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A isling half-expected it to hurt when she followed Yalde into the swirling cloud of shadows at the far end of the cathedral. But it didn’t, nor was she struck blind by darkness when she emerged on the other side.

She wished she had been.

It wasn’t shadows, but an avalanche of madness and chaos and heartache that churned around her, over her, sucking her down into its violent depths before she was even able to take in a breath of air to hold.

Kael.

He sat before her, straight-backed on a wicked throne of thorny, sickly brambles. Motionless. Emotionless. He could have been a statue, carved from unyielding marble, but it was him. Not his ghost, not a vision. Kael.

Aisling was glad then for her nightmares—they hadn’t ever allowed her to dream of a reunion.

Her mind had never been given the chance to imagine how it might feel to see him again, to hold him again.

To picture that moment when their gaze would meet and he would run to her and tell her that he missed her, and maybe, for the first time, that he loved her.

Even still, the sight of him this way brought time to a shuddering halt.

She felt the blood drain from her face and was only vaguely aware that she’d stopped breathing.

She’d heard it once that when the body experiences enough physical pain, shock sets in to numb it away.

And as her vision dimmed around the periphery and her head spun, Aisling was sure that’s what this was: shock.

It had set in so fast she hadn’t even had time to register the pain.

If Kael saw her, he didn’t recognize her.

And if he did recognize her, he hid it well behind an impassive mask.

His eyes, twin black pools, didn’t reflect the light, but seemed to absorb it.

To devour it. His glamour had been stripped away, leaving exposed the ravaged flesh and winding scars he kept so steadfastly concealed.

Shadows dripped like ink from the tips of his fingers where they rested on the arms of the throne, and thin black veins twisted and zigzagged like lightning over every inch of his uncovered skin, only fading just above his jawline.

She had only seen those marks appear the day he’d lost control of his magic during the battle at the Nyctara front.

He seemed but a vessel; a puppet, commanded and consumed by his shadows.

Aisling wondered whether there was anything but blackness left inside of him, or if that vicious, murderous version of Kael was all that was left.

All those soft, beautiful parts of his aneiydh that he’d quietly shown to her in their time together had been stripped away by the savagery of Elowas and the brutality of the Low One—of Yalde.

Maybe the Luna moth was just another figment pulled from her own mind, her own memories. Maybe it meant nothing at all.

More so than anything else she’d experienced up to that point, that thought alone would be what finally broke her.

Hopelessness settled over her shoulders, a heavy mantle, unlike any she’d carried before.

It was Aisling that had doomed him to this nightmarish end.

It didn’t matter what the prophecy promised.

She could bring him back—whatever he was now, whatever was left of him—but he wasn’t Kael. Not anymore. She’d lost him.

“He’s lovely this way, isn’t he?” Yalde’s dulcet voice interrupted her spiraling thoughts.

She’d almost forgotten about him lurking there, watching her reaction.

The way he spoke about Kael so adoringly made her skin itch, but that new sensation pulled her back into her body.

The space came into focus again, and the numbing shock gave way to a spark of anger that flared to life inside of her.

This time, for the first time, she let it.

Kael still wore the simple set of robes she and Methild had changed him into after bathing his body. His earring—that strand of silver gems—still hung from the lobe of one pointed ear. Whether he knew it or not, he was still Kael.

“I think his imperfections make him that much more beautiful.” Yalde had stepped up onto the dais and circled around the back side of the throne. He reached out and caressed Kael’s ruined skin. He didn’t flinch. “The evidence of his devotion to me is striking.”

Aisling thought of the look on Kael’s face when he’d told her about the injury.

She could still hear the bitterness in his voice when he’d described his misjudgment of the Low One’s whispers, how he’d wrongly conducted the blood rite that stripped away what little control he had.

Sangelas had exacted its pound of flesh and Kael was left in an even worse state for it.

“He begged you for help and instead all you gave was a cryptic answer that he misinterpreted.” She winced sympathetically as Yalde’s talon pressed into an exposed muscle on the side of Kael’s neck.

