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My entire existence became pain. It tore through my nerves, raw and unrelenting. Not even the kings’ soothing rune could numb an agony like this. A scream built in my chest, but only a strangled breath escaped. This wasn’t just physical. It was overwhelming. It was absolute.

It was everything .

And yet, it was also nothing, because part of me didn’t feel it. Part of me already floated outside myself, my limbs distant, my fingers tingling, looking down at the fucking sword in my stomach. Cutting me open. Spearing through my gut. I followed the length of the black blade to its silver hilt—

And into Maire’s wide, green eyes.

She looked as shocked as I felt. At the same time, just as furious… but that fury wasn’t entirely mine. It pulsed beneath my skin like a second heartbeat, hot and insistent, distant but unmistakable.

Not mine, but theirs .

But the sorrow in her eyes was hers alone. It belonged to someone who believed this cruelty was a kindness. Of someone who wished there had been another way.

“I’m sorry, Nessa.” The words scraped from her throat, like she was actually sorry for stabbing me. “If I kill you, I kill the kings and their covenant, all in one go.”

My legs buckled, useless. I sank to the floor, slow and graceless, the descent out of my control. Pain pulsed through me in jagged waves.

“If there’s no covenant, thrall runespells will lose their power source impire-wide. They won’t be hard to recast, but I have to believe someone will find freedom.” Maire kneeled beside me like we were having some tender goodbye. Like this wasn’t murder . “And without it, most Azarasians won’t have the strength to cast the genesis spell. No other human will have to carry and nurse one of their spawn. Life for most humans might not get better, but it won’t get any worse.”

I just stared at her. Blankly. Numbly.

She had fucking stabbed me.

And now she was trying to justify it.

I laughed. Or I tried to. A wet rattle tore up my throat. Blood bubbled over my lips and slid down my chin, thick and metallic.

“If it makes you feel any better, I won’t survive this,” Maire said. “Even if the Kings’ Council and all their favorites somehow die in the attack, the Azarasians will have me killed for daring to strike against their kind.”

It didn’t. I tried to tell her that, but no words came. My tongue was heavy. The edges of my vision blurred, black creeping in like smoke. Her falling star pendant glistened in the light, mocking me as I died.

Her gaze dropped to the sword. “Maybe it would be better if I killed myself. It’s only fitting I die on this sword after you, isn’t it?”

Stars, shut up. I wanted to scream it. Shout it. Rage at her. She was fantasizing about her own death like we were in this together. But I couldn’t even lift my head. It took everything in me to keep my eyes open.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s cruel of me, asking forgiveness while you’re dying at my feet.”

Maire grabbed the sword’s hilt and tugged.

Oh, fuck . It burned just as much coming out as it had going in. I slapped a hand over the gaping wound in my stomach, but blood gushed through my fingers, merging with the drying mess Ilenia had left behind on my skin. I couldn’t hold it in. I couldn’t stop any of it.

This was a hopeless fight. It only ended one way.

I was so tired of fighting. I had fought for so long just to stay standing, to stay alive. I didn’t want to die. I had barely even lived. But what I wanted didn’t matter.

It never had.

I closed my eyes and let myself sink into the heavy dark of my mind. Away from the snarling vampires, scheming humans, and hungry wraiths roaming the halls. Away from the burning agony in my belly. Away from the regretful eyes of a woman who pretended to be my friend, holding a bloodstained sword to my heart.

Away from the two other pieces of my soul, burning with rage and panic. Trying to close the distance between us. But no matter how far they were physically, they were still here. In my mind. In me.

And I hated them.

I barely knew them.

They had made me feel alive.

In another life, I think I could’ve loved them.

But none of that mattered now. I leaned into the bond. I wouldn’t die alone. I could never die alone, not anymore. And they yelled at me to stay. Not with words, but with something deeper, some connection beyond speech. But I couldn’t hold on.

I was a powerless witch. A broken, wicked, sinful girl. I had held on for a decade.

I couldn’t hold on any longer.

“I’m sorry,” Maire whispered again, softer than before. I imagined her pulling her arm back. Preparing to stab, to finish it.

The blade never came.

Not to me, at least.

A tingle flared through my ribcage, almost like pain but not quite. Dull. Distant. I barely felt it beneath the agony still radiating from my wound. My brow furrowed. Had I died? Shouldn’t that have hurt more?

