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Shadows burst from Eral, from the other two delegation witches, and from the dozens of bodies slumped within the gold statues. Cédric stumbled back as the delegation—the former delegation—scrambled onto all fours and wailed.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs stuttered, trapped somewhere between a cry and a scream. My heart pounded so fast it felt like it might punch straight through my ribs. Heat flared on either side of me, radiating from the vampires squashing me between them. Luc’s fingers moved fast, tracing two shapes across my back. Magic pulsed into my skin as he shifted and etched the same runes along Jules’s shoulder. Shield. Protect.

Jules’s hands moved in tandem, casting different runes meant for the monsters ahead.

Burn. Rend.

His magic slammed into the wraith closest to Cédric, searing through its shadowed skin. The scent of burned flesh hit me like a slap as the monster only screamed louder. When the rending rune struck, its arm was torn clean off, but it didn’t stop.

It just kept charging.

But Cédric had recovered from his shock. Shadows flared from his hand. Strike.

The wraith flew backward into another behind it. They crashed to the floor in a snarling tangle over Morrena’s corpse. She was the only witch who stayed still.

And she always would. If her death had triggered the spell that killed the others, there’d be no second chance for her.

But the others... the rest of the witches’ deaths had powered the everlife runespells hidden somewhere on their skin.

All around the room, the golden statues toppled to the floor as the monsters inside them writhed and shrieked, born violently from death. The metal cracked as it hit marble. With each thrash of limbs, the wraiths broke free one by one. Cold sweat broke across my spine.

Magic heated the air. The heat of runes slammed into me from every direction. The Azarasians might wear silk and gems, but they were an impire of warriors first. Golden-eyed vampires surged forward, planting themselves between the wraiths and their silver-eyed soulbonds.

This wasn’t going to be like the last time wraiths invaded a court. The covenant tipped the scales.

“Isabeau, get the Dusk courtiers out.” Luc’s words were calm, nothing but ruthless focus beneath them. “Then guard the doors. We can’t let them escape into the—”

The double doors burst open. A silver-eyed vampire attendant in navy and maroon livery stumbled into the chaos. He froze, eyes wide—

A wraith slammed into his back.

It had come from the hallway.

Well, fuck.

Luc growled. His arm snapped around my waist.

All around the room, wraiths leaped and charged. Ilenia—or whatever remained of her—lunged straight for us. She didn’t look like herself anymore, but her shredded clothes still clung to her twisted, shadowy frame.

Jules’s fingers moved fast. Strike . The rune hit. The wraith stumbled back—

Another took its place.

Jules threw out his arm. The wraith crashed into him a second later. Luc spun us at the same moment, shifting so Jules hit his back instead of mine. If I’d still been between them, I’d have been crushed.

Fire tore through my forearm.

The breath wrenched from my lungs in a pained gasp. It wasn’t my pain. Not really. It was Jules’s, but the bond made it almost feel like mine. I peered around Luc’s shoulder to see the wraith’s shadowed maw buried in Jules’s raised forearm. The shielding rune on his shoulder pulsed, holding the monster back from his chest, but his arm had been outside the shield’s reach.

Flesh tore. Shadows writhed.

And then the pain vanished.

Gone. Numb. Jules was still there in the bond, but his sensations were sealed off, his suffering silenced.

The wraith hadn’t stopped tearing at him.

The King of Dawn only grinned.

The wraith’s head exploded in a burst of red. Not its blood. Jules’s . He’d pulled his own blood from inside the wraith’s throat, bent it to his will. The crimson arc spiraled upward, then snapped around the creature, slicing into its shadow-flesh.

Jules lifted his mangled arm. His fingers pressed together, shadows flaring from their tips. They fused into a single massive claw, sharp and solid as a spearhead.

He drove it clean through the wraith’s chest.

Egh. My stomach flipped at the crunch of bone, the sickening squelch of organs.

I turned my chin until all I could see was Luc’s chest, broad and unmoving. One of my hands clutched his doublet, while the other found its way around his back, fisting into Jules’s tunic. I hadn’t done it consciously, but touching them calmed the panicked thundering of my heart, even surrounded by chaos and death.

I forced my grip to loosen, but I couldn’t make myself let go.

I glanced up. The King of Dusk still hadn’t moved or spoken. That wasn’t like him. His jaw was tight, silver eyes narrowed in sharp concentration. His other arm was raised, determination radiating off him in simmering waves.

I followed along the curve of muscle to his hand, crackling with shadowed runes.

Imprison. Imprison. Imprison.

