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Within the opulent chamber, Zolya was frozen.

His eyes were fixed on the lifeless form of the king, who was sprawled, motionless, on the floor.

The sight of his father’s pallid skin and bloated veins—tainted black from the poison—sent a chill down his spine, the once all-powerful monarch now defeated.

Zolya waited to feel grief or pain or something , but he remained numb, disbelieving.

In shock.

It was clear his father had fought against his death. The room was charred with his magic, a tangy smoke filling the air.

Close by lay the unfortunate victims of his battle, courtiers who were now unlucky to have been chosen for his private gathering.

Their wings were half-singed, flesh bubbled and burned, mouths open in silent screams. It was a gruesome scene.

But untouched among the devastation, the king’s crown, pristine white, lay where it had fallen from his head. The diamond-tipped laurel cast a foreboding shadow along the marble floor, where it waited for a new bearer to claim its burden.

Zolya turned from it.

His vision became consumed by Lady Esme. Her once graceful form was now contorted in the agony of her death, her poisoned veins mirroring the king’s, parts of her burned away in a grotesque display like the other guests. His father’s magic had no doubt been her final blow.

It was then that Zolya finally felt the weight of this moment.

Here lay the chaotic aftermath he was meant to clean up.

A tumultuous whirlwind of emotions surged within Zolya: terror and calm, uncertainty and determination, sorrow and relief—all so raw and opposing they threatened to bring him to his knees.

Zolya’s magic churned like the storm he had created outside, a mirroring of his internal chaos. A roar of frustration edged up his throat.

“Sire?” A kidet standing behind Zolya snapped him from his gathering destruction. He could sense the young soldier’s nervous energy. “What would you like me to do?”

Zolya forced in a steadying breath, clenching and unclenching his hands at his side. “Inform the families of those lost tonight,” he said. “And gather the men of my personal unit to help carry away the bodies.”

The kidet snapped into a low bow before departing.

Osko entered just as the young soldier exited.

“All guests have been cleared of the palace,” Osko informed.

Zolya noted his friend took extra care not to look at the scene splayed at their feet, his chin tilted stubbornly high. It was no secret Osko had been a great admirer of their king. He would be grieving, Zolya realized.

Guilt worked uncomfortably through Zolya, knowing his own grief had nothing to do with the king. His sorrow surrounded the loss of Tanwen, his sister, and whatever future he might have had for himself if tonight hadn’t needed to happen.

He grieved selfishly.

“Good,” replied Zolya, forcing his voice to be even.

“And the king’s council awaits in the west tower whenever you’re prepared,” said Osko.

The exhausting weight of his impending responsibilities pressed against Zolya’s wings. From tonight onward, his path would be fraught with more challenges and uncertainty than any other time in his life.

The true test of his abilities started now.

There was much Zolya would need to answer to, organize, prepare, and assuage. His people most of all. They were about to get a new king, assuredly not in the way any of them would have preferred.

“Thank you,” said Zolya, this time unable to keep the tiredness from his voice.

His friend regarded him, a worried crease to his brow. “There’s one more thing,” Osko began slowly. “Princess Azla, she still has not been found.”

Shame worked its way through Zolya because this was the good news he needed.

If Azla still wasn’t accounted for, then she was most likely gone, just like Tanwen and her father and brother.

After he and Tanwen had split ways, the alarm in the palace intensifying, Zolya had flown straight to the princess within the turmoil of guests.

She had been panicked to get into the king’s private chambers, to get to Lady Esme, but Zolya had forced her away and behind a nearby column. He then told her how he knew about the poison, that Tanwen had been inside and had seen everything transpire.

Azla appeared to be only half listening, her mind clearly distracted by their swirling surroundings. That’s when the guards appeared, positioning themselves in a circle around the prince and princess, facing out, protecting their royalty as they had been trained.

But despite their audience, Azla had pulled Zolya close, her gaze panicked as she erupted in a whispered confession. There was a poison, a tear from Maryth, the deadliest of any kind. She was meant to do it, but then Essie got pulled away instead. But she did it! she had exclaimed, a burning hope in her gaze. She must have! Father must be dead.