Maire gasped. “Stars save me.”

Even before I opened my eyes, I knew what I’d see. My body already knew. I slumped forward, my head thudding against a strong back. My bloodied fist clenched in soft silk. Heat radiated through me, chasing away the searing burn that still screamed through my nerves.

This was better.

Maybe dying wouldn’t be so terrible. I barely noticed the pain of the sword jutting through my ribcage, not with my soulbound gutted on the floor behind me. Jules dropped to his knees and scrambled toward our bride.

I wanted to turn. I wanted to take her into my arms. Take both of them into my arms. She had almost died. Was still dying. But I stayed where I was, crouched before my heartmates, my gaze leveled coldly at the trembling human who’d dared to harm what was mine—

The heat of magic pulsed into me. It surged through my chest, rushing through blood and bone, knitting me together with threads of shadow. I gasped, eyes fluttering open.

Ruby-ringed fingers moved in front of me, tracing the same shape over and over. Heal. Heal. Heal. Jules’s hand didn’t shake. His casting was steady, even as blood trickled from a pour down my side, pooling on the floor between us.

Luc slowly rose to his full height before me. My cheek dragged against his lower back. My hand stayed fisted in the back of his doublet. I held on, trying to stay in my body, no matter how badly my mind wanted to float away. Before I could crumple, Jules caught me, strong arms slipping around my waist.

“I’ve got you, lovely girl,” he murmured, his voice low and warm. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”

I blinked slowly at him, then past him to the king now standing tall and bloodied before us. Luc glared down at Isabeau’s sword sticking out of his torso. His voice was flat. “Is this my general’s sword?”

Maire paled. “I—I... she—”

Luc raised a hand, silencing her. “Quiet, thrall. I wasn’t speaking to you.”

Maire jerked, but fell silent. I couldn’t see the back of her neck, but I knew her thrall runespell had flared, activated again with Luc’s order.

Jules gently swept his hands over my gown. The rune-woven fabric had already started knitting itself back together, but a small tear remained. He slipped his fingers through, brushing against my skin. Soothe . Normally, I would’ve flinched, pulling away from someone grazing my soft, imperfect body.

But now, I only leaned into him. Fisted my other hand in his tunic. Loose strands of his hair tickled my cheek, slipping free from the knot at his nape. His presence sparked through me. It made me feel like myself again, if just for a moment. My flesh might have mended, but something in me still felt adrift, detached, not quite real.

Stars, I had almost died .

“Lovely,” Jules said. “Luc asked you a question.”

I blinked at him, trying to focus. “What?”

He stood, pulling me upright with him. “Where did you get Isabeau’s sword?”

I blinked some more. What?

Jules slid one arm around my waist, steadying me, while his other hand disentangled from mine and closed around the sword’s hilt. He pulled the weapon from Luc.

The King of Dusk didn’t even flinch. But I did. A phantom pain lanced through my chest. Blood welled from his wound, thick and fast, spilling down his side in a dark rush, soaking through his shirt, dripping onto the stone floor.

It wasn’t healing .

Panic knifed through my numbness, sharp and sudden. Just like my wound seconds ago, red soaked the fabric faster than the repairing runes could catch up.

Jules’s grip tightened at my hip. “He’s fine, lovely. Daemium wounds don’t heal on their own. They need magic, that’s all.”

As he spoke, Luc calmly lifted a hand and sketched a rune over his chest. Heal . Shadows flickered to life at his fingertips, flaring faintly as the magic sank into his body. His blood trickled from a stream to mere drops. He had enough power to repair the damage, even after dawn.

Jules handed him the sword, then added his own rune for good measure, drawing it clean and swift through the air. The rest of the wound closed over immediately.

Isabeau’s sword. That’s what Luc had asked me about. I hadn’t answered. My gaze flicked to his face. His expression hadn’t changed, but the bond betrayed him. The ripple of worry. The faint thread of tension.

Not for himself.

For us, his soulbound, even though we stood alive and uninjured before him.

And beneath that, a quieter thrum of concern for Sabas and Cédric. For Roxiana. For Isabeau.

Did they think I’d taken the blade from their general’s corpse?

“Roxiana gave it to me,” I said, my voice a whisper. “She told me to stand back while she and Isabeau helped Sabas and Cédric. They were in the hall outside the throne room. Didn’t you see them?”