Dread coiled low in my stomach as I twisted further to take in the scene.

Four wraiths had surrounded us. Three clawed at the marble, snapping and snarling, unable to break through Luc’s magic. The fourth was trapped beneath Isabeau’s boot, her magic funneling directly into it. Her fingers blazed with shadows. Annihilate . Roxiana stood with her back pressed to her beloved’s, Isabeau’s daemium sword raised as she scanned the rest of the room.

All around us, courtiers fought. The screams and spells blurred into a deafening roar. Three golden-eyed vampires surged runes into a wraith pinned at their feet, their soulbonds standing behind them, watching their backs. Elsewhere, more groups formed—pairs, trios, quartets—all pushing back against the monsters with brutal precision.

The kings had felled wraiths single-handedly on the road to Montaurère, but they were far stronger than the average vampire. Even the elite, the favorites of their courts, the fiercest of the Azarasians, fought in numbers.

No wonder the kings had created their covenant runespell after the Isaurans turned the everlife runespell into a weapon.

A wraith tore free from one courtier’s imprisonment rune, hitting the floor in a hard roll. But instead of leaping back into the fight, its head snapped toward us. With a snarl, it charged.

I shrank deeper between the kings with a startled yelp, the noise swallowed by the chaos. Luc gritted his teeth and added a fourth rune to his casting. Imprison . The wraith halted mid-lunge, inches from my face.

My vision tunneled, stomach lurching. I didn’t belong here. I couldn’t fight. I didn’t even know how to breathe through this.

“Why are they all coming for us?” My voice came out weak, more thought than question.

Luc didn’t look at me, but he still answered, his tone tight with strain. “They want the strongest power in the room.”

Oh. Fuck. All thirty-something wraiths in the room wanted to eat the kings first—and I was tucked into Luc’s arm, weighing him down. I still couldn’t feel anything from Jules, but his magic flared hot at my back, holding off however many more came at us from behind.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I was going to die. Horribly. Painfully. I’d never finish another book. Never see the night sky again. Never know what I might’ve been, if I’d had more time. I’d always suspected it would end like this, but I hadn’t wanted my death to hurt. So much of my life had hurt. Watching thralls die with smiles on their faces had been awful, but right now, I was suddenly jealous.

I forced myself to breathe. My panic probably pulsed strong enough through the bond that both kings felt it. I was already a liability, useless in a fight, in anything outside reading and stacking shelves. I didn’t need to become a distraction, too.

Isabeau’s magic flared. The wraith at her feet finally collapsed in a steaming heap. She pivoted, stepping toward the next one Luc held. Roxiana mirrored her movement, her blade gleaming.

“No, Isabeau,” Luc said. “Get her out of here.”

The Crown General didn’t hesitate. She slashed a rune into the air. Strike. The wraith closest to us shot backward, colliding into another behind it. They crumpled in a tangle of limbs and snarls.

“Luc—” she started.

“I can handle four wraiths,” he said briskly, “but not if I have to defend our Mortal Bride at the same time.”

Isabeau straightened and gave a sharp nod.

Luc released me into her waiting arms. One second I was pressed against him. The next, Isabeau stood a foot away, her grip firm on mine. She didn’t speak, just yanked me back as Luc raised both hands, shadows flaring at his fingertips. Jules mirrored him on the other side. His right arm was already healed, a feral smile on his lips.

Thank the stars.

I didn’t want to care. They’d wanted me to kill, a punishment for running. But the bond didn’t care about justice or logic. It made me ache to turn back. To rip out of Isabeau’s grip and stand at the kings’ side, even if I couldn’t do a thing to help. Even if I’d only be in the way.

Roxiana snatched my other arm. “If you don’t snap out of it, Nessa, I’m throwing you over my shoulder.”

I glared at her. Roxiana was my height, but far slimmer. She could still toss me over her shoulder, and we both knew it. The idea would’ve been funny, if everything else wasn’t awful.

The Crown General and Crown Chancellor hustled me toward the throne room doors.

Body parts littered the marble floor. Shredded wraith limbs, shadow-stained skin, blood smeared in thick streaks like paint. Morrena’s corpse lay in pieces, her flesh torn open and marked with deep, ragged bite wounds. Thralls slumped in the corners, their bodies savaged. Near the door sprawled the silver-eyed attendant, his torso hollowed out, ribs cracked wide around a gaping hole.

I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Don’t puke.

And then we were through the doors, spilling into the hall.

