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“Undeniably? That’s quite a strong word. But I wasn’t referring to that little brat you keep in your castle.” My godfather’s lips spread into a cheeky, charming grin—one that I’ve seen before on another. “I’m referring to the other. Or did you conveniently forget that you have two sons?”

King Marcel’s expression hardens. He presses down on my godfather’s trachea. “Give me a reason,” he breathes to Van Asten. “Give me a reason to keep you alive. Because it would be so easy to make up an excuse. There are fiendlings in these woods.” His eyes rove the trees. “Who’s to say you won’t fall prey to them?”

My godfather’s smile broadens. “You know you don’t want to do that, Marcel. I am all you have. The stronghold against the Dark. Because when it comes to magic, I’m afraid you are rather impotent, my friend.”

He lifts his hand, and there is the ring, his anchor, its onyx stone gleaming in the dim light of twilight. My godfather is the strongest Light meiga of his generation. And the king knows this.

King Marcel lifts his boot from my godfather’s neck and roars, his voice echoing through the trees and sending crows flying. My godfather coughs, rubs his throat, and smirks. “What irks you more, Marcel? My power or the fact that I can satisfy your wife when you can’t?”

The king laughs bitterly. “You keep trying to provoke me. Just like when we were boys.” He slumps against the tree, inches from me. All the fury seems to have been sapped from him. “But none of that is the reason I can’t execute you, Antoine.”

“Oh?”

The king’s head shakes, his shoulders dipping. “After all this time, you still don’t understand. You think this is about power, about sex. And I thought that Dark magic was driven by the heart.” He stands upright, towering over my godfather, still prostrate on the ground. “I will not kill you, but not because I need you. It’s because despite it all, killing you would be like spilling the blood of a brother. And I can’t bring myself to do it.”

My godfather’s gaze goes cold. “Many kings have spilled noble blood. It’s nearly a tradition.”

“Not for me,” King Marcel says grimly. “Which is why you will live, and I will be a fool.”

King Marcel turns away from him, walks several paces into the shadows of the forest.

My godfather’s expression falls into something sterner as he calls after him, “If you wanted me as an ally, Marcel, you shouldn’t have alienated the Dark.”

King Marcel turns, and his face is now resigned, mournful, as he looks down at Antoine. “A stronger man would kill you.”

“But we both know you’re too weak for that.”

King Marcel shakes his head. “You call it weakness. I call it love.” He walks back toward my godfather and crouches down next to him, his face ridden with heartbreak. “Go far away from here. Leave Gault alone. Let it be my burden, whether it thrives or falls.”

My godfather’s jaw clenches.

The king draws a very familiar sword. Lonan’s sword is dormant in the king’s hands, unable to produce magic from a person who is not a meiga. Marcel places the point under my godfather’s chin. “You will flee these shores,” he says miserably. “You are a traitor of the Light. You will not return.”

Van Asten laughs. “You think you can exile me? Are you still so delusional that you think you hold such power? I’m an Elder. My family has held Imaelhain as a territory of Gault for hundreds of years. If I told the Eldership you were unfit to rule, your head would be in the guillotine by week’s end.”

“So why don’t you?” the king growls. “Since you despise me so.”

My godfather’s gaze darkens. “I am no more willing to kill you, as it turns out, than you are to kill me.”

The king’s mouth forms a flat line. “Then it seems we have reached a stalemate. Too full of spite to suffer each other’s existence. Too brotherly to do the deed ourselves.”

Van Asten swallows. “If you would turn back from this path, Marcel . . . ”

“The Dark is an abomination. There is no turning back.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Van Asten growls at him. “You’re severing magic down the middle. Think of the consequences.”

“I have. And the consequence is a purified Gault. Illuminated. Free of the wickedness of the Dark.”

My godfather shakes his head. “Wage war against Imaelhain, and the Light will fall.”

The king pauses, seeming to contemplate Van Asten’s words. And then, with an almost rueful smile, says, “I think I’ve had enough of your preaching, Dark-wielder.”

He plants a muddy boot on my godfather’s shoulder and shoves him again to the dirt. “You may have the Elders eating from the palm of your hand, but no one answers to the fiendlings of the Blood Woods.” He throws the sword down at my godfather’s feet. “So that you’re not entirely defenseless. But for your sake, I hope the fiendlings make your death quick. I hope they don’t play with their food.” His eyes rove the trees before he turns his back on my godfather. “Goodbye, Antoine. Back to the Darkness that birthed you.”

And then I am yanked upward, as if by invisible strings. Up, up, up, the wind and the darkness lasting forever, until I’m stumbling backward over piles of discarded treasures, into a pair of strong arms. Lonan oofs as I land flat on top of him, and groans. I twist onto my stomach and push myself to my elbows.

“All right?” I ask.