“Dean, please,” Cyrene cried into the silence.

No one could believe what had just happened. Their king had dueled and…lost? It seemed impossible.

Cyrene knew that Dean was a fool for coming, but Edric was the fool for underestimating his opponent. She had thought that Dean would win but hadn’t wanted to consider what would happen for either of them.

The terms of duels were simple. A fight to the death.

That meant that Dean could take this killing strike in front of all of the highest-ranking officials in Byern and walk away scot-free. For Edric had initiated the duel, and law stated that no man could be punished for the death. Not even of the king.

“Please,” she whispered, fighting to contain her magic as rage pulsed through her.

All of this over what?

She uncoiled the magic from her center and set it free to build in her hands. She would stop this madness. Dean would not do this.

Her head held high, she stepped into the empty circle. “Do not kill him.”

Dean didn’t break his concentration from Edric, who was clutching his injured side and breathing heavily. “I’ll offer you a trade.”

“I’ve no interest in negotiating with you,” Edric spat.

“A life for a life,” Dean said. “Your honor intact.”

“I’ll never give her to you. I’d rather die.”

“I know that feeling well.”

Cyrene came to stand before Dean. “No one can give me to anyone. I pick and choose where I go. I will not be bound to anyone ever again,” she said firmly. “Let him go, Dean.”

“He will lose all honor if I do so. He will owe me a debt for the rest of his life.”

“Then, take me with you,” Cyrene offered, appearing like a martyr before her people.

“Cyrene, no,” Edric cried.

“It is the only way.”

She offered Dean her hand with promise of vengeance in her eyes. If he thought for a second that he could hurt Edric while she was here, she would prove otherwise. He had thought her magic made her dangerous before…but he had no idea what she was capable of now.

With a wince at the look on her face, Dean sheathed his sword and took her hand.

“The debt is paid,” she said simply.

“Cyrene, please!” Elea cried from the corner. “Don’t go!”

She faced her sister with grief on her face. “I love you. I always have, and I always will.” She looked around the ballroom for her brother but didn’t see him. “Tell Reeve and Rhea the same.”

Elea nodded with tears streaming down her face. No matter that they had quarreled, her love was true.

Then, Cyrene took a deep breath and prepared to leave Byern again once and for all. Not a kidnapped innocent but a martyr.

Dean sighed next to her, as if he couldn’t believe that his ruse had worked. They walked toward the door, and the sea of Affiliates and High Order parted before them. Not a word was spoken. Every set of eyes was one of deep pity, compassion, and gratitude. This was how it was supposed to be. Now, she could leave and never look back. She could be at peace.

But then she felt it.

A tug on her bond.

A slight shift in the air.

A fury that rivaled her own.

She wheeled around at the last possible moment and threw up a shield as a ball of swirling darkness shot toward them. It harmlessly bounced off the shield and disintegrated. Cyrene knew exactly whose magic that belonged to.

Kael Dremylon stepped off the sidelines and into the ring. “You will not take her anywhere.”

He was holding another ball of darkness, as if he were holding an apple, and the silence from the crowd turned into screams. Pandemonium ignited in the room as everyone realized exactly what they had seen.

Magic.

In a world where magic did not exist.

Or so they’d thought.

“Try to take her away from me again,” Dean growled, removing his sword.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Kael told him.

“The feeling is mutual.”

Kael lobbed the darkness at Dean with a quickness that was unrivaled. Cyrene barely got her shield up in time to protect Dean.

Her eyes darted around the room. No one was leaving. Why is no one leaving?

Then, she felt it. Kael had enclosed the room. No one could leave. They all had to bear witness to what was about to happen. He wanted an audience.

If he wanted a show, then Cyrene would give him one. She stepped in front of Dean and faced off with Kael.

Here he was…finally showing his hand. Darkness, chaotic destruction, and madness filled the room as his power intensified before her.

Darkness and light.

Heirs.

A matched set.

He couldn’t have been more right about that. Drawn to each other like magnets.

Good and evil.

Perhaps the prophecy had simplified it all down to that, but she knew that she was not wholly good, and he was not wholly evil. But, as she squared off with him, everything seemed to click into place. This was the showdown of a lifetime.

Forget all the buildup to the end and all the added revelations the prophecy promised to her. She was here and he was living death. She wasn’t ready, but she knew she never would be against Kael.

“You protect him?” Kael snarled. “After all he did to you?”

“I protect the innocent.”

“He is hardly innocent.”

“He does not deserve death for his idiocy.”

“Come back to me, Cyrene,” he pleaded. He held out his hand. “Rule the world at my side.”

“Who did you sacrifice for it?”

His eyes darkened at her question.

“What did you do to attain it?”

He lashed out at her shield, shattering it into a million pieces. Then, he clawed at her mind, but she was prepared. She had up a mental barrier that she had learned while battling the Braj. Nothing was getting through that she didn’t allow. Not while she was brimming with blood magic.

“Do you even mourn them?”

“You don’t know what you speak of.”

“Oh, I think I, of all people, know exactly what I speak of,” Cyrene said. She drew wind to her and threw it at him like a knife.

He batted it away, as if it were a fly. “Try harder, love.”

The ground beneath them shook as she shoved the tiled floor toward him, trying to knock him off-balance. He used the air to haul himself off the ground and landed, unharmed, not five feet from her.

