The ground shook, rock flying every which way, colliding with Tristan’s shield as he dragged me through the collapsing tunnel, out of the destroyed building, and into the streets. Streets that were filled with screams, none louder than my own.

“Let me go back,” I pleaded. “I need to help him.”

“If you go back now, then his sacrifice will have been for nothing.”

But it was my father. My father. My father.

Yet no matter how hard I struggled, Tristan wouldn’t let me go. We crouched in a side alley, him holding onto me with a death grip, eyes jerking from the rocky cavern above, to the entrance of the alley, to the windows of the ramshackle buildings, as though danger could come from any direction. And I stopped fighting him. Because I knew.

I knew.

Anaïs found us not long after, sprinting up the alley and flinging her arms around our shoulders. “Stones and sky, I thought he’d caught you. I thought you were both dead.”

“He did catch us,” I whispered.

Anaïs tensed, and Tristan explained what had happened, his words barely registering in my ears.

My father.

“I need to go back.” Climbing to my feet, I walked slowly down the alley, feeling Anaïs’s magic against me as she lifted the dust from my clothes and mended tears in the fabric. Making me appear innocent, though I was anything but.

They flanked me as I strode up the now empty streets, the half-bloods hiding from what they rightly believed was a quarrel between greater powers. The destroyed tavern lay ahead of us, shattered rocks and bits of furniture resting where they had fallen nearly a block away, the buildings next to it one-sided shells. I stared at the yawning opening that had been the cellar, at the ring of the King’s guards who stood around it. Several of them turned as they felt our approach, expressions grim.

“You don’t have to go in,” Tristan said, hand closing on my elbow.

“Yes, he does,” Anaïs responded, but I was already picking my way through the rubble, down the battered staircase to where my uncle, the King of Trollus, stood next to a still form draped in a black cloth. The area around them was untouched by the blast of magic, the podium I’d only recently stood on pristine and unmarked. Instinctively, I knew my father had protected the half-bloods around him from the blast, and judging from the lack of bodies, they’d escaped.

I realized then that I’d stopped in my tracks, my feet unwilling to take me closer. Until I saw the body’s face, it wouldn’t be real. My father wouldn’t be dead. My mother wouldn’t be…

Swallowing hard, I willed myself forward. The King silently watched me approach, then took a step back to give me space. I knelt down, and with one quick jerk, pulled back the cloth.

My father’s eyes stared up at me, sightless. Dead.

My stomach clenched, and I turned away just in time to heave my guts out onto the ground, my body feeling like it was trying to wrench itself apart.

Then I looked back.

My father was untouched by injury, only the faint coating of dust on his skin marking that he’d been in the blast at all. His arms lay limply by his sides, hands encased with black gloves. I didn’t want to touch him. Didn’t want to feel the lifelessness. But I needed to know.

With shaking hands, I peeled back the leather of his glove, praying to the stars, the fates, and the human gods for some small mercy.

His bonding marks were black as ink. Black as iron rot. Black as death.

I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, but it felt like a vice was wrapped around my chest. Mother.

Then, through the fog of pain, I felt a troll with power move off to my left. Not Tristan. Not Anaïs. Not the King.

Him.

I lunged, intent on ripping Angoulême apart, but the King’s hand closed on the fabric of my cloak, hauling me back. “Control him,” he snarled at Tristan.

My cousin only crossed his arms. “No.”

Not that his defiance mattered. The King’s magic clamped down on me, and he said, “If the Duke killed your father, he will be sentenced and executed for it. Not before. And not by you.”

Which meant there would be no justice, because Angoulême hadn’t killed my father. At least, not directly. My father had burned out his magic, taking my mother along with him. All to protect me.

“You will answer for what happened here, Angoulême,” the King said, turning to the stairs. “And you’ll answer for it now.”

The Duke’s fist gripped the handle of his cane, eyes blank and unreadable. There was not so much as a speck of dust on him, the magic he perpetually coated himself in having protected him from the blast. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

He turned to follow the King, but not before pointing one finger at me. Quietly enough that only I heard, he said, “This is not where it ends, boy.”

I heard the threat.

This was not the last thing he’d take from me.