Luc shook his head. “We didn’t use the door. It was quicker to use the throne as a runegate to this floor.”

“Oh.” Normally, I’d be full of questions. But the knowledge just… was. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It’s daemium, too.” Jules smiled, though it barely touched his eyes. “And we were desperate. I don’t recommend sitting on it until we remove the runespell, unless you want to fall straight through the seat—”

“Why aren’t I dead?”

Jules froze mid-sentence. His expression blanked in an instant. In perfect sync, he and Luc turned toward Maire. They hadn’t looked at her since entering. She wasn’t a threat, not to them. But now, the thrall raised her chin, eyes narrowed in a hard fury. Gone was the meek human she’d pretended to be.

A minute ago, she’d apologized for stabbing me. Now, it looked like she regretted not finishing the job.

The kings saw it.

And their gazes went beyond cold. They turned lethal.

If two vampires stared at me like that, I’d collapse on the spot. But Maire only met their eyes and glared back. Her fists clenched at her sides. The only sign of her fear was how tightly she held herself together, as if daring herself not to flinch.

Luc spun Isabeau’s sword in his hand like it was a dagger. “Because we don’t want you to be. Not yet, at least.”

She glared. “Fuck you—”

“Don’t speak again.”

Her voice cut off instantly. She jolted, shoulders snapping tight. Luc’s earlier command had only bound her to silence for a moment, but this one locked her jaw completely.

“Good idea. I don’t want to hear her voice ever.” Jules tilted his head. “Actually… stay still and open your mouth.”

He stepped forward, taking me with him. The kings didn’t exchange a glance, didn’t speak. They passed me between them with the seamless coordination of instinct. I leaned into Luc. I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t.

But I did.

I was too weak. Too raw. Too numb to resist the pull of safety. The bond hummed with his presence, a steady pressure of attention against my mind, protective and focused.

Luc didn’t move as Jules reached out. Maire didn’t flinch. Couldn’t flinch. Her eyes widened slightly, some silent realization blooming behind them as Jules’s fingernails darkened into shadowed claws.

He shoved his thumb into her mouth—

—and ripped out her tongue.

There was no scream. Just a wet, awful sound as blood sprayed from her mouth. It splattered against the floor. Jules’s chest. The collar of Luc’s doublet. My chin.

I didn’t scream either. I didn’t cry or vomit or even blink. I should’ve said something. I should’ve felt something . But all I felt was Luc beside me, his body a wall of warmth, his hand steady on my back.

And yet… beneath that, buried so deep I almost missed it… was the faint pulse of disgust. Of horror. This wasn’t right.

Maire reeled backward, clutching at her face with both hands. Blood streamed between her fingers. Her eyes went wide with pain, her body spasming as her mouth worked around the wound, soundless.

No rune dulled that pain. The kings didn’t offer mercy.

Jules flicked his hand, flinging the severed muscle aside. “I wish I could take the time to take you apart piece by piece, Maire. But we’ll have to do this quickly.” Jules drew a pattern on her shoulder. Suspend . Endure. “We’ve a bride and castle to secure.”

He stepped back, tugging her with him. Maire stumbled forward, blood still pouring from her open mouth. Her eyes were glazed with shock, but her body obeyed.

Jules took her left wrist.

Luc took her right.

Their canines elongated, shadows curling like smoke from their mouths. They didn’t speak. Didn’t hesitate.

They plunged their fangs into her wrists.

Maire screamed, a broken, wet sound, barely human. The agony of the bite collided with the wound in her mouth. Her spine arched, her legs buckled, but she didn’t collapse.

The runes wouldn’t let her.

I barely flinched. I should have. I should have tried to pull away, to scream, to cry, to move. But Luc still held me in his arms, and if he let go, I’d crumple to the floor.

So I stayed where I was, Luc’s grip the only thing keeping me upright as Maire writhed in front of us. Only inches away, she twisted and jerked in their grasp. No venom. No mercy. Only hunger and vengeance.

And I just watched . Watched as they drained her, an echo of heat filling my body as her lifeforce became theirs. Watched as they lapped at her crimson blood, devouring more and more. The taste of the thrall burst across my tongue, heady and rich. Not nearly as sweet as our bride, but her hatred, her terror, her pain made it intoxicating. A thrill I couldn’t ignore.

