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My chin lifts. “I haven’t forgotten.”

But my palm itches for my blade anyway, fingers flexing with the desire to finish what I started.

The movement brings a sly smile to Kelaros’s lips, and I grind my teeth together. He stands among a cluster of Dark Sithe courtiers, his starlight-pale complexion standing out among a sea of midnights in every shade from gray to blue to star-speckled black.

He has replaced his tattered clothes with new courtier’s garb. It hugs his lean figure, and the dagger at his belt could pass for an ornament, but I’m sure the blade is razor-sharp.

Without turning from me, he leans to whisper into the ear of the tall woman beside him.

She laughs, and several others join in, their cold amusement directed at us.

My hand drops to the hilt of my dagger in a motion as natural as breathing.

Theron’s fingers wrap around my forearm, stopping me before I can draw. “Not yet. Politics first.”

“Politics didn’t save your brother,” I hiss, but I let my hand fall away.

Behind us, Thalindor’s boots click over the floor in perfect rhythm. When I turn, his glacial stare pins me in place with a silent warning more commanding than Theron’s physical restraint.

“Your guard doesn’t trust me,” I mutter.

“He doesn’t need to in order to do his job.” Theron betrays none of the tension radiating from him. “Keep walking.”

We move deeper into the hall, where the black marble catches the fractured light in painful bursts. The Opal fragment inside me responds to the ancient magic saturating the chamber with a sudden stab that doubles me over.

“What is it?” Theron demands, his hand moving to support my elbow.

I straighten with effort. “The court is reacting to the magic here.”

The closer we draw to the center, the more the fragment rebels, crystal shards grinding through me with each step. The sensation of being torn in two directions intensifies, my body moving forward while the shards of crystal inside try to draw me back to the rift.

At the far end of the chamber, King Nyctarian sits upon a throne carved from a single massive piece of obsidian, its surface catching and absorbing light rather than reflecting it. The result is a black hole at the heart of the mirrored hall, with the Dark King at its shadowed center.

Unlike Theron, who always carries himself with rigid restraint, Nyctarian lounges with one leg thrown over the arm of his throne. The pose suggests indifference, but his predatory attention follows every step we take.

“The Silver Flame graces us with his presence once more,” Nyctarian announces, the greeting reaching every corner of the hall. “And brings his murderous pet along.”

My hackles rise at being called a pet, my nails biting into my palms.

Theron’s hand settles at my lower back, guiding me forward while warning me to hold my tongue. I force my shoulders to relax and school the rest of my body into stillness, every muscle fighting the pretense.

“We thank you for the use of your healer,” Theron replies, betraying nothing of the fury simmering beneath his royal mask. “We are now ready to discuss what has transpired.”

Nyctarian’s lips curl upward. “Yes, the rather dramatic return of my long-lost subject has provided much to consider.”

Then his focus shifts to me and stays there long enough to raise the hairs along my arms. Suddenly, the ear cuffs I replaced before leaving the suite feel woefully inadequate.

Pressure builds until breathing becomes difficult. “And the darkling is not without secrets of her own.”

Ancient magic saturates the air around the Dark King, calling to the power embedded in me and drawing an answer from within. The Opal shard recognize in the Dark King a piece of itself that went missing when the princes and princesses left to form sithes of their own to rule, and it wants back what was taken.

Kelaros steps forward from the gathered courtiers. “The Opal Court has marked her.”

I freeze. What the fuck is he doing?

Theron warned me how important it was, for political reasons, not to speak the name here, and how doing so would result in the Concord demanding the rift be sealed.

With Elionn still inside.