Taisol's words echoed through his head with the damning ring of premonition.

She didn't say, 'if you know your own throne.'

She said when.

The realization settled ice along Kain's spine that sent shivers along his entire frame. Not for the first time that evening, he felt faint. Every inch of him wished to deny her request. It was too much. They already had so much on their hands. Finding Iliana, evading the Votanna until they realized the issuer of their contract had perished, finding a home for Natia, learning the truth of the secrets that had begun to pile onto his shoulders.

Now, find a displaced king and place him on his throne. Because of a vow from a god that she would bless him when he inherited the Cieonian throne.

"Steady, Kain."

Melitta's voice eased the vice in his chest, reminding Kain there were more important matters at stake than his own anxiety. He couldn't get lost in his head--not when Melitta was pale as the moon, Rhode blank, Mara biting her lip, and Isidor on the verge of passing out. Even Callias looked dazed.

Kain drew in a deep breath.

"We will do our best," he said, tone steadier than he thought possible. "The child you mention, is it R--Asha's son?"

Unease seemed to ripple through the knights. Even Eleni's quiet sobs seemed to subside in the wake of Kain's question. Had they begun to realize the truth of the situation unfolding before them?

"I do."

It was true, Kain realized. Everything they had researched. The conclusions they had drawn. The coffin Alekos burned was empty.

Rhode seemed to lose her footing, held up only by Mara's quickly extended hand. Her blank expression twisted into something he couldn't begin to understand. How could he?

Her son was alive.

"Then," Kain began. He paused, clearing his throat as if it could ease the anticipation building in his gut. "Is there anything you can tell us to make the search easier? The family you speak of, where is it?"

Was Callias right?

What would Kain do if he was? What if the man they had been chasing, the one who had kidnapped a siren and freed a slave, was the king Taisol wanted to enthrone?

What should he do?

"You already--" the goddess began, then cut herself off. Her head tilted to the side.

Unease crept along Kain's spine as Taisol's eyes narrowed. Natia whined, and suddenly, the goddess' wings snapped open. She flicked her hand and the barrier glimmering between them and the knights twisted into something more. It encircled their party in a dome with no clear beginning or ending.

The distinct twang of a bow sounded seconds before an arrow hit the shimmering surface. Kain watched with wide eyes as it rolled over the edge and disappeared into the shadowed grass. Someone was shooting at them? Why? Taisol was right there.

"What--"

Melitta gasped. It was a stuttered, almost ragged noise. Wet in a way that drew Kain's eyes amongst a myriad of distractions.

He stilled as time ceased.

Melitta crumbled against his side, a muffled whisper on her breath.

Something collapsed behind them. He couldn't focus on it. Couldn't decipher the cacophony of voices in his ears. They blew past his senses like a fog as his eyes focused on one, impossible sight.

Jutting out from the center of Melitta's throat, drenched in dripping crimson, was a thin, midnight blue blade.

She shuddered as seconds shattered. He wasn't on his feet, he was on his knees, her body against his chest. They were alone, but they weren't. Surrounded by allies. No assassins within sight. Yet, there it was.

His hands fumbled against her throat, attempting to halt bleeding from the front, from the back, wherever he could touch. The blade was in the way, but he couldn't move it.

She would bleed out.

"Isidor!"

The witch was at his side, mumbling numbing words. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

"Callias isn't breathing, what do we do?"

"What do you mean you can't, Isidor?"

The witch dropped to his side. His hand caught Melitta's shoulder, tugging down her sleeve. Deep, navy veins cut across her shoulder, prominent in the way they clashed against her porcelain skin. Angry in their depth.

"I don't understand."

"There isn't a wound on him."

"I can't heal her, Kain. No witch can cure the poisoned. We can only lessen their symptoms. The venom blocks everything else."

His mind shut down as the words circled through it. The poisoned. The poisoned.

Years passed in a single second. He saw the paleness. Her trembling body. He saw Isidor coming out of her quarters. He saw Rhode's silence as she pushed through the doorway.

He saw the way Melitta smiled through tears.