“This isn’t practice. If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to do more than that.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she told him.

Kael laughed. “You’re not capable of it.”

Cyrene gritted her teeth and took the taunt for what it was. Because she knew, deep down, that the only reason he had walked into that circle was because he was hurt. Her taking Dean’s hand had hurt him. A betrayal in his eyes. One he could not, would not, forget.

“Cyrene, let’s just go,” Dean begged behind her.

“I wouldn’t be so sure she wants to go with you,” Kael ground out. “She’s spent all this time with me, trying to forget you.”

Kael shot a bolt of lightning at Dean. He threw himself into a dive roll to avoid it. The crowd screamed and scrambled away from the magic. The bolt hit the wall with a sizzling smash, leaving a crack from floor to ceiling. Cyrene could hear the women weeping at the explosion.

Her eyes landed on the one woman who hadn’t gotten away. A young redhead with alabaster skin and wide-sightless blue eyes. She hadn’t gotten away fast enough. A name drifted up to her from the depths—Affiliate Robin. And now she was dead…at Kael’s hand. An affiliate.

Dean reached for Cyrene’s hand, trying to tug her out of the ballroom, but she knew she couldn’t leave it like this. Not with Kael’s shield up. She would have to finish this before she could leave.

“Kael,” Cyrene said, “please, stop this. You don’t have to be this person.”

“I’m afraid I do,” he said, his hands crackling as he readied himself for another attack.

“I knew that you had these powers. I…suspected where they had come from,” she said, inching toward him. She held her protective shield up…wondering if it would be enough to stop him. “But I didn’t believe that you…or anyone could take blood magic.”

“You did it,” Kael told her.

“My parents were already dead! And I did it to save Edric’s life,” Cyrene said.

A murmured gasp came from the crowd. Cyrene’s eyes darted to Edric’s, who was behind a wall of guardsmen.

“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Kael said.

And, in her split second of distraction, Kael shot forward, air circling her and yanking her off her feet. She was lifted ten feet off the ground before she could find a way to break through the air with a sword made of flames. She dropped like a stone in the sea but landed gracefully on her feet in a crouch. Then, she stood, whipping her dark hair out of her face and holding her flaming blade aloft.

“Impressive,” Kael said with a grin.

“Let these people go. They are blameless.”

“No one is entirely innocent, Cyrene. You taught me that.”

“Tell me what happened, Kael. How did it happen for you? Who did you kill?”

“You know, I can’t seem to remember them all.”

Cyrene let the horror show on her face.

“But Jardana was the most powerful. The greater the connection, the more magic.”

“Jardana?” Cyrene muttered. She had hated the queen’s lackey and Kael’s lover at one point, but she had never wanted this to happen to her. “How could you do it?”

“Oh, you’ll feel it soon enough.”

“Feel what?” she asked. She stepped forward, clearing the remaining distance between them, and angled the sword toward his chest.

He looked at it as if it were a toy. Not a deadly weapon.

“The hunger. The need. When the magic runs low, you crave it. You’re sitting at the top of a full well. Wait until you reach the bottom.”

“You said yourself, we could do anything together,” she said, pushing the sword against his chest. She singed his black button-up and left a small mark over his heart. “Then, end this now.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe I don’t want to?” Kael asked.

She saw the swell of magic in his eyes. She felt the raw power that emanated from him, and it filled the room.

“I want the power, and so do you.”

“Not like this!” she cried.

“Yet you sank into his mind so easily.”

“To keep them from killing each other!”

Kael laughed and snapped his fingers. Her sword went up in a cloud of black smoke. She was left holding her empty hand out toward him. Kael latched on to her wrist and tugged her forward. Their faces were only an inch apart. He could kill her as easily as he could kiss her. And, with the magic brimming through him and the intensification of her own at his touch, she had no idea which it would be.

“Good intentions mean nothing with blood magic, love,” he whispered like a prayer. “Once this is gone and the power disappears…you’ll kill. You’ll try to justify it, but I’ll know. You’ll know.”

“I won’t.”

“When have I ever been wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She shed only one tear and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

It was all she needed to divert him. She reached deep in her powers and sent a shock wave against him. He released her and shot thirty feet across the ballroom, slamming back against the far wall with a crunch.

His shield dropped at once, and the crowds he had held back dashed through the exits in a hurry. But she just stood there. Her magic stuttering and sizzling against her skin. The force she’d had to use to tear down his shield and stop him from harming anyone was tremendous. Not quite like stopping a hurricane, but Kael was more powerful than she had ever dreamed. If she hadn’t had that edge, she didn’t know if she ever would have stopped him.

“Cyrene,” Dean said, gently touching her elbow.

She jolted away. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Kael.

It had all gone so wrong.

She had thought that they would be able to make it.

That he wouldn’t choose this.

That he wouldn’t choose power.

That he would see that all he had to do was choose her.

But it had been a game.

And she had been tangled in his web.

She had been so lost after Maelia’s death that she clung to the first person who showed her any kindness. And perhaps he loved her, but how much of it was her, and how much of it was her magic? How much of it was the bond?

“I am sorry,” she whispered to Kael before she finally let Dean drag her away from his lifeless body.