When only drops remained, I pulled back—

Maire’s body crumpled between them, snapping me back into my own mind. Whether I’d slipped into Luc or Jules, I didn’t know. Maybe both.

Her knees hit stone first, then her hip, then her cheek. A final twitch rippled through her limbs as she slumped fully to the floor, ragged breaths dragging through her mangled mouth.

The suspension and endurance runes still glowed faintly on her skin. They kept her alive. Barely. How much blood was even left in her veins? The runes didn’t care. As long as the kings fed the runespell magic, they could keep her heart beating for days. Weeks. Centuries, if they wanted. Just like Jules had done to his own father.

Jules licked the blood from his lips. “What a waste. Cédric is going to be so disappointed.”

Luc turned without a word, sliding his arm more firmly around my waist. I barely registered the movement. I followed, legs moving because his body willed mine forward and not because I had the strength to do it myself. Jules fell into step beside us, his boots leaving a trail from the blood-slick stone.

“I’ll be back for you later, Maire.” Jules waggled his fingers at the twitching thrall. “For now, lie on the floor and think about what you’ve done.”

We passed through the doorway into the corridor. From somewhere deeper in the palace, the sounds of battle echoed—inhuman snarls and the terrible wail of someone dying. My legs buckled slightly.

Luc glanced at Jules, his voice quiet but certain. “Take her to the den. She needs—”

He didn’t get the rest out.

A snarl split the air.

A wraith barreled around the far corner, its shadows writhing, claws already extended. It saw us and screamed.

An arm cinched tight around my waist. Before I could react, I was plucked off the floor and cradled against a blood-slick chest. Jules. He didn’t pause. Didn’t wait. He turned and strode in the opposite direction, boots slapping against stone as he carried me away from the threat.

Away from the wraith.

Away from Luc .

My numbness shattered, fear flooding in through the crack. I squirmed in Jules’s grip, trying to turn my head. I wanted to reach for Luc. Wanted to grab the King of Dusk and drag him with us.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“I thought the whole reason for the covenant runespell was so you’d have double the magic when facing a wraith?” My voice cracked, something frantic bubbling under the words.

Jules didn’t answer. He didn’t look back. He kept walking. Steady, purposeful. But I twisted in his arms, just enough to glimpse over his shoulder. Luc’s gaze didn’t waver from us as we retreated.

“Wraiths are difficult to kill for a regular vampire, little witch.” He cracked his neck, the sound as sharp as bone snapping. “I’m not a regular vampire.”

The wraith closed the distance. Luc didn’t move.

Not at first.

Then his hands shifted, his fingers elongating into clawed shadows. But they went further than claws. His arms darkened to the elbow, black scales crawling up his skin like armor made of smoke. The Conqueror waited still until the very last second.

Then he lunged.

Jules turned the corner, cutting Luc from view.

I couldn’t see him anymore. But I heard it. The sound of tearing. Screeching. And beneath it all—bone breaking, flesh ripping, the low growl of a furious vampire.

His perverse thrill thudding in my chest.

We passed into another hallway. Shouts echoed from distant rooms. Something wailed. Something else screamed. I buried my head in the crook of Jules’s neck. A part of me yelled at myself to snap out of it, to not just slump in the King of Dawn’s arms like a child.

But every time I tried to surface, the images flashed through my mind.

The sword in my gut.

Blood streaming through my fingers.

My vision fading until all I saw was Maire, watching me die.

Like I had watched her die.

Like I had felt her die.

Something shrieked, piercing through me. My body went rigid in Jules’s arms. I turned my head, peeking out at the world.

Three wraiths snarled at the far end. They surged forward with that terrible inhuman wailing.

Jules didn’t stop. I twisted my hands in his tunic, white-knuckled, bracing myself for the inevitable collision. But before they reached us, Jules veered suddenly, slipping through an open doorway onto a narrow balcony high above the palace grounds.

“Where—?”

“Hold on.”

Without hesitation, he stepped up onto the balustrade.

And jumped.

I shrieked as wind tore through my hair. My stomach dropped. The stone walls of Dawnspear blurred past us, white and gold.

Then—

We hit the ground.

The impact echoed through my legs as his knees bent to absorb the force before he surged upright again in one fluid motion.