Blood caked his fingers. It was hot. Sticky. Fingers curled around his wrist.

She smiled again. No tears this time. Just the crinkle of her sapphire eyes beneath tangled strands of golden blonde. Her hand gripped his arm, that leather band he'd bought her standing stark against her bony wrist.

Then, they slackened.

And Kain was left staring as it hit the grass.

The blood continued to pool. The world continued to spin.

But Melitta--she didn't breathe.

Isidor's voice moved away. Voices continued to crawl over his skin, but they were muffled noise. Sounds he couldn't decipher.

"M-Melitta."

Her name fell from his lips like a plea. He pressed harder against the wound at her throat. Blood pulsed beneath his grip.

She didn't react.

"Melitta."

This wasn't how death happened.

In all the novels Kain had read--in all the plays he'd flipped through--there were dramatic moments. Whispered words from the ill or bleeding that would stick with those left behind. Wisdom to be clutched close, or romantic regrets. It couldn't be real, because Melitta's lips didn't move.

They were as still as her vacant eyes and crimson chest.

"This isn't supposed to happen. Koun! Aion! What will unfold if he dies?"

He.

The word shattered Kain's haze. Even as time seemed to rattle and wheeze and reality flickered into nothing, he forced himself to attention.

Callias, too, laid collapsed in the grass. Rhode knelt next to him, ear to his shoulder.

Like Melitta, his chest didn't move. His cloak had been torn from his frame, discarded along with his tunic. His skin was scarred, pale, and clean. No knife. No blood.

Kain blinked and two figures joined Taisol. One, familiar. His dark hair and glimmering golden eyes haunted Kain's dreams. The other he had never witnessed, but had read enough books to recognize. Aion.

"You warned me that I may not be able to prevent--you never said there would be a second," Taisol snapped.

Koun knelt at Callias' side. His hands swept through the air, tugging at something invisible. The air seemed to shimmer.

"There shouldn't be."

Kain's arms felt heavy.

"Then how do you explain--"

"The bond," Aion interrupted. "When Umae changed them, he gifted them a blessing, did he not?"

Koun cursed. "Did the magic evolve?"

"It always does. I have told all of you again, and again, not to mess with my domain. Emotions are messy. They twist in unexpected ways, just as our magic does when manipulated as it shouldn't be. This one has latched onto his lifeforce."

His tattered clothing felt caked to his body like a second skin. How much blood had soaked the fabric?

How much of it wasn't his?

"You can fix it, can't you?" Isidor's voice sent the gods into silence. They stared at the witch who glared back. "Well?"

Aion swept his hand through the air as Koun had. It rippled. Frayed, ocean-blue threads glimmered in his hands, strangled by a thick midnight blue. He clicked his tongue.

"It can't be savaged. Left like this, the venom will kill him as it did her."

As it killed her.

"We have to sever it."

"But that would kill him," Taisol argued.

"There isn't another wa--"

"What if we rebound it?" Koun interrupted. His eyes seemed focused on something unseen, staring at Callias, but not truly there. "Resealed the bond without the frayed threads. Cut off everything that's infected."

"There wouldn't be enough left to create a new bond."

"You don't need a new one. Just reuse what already exists."

Aion hesitated. "That could twist even further. Fate is tricky, love. If we act recklessly--"

"He'll die if we don't."

"But--"

"Do it."

Kain's voice cut through their argument. It sounded leagues away to his own ears--as if someone else were speaking, or he had sunk beneath the ocean waves. But, it was there. And it continued despite the numbness infecting his veins.

"She--you have to. He can't--"

Callias was her life. He couldn't die. Not while she was still warm in his arms. Not while his heart still felt like it was crumbling into jagged shards that shredded his lungs with each breath he drew.

"--just...do it."

The fight drained from Aion's face. The gods' fragile wings folded against his back as he studied Kain, then Melitta, before dropping his gaze to where Callias laid, unmoving.

"Koun."

"Yes?"

"You will be the one to tell the child. I won't be blamed for twisting her red threads into a tighter noose than had already been weaved."

"I will."

Aion severed the bond.