To the left, four Imperial Guard fought against three wraiths. To the right, Cédric hurled rune after rune at five more that charged toward him. Sabas slumped against the wall behind him, blood soaking his tunic as he scrawled weak healing runes over the gaping wound in his gut.

“Fuck.” Isabeau met Roxiana’s gaze, looking straight past me. The logical move was to slip past the guards, get me out, and keep moving. But that would mean abandoning Sabas and Cédric.

It didn’t matter that they were vampires. It didn’t matter that they upheld the system that kept millions enslaved. “You can’t leave them to die.”

Silver and gold eyes flickered to me.

“Luc drew shielding and protection runes on me,” I said. “And I’m wearing the collar. I’ll stay back. If a wraith escapes the throne room, trust me, I’ll scream.”

“Shit,” Isabeau muttered again. Then she bolted down the hall, runes glowing at her fingertips. Strike. Burn. The spells slammed into two wraiths closing in on Cédric.

Roxiana grabbed my arm and hauled me after her. I didn’t resist, but I had to half-run just to keep pace. Adrenaline fought against the leaden pull in my muscles.

Annihilate . Isabeau hurled the rune with all her might at the wraith closest to Cédric.

The Crown Mage stood his ground, his focus locked on the four wraiths he was still holding at bay. I didn’t know him well, but the resolve in his expression was unmistakable. He’d hold until Isabeau killed them, however long it took to save himself and his soulbound.

Sabas had finally managed to slide off the floor. He was pale but upright. His fingers traced a sluggish rune into the air. Imprison . His magic joined Cédric’s, faint but steady, easing some of the strain.

Then another wraith rounded the corner.

Sabas let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “Fuck us.”

The sound was so out of place, even Cédric glanced over his shoulder. His hands never stopped moving, but his focus split for a breath too long.

Roxiana shoved Isabeau’s sword into my hands. I braced for the weight, but the daemium blade was light, almost deceptively so. “Hold this. Point it at any wraith that tries to eat you.”

Before I could reply, she was charging toward the fight. Imprison. Imprison. Imprison. Her magic fortified Cédric’s faltering spells, holding the wraiths still for a few crucial seconds.

Isabeau slammed one final burst of power into the first wraith. The blast of heat clawed at my skin, but I didn’t flinch. The wraith crumpled.

She didn’t stop to celebrate. She went straight for the next.

“Psst.”

I barely heard the voice over all the noise. My gaze snapped left. Behind a massive painting of a massacre, there was a narrow crack in the wall. Maire’s face peered through it.

Another hidden servant’s entrance.

I glanced at the four councilors still locked in combat. They were too busy trying not to get eaten to notice me. I wasn’t helping them. I couldn’t help the kings. I was a liability everywhere, sword shaking in my hands. My fingers ached from clutching it too tight. My legs locked, then jolted forward as another wraith shrieked nearby.

There wouldn’t be any wraiths in the servant’s passageways. Probably.

I darted across the hall, my slippers skidding on marble smeared with blood.

Maire pushed the entrance open wider. I squeezed through, the daemium blade angled at the floor. She slammed the panel shut behind me. The brightness of morning vanished, replaced by the dim glow of runelight. My ears rang in the sudden silence, my chest still heaving.

I turned to her, wide-eyed. Sweat soaked her skin, just like mine, but she looked otherwise untouched. “How did you escape the throne room?”

Her gaze lingered on my ruined gown, my arms streaked red with Ilenia’s blood, my fingers still slick with gore. For a second, she didn’t speak. Just stared like she wasn’t sure what I was anymore. Then she blinked and snapped back to attention. She waved me forward, toward a narrow staircase that spiraled into darkness.

“There was a servant’s entrance behind where I was kneeling,” she said. “Thankfully. Otherwise, I’d be dead.”

I glanced back at the entrance. The kings had handed me off to their councilors for protection. Leaving them would probably get someone in trouble, but I didn’t want to stay. There was nothing I could do except press myself against a wall like an idiot, clutching a sword I didn’t know how to use. “Were you watching Cédric?”

She didn’t answer right away. Then, quietly, “Yes. I wanted to know… if he died, I wanted to see it.”

She didn’t say it with sorrow. She said it with hate. Like hope. Like the only thing worse than not losing him would be missing when he died.

I didn’t know what to say to that. Maire was the mother of his son. His loyal thrall in public. A woman who hated him behind his back. My situation couldn’t be the same as hers, not anymore, and she knew that now. I was the kings’ soulbound. I might be their prisoner, their captive, but we were heartmates.

Even collared and shackled, a heartmate would always be treated differently than a regular thrall.