And kept going.

Like he hadn’t just hurled himself off a fourth-floor balcony. I craned my head, breath still caught in my chest, to glimpse the narrow edge we’d fallen from.

A little giggle escaped my lips. “You’re insane.”

“I’m lazy,” Jules said with a shrug. “This was the easier option.”

The giggle didn’t stop. “Only you would consider leaping off a building the easier option.”

He grinned, but he couldn’t hide his concern. “Most vampires would consider leaping off a building easier than facing three wraiths.”

Jules approached the base of a statue of a snarling hellynx, a wide section of the pale stone embedded with carved daemium. Gate. Distance. Path. Arrival. Cross. A runegate, right there in the garden.

Without hesitation, he pressed a bloodstained palm to the stone. The gate responded at once. Shadows twisted across its surface, exploding to life with a pulse of magic. The black shimmered to reveal… darkness? I could barely see what lay beyond.

Jules stepped forward. The daemium’s warmth wrapped around us like a living thing, its shadows thick and heavy.

Then we were somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere pitch black.

I blinked into the void, startled by the sudden absence of light. My heart skipped painfully.

Jules shifted his grip on me. His fingers squeezed my thigh—gentle but grounding—and I tightened mine around the silk of his shirt, curling closer to him. My face pressed to his shoulder. Slowly, my pulse settled, breath syncing with the rhythm of his steps.

One of his hands lifted, fingers slipping away from my skin to trace a quick pattern through the air.

Light .

Golden light sparked to life at his fingertips. Runelights carved into the rock walls burst as we passed them, casting our shadows across the cavern walls.

I gasped.

We were surrounded by stone on all sides. The ceiling arched overhead, draped with stalactites like sharp teeth. The walls glistened, veins of daemium carving through the rock. Only the floor stood in contrast—a smooth plane of polished stone, seamless and unnaturally perfect.

This wasn’t a natural cavern.

Jules didn’t let me linger or stare. He moved forward with quiet purpose, his steps echoing softly. The further we walked, the more daemium threaded through the walls. We must have headed toward Toreth’s starcrater, the magic from the demon’s Fall penetrating deep into the ground.

“Where are we?” I asked, voice thin.

“Under Dawnspear, near our den.”

He said it like it was obvious. I should’ve flinched at the use of our . Should’ve corrected him. But I didn’t. I didn’t have the strength to fight the word, or what it implied.

Instead, I asked, “Why? Is the apartment not safe?”

“Thralls can access the apartment,” he said. “No one else can enter the den. You can’t even compare the two.”

We approached a door—if it could even be called that. It towered above us, daemium-dark and rune-carved. Ward. Protect. Shield. Barrier. Ward. Protect. Shield. Barrier. The magic was so strong it pulsed in the air, a threat carved into every line, unmistakable to anyone who approached.

To try to enter the Imperium’s den without permission would mean death.

Jules swiped his hand along my waist, then pressed it against the door. Pain flared in my palm. He’d chosen a sharp section, letting it puncture his flesh. The runes drank deep, greedily devouring my blood smeared on his skin, and his own leaking in a slow trail from his palm.

The door opened with a low, grinding groan.

Inside, the flicker of golden runelight greeted us. It danced across the room’s rock walls, casting long, gentle shadows. Inside, the ceiling above was also perfectly smooth, as though carved from an unbroken slab. Plush maroon rugs softened the rock floor.

Jules led us through an antechamber, then into a larger room with low sofas, a wall of bookshelves, and a modest table with four chairs. There were no doors between any of the spaces, only open archways.

He passed through another. More runelights flared to life.

My gaze focused on a massive bed, draped in thick blankets the color of dried blood.

I froze.

The room looked exactly like the hallucination I’d had earlier. The one in the bathing chamber. The one I thought had come from my exhausted mind.

The one with the baby.

But I had never been here. Not until now.

My breath caught. I was losing it. I had to be.

My fingers slid limply from Jules’s shirt. My senses blurred, each breath a labor. The torture. The delegation. The wraiths. The sword. Maire. All of it spun behind my eyes in a blur of blood and shadow.

My body couldn’t hold the weight of it anymore. The memories, the betrayals, the things I’d witnessed. The things I’d survived.

It was too much.

The fog tried to pull me down.

This time, I let it, sinking into the blissful dark.