The words land like ice. The Partition Decree—every child is taught its lesson. Centuries ago, an Archpriest decided that those blessed with divine power should not bow to kings without it. He overthrew the crown, ruled by faith and fear, and bled the land until even prayers fell quiet.
For the first time, the gods stood united and chose to intervene. They tore his magic from him and laid down the Decree: the Archpriest would guide souls, the crown would rule bodies, and neither would ever reach for the other’s power again.
It was meant to keep balance. Now it does nothing but chain Ryker and me with it.
My mind floods with all the ways this could end—the Archpriest tightening his vines and choking me before the crowd, Ryker helpless to stop him yet ready to risk the gods’ wrath for me—when a searing gust of air explodes beside me.
I throw up my arms, shielding my face from the heat. A scream, raw and inhuman, shreds the air.
I turn. And for a heartbeat, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
The Archpriest is ablaze.
Blue and orange fire erupts from his body, devouring him whole in a single, silent gasp of heat. Flames spiral upward like a holy inferno,a divine pyre sent from the heavens themselves. The vines around me drop to the ground.
In the space of a blink, he’s dead.
No Archpriest.
No verdict.
No voice to demand more blood.
The metallic scent thickens, as if the fire condensed it. I can’t move. I can only stand there, numb, letting the heat lick my skin as disbelief roots me in place.
Then hands close around me and yank me backward. My body crashes into a hard chest. Someone shields me, pulls me away from what was once a man, now just a smoldering husk on the stone.
Stunned, I grip the arms around me like they’re the only thing left tethering me to this world.
“Are you hurt?” Ryker’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears, edged with a fear so raw it yanks me from my stupor.
My tongue feels like stone, so I shake my head stiffly.
He cups my face with both hands, brushing sweat-damp strands of hair away, then runs his palms down my neck, shoulders, arms, checking for burns, for damage, for proof that I’m still whole.
A strange thought drifts through the fog in my mind. This is the most he’s ever touched me.
As if he hears it too, Ryker pulls back abruptly, jaw tightening.
The roar of the crowd rises, isolated shouts swelling into a cacophony of unrest. He turns to someone just beyond my line of sight and commands, “Take her to her rooms. It’s not safe here.”
His words barely echo before the plaza erupts in sharp, crystalline sound, like a dozen panes of glass shattering at once.
We whip around. All around us, guards, duennas, and stewards, the very people meant to ensure our safety, are staggering. They are clutching their chests, shielding their eyes. Where the Borrowglass vials once shimmered at their throats, only jagged glass remains.
With the Archpriest’s death, Demetria has fallen, and her divine claim to Calcatra is broken. And with her fall, her God-given magic that once filled thousands of Borrowglasses—magic that had shieldedour kingdom for decades—vanishes.
The Godbeast rears up, all four limbs quaking, then vanishes in a blink, pulled back into the gods’ realm now that its Champion is gone.
“Come, little bride,” Mael murmurs beside me, his voice almost gentle as he places a hand on my back.
Ryker’s eyes dart to the place Mael touched, his face hardening.
Mael only rolls his eyes. “You told me to take her, brother,” he says, all silk in tone. “So I will.”
“Your Majesty!” A soldier stumbles toward us, blood streaming from his face, glass embedded in his temple. “You must return to the Palace now!”
“No,” he says. “We stay and calm the unrest.” Then he turns to us. “Go!” Ryker barks at Mael, his voice laced with steel.