Two staircases later, Maire stopped at a section of wall and pushed. It creaked open under her hand. “We should be far enough away. They had all the Isaurans from the last harvest in the throne room. The delegation only had time to cast the everlife rune on a handful of other witches, most of whom kept to the first floor—”

“Wait.” I grabbed her shoulder, sudden dread twisting in my gut. “You knew that was going to happen?”

Maire looked away. “Morrena told me before they left for the apartment last night, in case the escape failed. She bound me to secrecy with a rune. As soon as the Isaurans died, I pulled as many people as I could into the thrall passageways. But I couldn’t even tell them why. Some didn’t come.”

We stepped into a quiet hallway. The weight of what she’d done hung heavy on her shoulders. I almost reached out. I almost comforted her. I knew what it felt like to feel responsible for others’ lives. Fergus. éamon. Edda. Riona. Estrella. Tristan.

But Maire had known .

I couldn’t reconcile that. The kings would’ve killed the witches. The witches struck first. One way or another, someone was always going to die.

Which was worse?

Were they both equally terrible?

Why were all the choices always awful?

I cleared my throat. “You saved who you could—”

A snarl sliced through the hall, cutting me off.

At the far end, a wraith hunched over the gaping chest of an older woman still dressed in her thrall blacks. Its shadowed claws reached into the cavity and yanked out her heart. It squeezed the organ once, then shoved it into its mouth with a wet squelch.

I didn’t hear it, not really. Not over the pounding in my ears. But my imagination filled in the sound just fine.

If it saw us, that could be my chest split open. My heart devoured like fruit.

Maybe I’d get lucky and die from fear first.

The wraith jerked. Its misshapen head snapped toward us. A shrill scream tore the air.

It charged.

Maire turned and bolted.

I followed, but I wasn’t a runner. Especially not in these stupid slippers. She veered left into another corridor just as I stepped on my own skirts and hit the floor hard. The sword flew from my hand, skidding across the marble.

Snarling behind me.

I twisted.

The wraith was there. Charging. Fast.

I scrambled backward like a crab, ungraceful and wild, my heels sliding against the stone, that gaping maw of shadows nearly upon me—

The wraith went flying as a blur of black muscle and claw slammed into its side.

Titus.

The hellwolf crushed the wraith beneath his paws, bones crunching. It screeched and flailed, still trying to claw, to tear, to bite.

But Titus was born to claw and tear and bite.

He tore into the monster, ripping through shadowed flesh. His massive jaws locked around its throat and yanked. Red blood sprayed the walls. The wraith spasmed, still trying to move, even as Titus sank his teeth in again and again.

He didn’t just kill it. He destroyed it. Shredded it into steaming chunks. Shadowed flesh and bone vanished between his fangs with wet snaps.

Could a wraith regenerate if eaten by a hellwolf?

I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

I slid down the nearest wall, legs collapsing beneath me. My whole body shook. Fucking stars. I had almost died .

The panic hit me late, a wave crashing over already-trembling limbs. My vision blurred at the edges. I pressed one hand to the cold floor to steady myself, the other to the jewels at my collar. I gripped them tight, like they were a rising star pendant.

But no godstar would’ve saved me.

Not from that.

Only Titus.

Maire grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. My blood-slick skin nearly slipped through her grip. She held Isabeau’s sword now. “Run, Nessa.”

Titus snarled behind us, the sound wet and unrelenting. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

We ran.

My legs were shaky. My knees buckled with every other step. I couldn’t tell if I was slipping on blood or unsteady from shock, from the events of the last few days, from my illness.

Maire pointed toward a door. “This way.”

We sprinted for it. Maire reached the door first and threw it open. I stumbled in after her, nearly tripping again. The sound of snapping jaws and splattering gore vanished as I slammed the door shut behind us.

I pressed my forehead to the wood paneling, gulping air. My pulse thundered in my ears. Everything ached. My legs, my chest, my tailbone. I nearly collapsed to my knees.

But we’d made it. We were safe.

With a huff, I turned to Maire. I could break down later, when all the wraiths were dead. “Should we bar the door or—”

Searing heat flared at my neck, at my back. Like every protective rune cast on me activated at once. I almost screamed at the burning sensation. It cut through the haze in my brain. I spun instinctively—

Something flared in my vision. Blood, swallowed by darkness. Bark, turning to ask. Shadows, forming a word.

Block .

The heat around my neck and back stopped for a mere second. But whoever cast that rune wasn’t strong enough to block the kings’ runes permanently.

But a second was all Maire needed.

The black blade of a daemium sword slammed into my gut.