“You are innocent, aren’t you?” He continued his slow circle around Kael, wading through the shadows that pooled on the ground.

“I am not a merciful god, nor am I kind. But I am not unjust, and I do not inflict cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

I answer to those who utter my name in any form with only the response they deserve—whether or not it is the response they sought.

He interpreted my counsel just as I intended him to.

He is worth so much more to me like this. ”

That spark in Aisling’s chest burned hotter. “Why?”

“When he cannot control our magic, it is far easier for me to hold it under my own command.”

Kael had given everything to his god, and Yalde had taken it all without sparing a thought for his disciple. Aisling’s nails bit into her palm and the space was whitewashed for a split second by a flash of lightning overhead. Yalde sensed it and grinned.

“Calm yourself, dear. You’re giving away your little secret,” he taunted.

So he knew. Aisling drew in a breath, then forced it out slowly, attempting to settle herself before the sky above mirrored the storm in her head.

Of course he knew—he’d likely felt it during the ritual in The Cut, and again the night she and Kael had sat together before the moon gate.

He’d felt Kael vying for control over his magic and could feel through those snaking tendrils of shadow what force was giving the king the upper hand.

She wished she had a bit of that control herself.

The Silver Saints had warned that the magic in Elowas would act as an amplifier, but she hadn’t guessed that would include her affinity.

It wasn’t magic; not really. Not like Kael’s shadows or Rodney’s Saothrealain.

On Brook Isle she could only sense the coming weather, never alter it.

But if that were the case, she no longer had to hide it.

With gut-wrenching effort, she dragged her eyes up to meet Kael’s.

Shadows swirled in those black voids like they were consuming him from the inside out.

Aisling turned her focus inward, too, scraping together enough calm to project.

There was precious little to reach for now.

She was too angry, too frightened, too overwhelmed.

What she managed to find, she clung to, and sent towards Kael with all the force she could muster.

Except the darkness that had overtaken him was far stronger; it snuffed out her calm like a candle in the wind.

Yalde hummed as he observed their exchange, the low sound a roll of thunder in his throat. It almost sounded sympathetic, like he pitied her.

“I’d like to make a trade.” Aisling straightened her spine and glared up at Yalde. This was what she’d come for; this was what fate had written for her. As hopeless as it seemed, she had to try.

Yalde cocked his head and his long hair shifted around him. “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you never to bargain with the Fae?”

“You’re not Fae,” Aisling challenged. “People try to bargain with gods all the time.” She’d heard her own father trying as much, once, tightly clasped hands pressed against his forehead at their kitchen table.

Pleading, promising to give up his vices, if only his wife’s fractured mind could be made whole again.

It had surprised her; their family was never particularly religious.

His prayers weren’t answered though, and both he and Aisling had gone on pretending like he’d never asked.

“Clever girl.” He nodded his approval. He was enjoying this.

Aisling kept her gaze on him, if only to avoid letting it stray back to Kael. It was the only way she’d manage to keep the desperation out of her tone. “What do you want?”

“Kael is my most prized possession, the jewel in my crown. I would be a fool to part with him.”

“Everything has a price,” she pressed.

Yalde’s grip tightened subtly where his hand rested on the back of the throne, the muscles in his wrist ticking, before he loosened it once more and his mouth curled back into that leering smile. “Let us discuss this further over a meal. Perhaps by the end of it, we’ll have come to an agreement.”

He gestured behind Aisling, and she turned.

The wall of shadow they’d stepped through had vanished; now, she could see the entire length of the church.

The fallen log pews were gone, replaced by a narrow banquet table.

Those shrouded figures sat hunched in chairs around it, leaving just three seats open at the table’s head.

A strong shove to her shoulder made Aisling stumble, nearly losing her balance.

Kael had risen from the throne and descended from the dais, and the straight path he walked blindly put her directly in his way.

As he passed her by, his shoulder had clipped hers.

He didn’t react, but it knocked the breath out of Aisling and doused the spark inside of her.

She tried to remind herself that he didn’t see her, that he hadn’t even registered her presence, but it didn’t stop the hot tears from blurring her vision.