Hush, Zolya had commanded, eyeing their guards, but they were all thoroughly preoccupied with the turmoil around them.

Zolya did not fully understand how Azla or Lady Esme could have gotten such a deadly item, but they had no time for further explanation. He needed to get his sister somewhere safe, somewhere not in Galia.

With Lady Esme being so near to the king at the time of his poisoning, clearly the only other to have drunk the poison, her connection to the treason would be investigated. A motive could easily be created, suggesting she wanted to save her lover, the princess, from being taken away, thereby implicating the princess as well.

All inarguable truths.

Azla needed to leave.

And the only way to get her to go would be to break her heart.

Zolya had then told the princess about Lady Esme, what Tanwen had shared.

Azla’s painful scream had taken years off his life, as did him shoving her away, telling her to lose the guards and where she could find Tanwen. To go with Tanwen.

Zolya blinked back to the king’s chamber and the massacre at his feet.

“Keep looking for the princess,” he commanded. “She’s never left Galia, so she could not have gotten far. Look in Fioré,” he suggested.

“Yes, sire,” said Osko. “And the inventor and his son?”

Zolya kept himself from shifting with his unease. “Is there a new report?” he asked.

“No, sire,” said Osko. “There still is no sign of them, in the sea or on the closest edge of Cādra, where their gliders seemed to be angled. But I was curious what you wish our men to now do?”

“Well, it certainly is too soon to stop looking,” Zolya began coolly, forcing his tone to be hard instead of filled with his all-consuming dread that Tanwen might not have survived her escape. “Have a unit continue to scour the sea. And have those stationed at Cādra’s northern checkpoint set perimeters near the Zomyad and Pelk Forests. They are the closest sanctuaries.”

Zolya knew where they were headed, to Drygul, the territory of the Low Gods. But who would presume they’d dare seek solace in such an unknown and perilous land? No matter the level of fugitive.

Zolya had tried to dissuade Tanwen many times from traveling there, but she had been resolute, explaining they would be welcome. And that’s where she had left it.

Zolya eyed Osko, his farce of commands coming more naturally than he would have liked, but above all he needed to appear innocent, against what had happened tonight. The future of Cādra depended on it.

“Yes, sire,” said Osko, though he did not depart.

“Is there more?” questioned Zolya.

“No,” said Osko. “Nothing more to currently report.”

“Thank bloody gods,” Zolya muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face in exhaustion.

Osko surprised Zolya by placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Zol,” he said gently.

His friend appeared to take his crack of emotion as a sign of something else—despair, perhaps, for his dead father, his fugitive sister, that once Orzel learned of tonight’s tragedy, the agreement regarding the mine would be—

A painful, wet gasp drew Zolya’s and Osko’s attention to where the king lay on the floor.

His chest heaved with his sudden desperate intake of air, his eyes flashing open.

“Father?” Zolya was instantly by his side, hands hovering awkwardly over his large form. Never had he touched his father. It was always the king who laid hands on him.

King Réol’s gaze locked to Zolya’s, clouded, bloodshot, and unseeing. He worked to say something, but only a strained gargle came out. He collapsed back onto the ground, eyes closing.

Panic swirled through Zolya as he forced himself to feel for a pulse. His father was like ice, but there, beneath his taut skin, was the smallest flutter of life.

Zolya was momentarily paralyzed, reeling in disbelief.

His father was alive.

The king still lived.

What did this mean?

“We must get him to his chambers,” Zolya instructed in a rush. “And summon meddyg Hyrez!”

Osko soared from the room, leaving Zolya now alone, with his father.

His clearly dying and very weak father.

A terrifying temptation slithered through Zolya, how easy it would be to finish his sister’s and Lady Esme’s plan.

This man might be Zolya’s king, but he had never truly been his father. Never once had he shown Zolya mercy when he was weak, only the brutality of his own strength. Why should Zolya extend grace now when it had been absent throughout his entire life?

Resentment was a poison through Zolya’s veins. A dark coaxing whispered from the goddess of death into his ear. Send King Réol where he belongs, child, to me.

By some miracle, Zolya stepped away.

While he might have been the son of the king, he refused to begin his reign like his father.

Heartless.