The ice inside his chest broke and stabbed him through the heart.

His legs folded. The shadow crested over him, crashed down. Mathiros screamed. Isyllt screamed. The floor rushed up to meet him. Old debts come due at last.

The shadow retreated; it would take Kiril with it, and at last he might rest. Isyllt’s face lingered behind his eyes-no surprise that death would wear her countenance. But she called his name, invoked it, held him inside his pain-riddled flesh. Over the roar in his ears he heard his king’s wailing grief. He might only have imagined Erishal’s mocking laughter.

Darkness stole over him, dark and blessed silence.

The bells tolled an hour before dusk, slow and solemn and irrevocable.

In her chambers in the Gallery of Pearls, Savedra Severos sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed her face into her hands. Her eyes ached, though she had no tears-it wasn’t her grief, but the weight of it still crushed her. It would crush the whole palace; the queen was well loved.

Had been.

“I should go to him.” Her voice snagged and broke halfway. Maybe it was her grief after all. Lychandra had always been kind to her son’s impolitic mistress, more than Savedra could have hoped for. “If he’ll see me.”

She had been the prince’s lover for six months, formally installed in the Gallery for three, but it still felt unreal that she might walk the palace corridors and visit Nikos whenever she wished. Even now. Especially now.

It was almost a relief, if only to leave her room. The windows were shuttered and draped and warded, the air close and cloying with smoke and incense. With no sunlight for days, too many candles had smudged the ceiling and curtains and left the taste of wax and char on her tongue with every breath. The ashes of prayers streaked her shrine, but no saint had answered, not Sarai or Alia or even owl-winged Erishal. Or rather, Erishal had answered, but not as Savedra had begged.