

After the incident in the throne room, his guards are ready for me. As soon as they catch sight of me and the king in the courtyard, they begin to close in from all sides, throwing binding spells that make the air ripple. Before any of them have a chance to hit me, I unleash my darkness.

My shadows billow and spill out, greedily eating up the guards’ spells like food before sweeping over the guards themselves a second later. The soldiers don’t even have a chance to scream; the night descends on them, consuming them in seconds. Only their bones and weapons survive the attack, clinking as they hit the ground moments later.

I will my shadows towards Galleghar, but they part around him like a stream around a rock.

My father, who idly watched me kill his soldiers, now narrows his eyes. “If you understood your power better, you’d know that the night doesn’t feast on its own.”

Galleghar unsheathes the sword at his hip, holding it loosely near his side. Its blade is a dark metal.

Iron. Brave man to be carrying such a weapon around. One cut to his own skin would weaken him, and when it comes to battle, chances are you will nick yourself with your own blade once or twice.

“You want my kingdom?” he says. “You’ll never get it.”

I bark out a bitter laugh. “You think that’s why I’m here?”

He doesn’t respond, merely scowls at me.

I pace forward, my hand feeling empty without my sword in it. My weapons were lifted from me before I entered the palace. “I’m here because you killed her.Eurielle.”

My mother. It’s strange to call her by the name she took first as Galleghar’s spy then as his concubine. It makes her somehow bigger and more foreign to me. And she was—she was so many things before she was ever my mother. Spy, maiden, lover, fighter. It took her death for me to learn about all of them.

I move to the outer edge of the courtyard, bending to grab one of the fallen guards’ swords from the ground. Thinking me distracted, Galleghar throws a bolt of magic my way. I lift my forearm and grunt as it breaks apart against my vambrace. The military issued armor I wear is enchanted to defend me against such attacks.

I straighten, shaking off the dull throb in my arm while I palm the sword hilt. “You had to know that wouldn’t work.”

“It’s killed many fairies before,” Galleghar says.

I move towards him, loosening my wrist. “Were they all infants? Or just some?”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. The Night King might be an abominable man, but he doesn’t like being thought of as such. A dragon that wants to be a knight. How quaint.

My father and I begin to circle each other. Around us, I can hear shouts, and dimly I’m aware that more guards are heading our way. My darkness makes quick work of them.

“You will die for this,” Galleghar says. “It’ll be slow, and just when you think it’s over, you’ll be pulled back to the land of the living. I will break you so many times before you die that you won’t remember your own name.”

I smirk, not bothering to respond.

“Look at how proud you are,” he says, taking me in.

I can tell it bothers him, my confidence. How unusual it must be for him to meet someone he cannot scare.

His eyes flick over me, and he sneers. “One would’ve thought you were already crowned king. But you’re not a king. Born to a whore, raised as a bastard, destined to marry a slave.”

I almost miss a step.

How doesheknow about my mate?

He smiles, the expression cruel on him. “Oh, I knowallabout the weak Desmond Flynn.”

How?