place, since it was so like death. But I’d already been dead. It was blacker than any cavern, inkier than the depths of the sea; I felt smaller than the tiniest of dust motes, a speck in an infinite plane. And yet, it wasn’t completely dark. All around me, tiny lights flickered like distant stars. The souls of elves.
“Ali,” I whispered under my breath.
Like a plummeting meteor, my soul blazed across the astral plane. A light gleamed in the distance, growing brighter and brighter. Even though I’d seen it a hundred times now, the awesome beauty of Ali’s soul still astonished me. The perfect complement to my own. The gods were dead, but this was the closest I’d come to divinity.
As our souls neared one another, our connection glowed, the astral manifestation of fate—Wyrd—that bound us for eternity. My heart ached. I could see every detail of my mate’s soul, but I couldn’t touch or communicate with it in any way.
If fate had declared us mates, why had she not been in my vision of the future, where I’d seen myself as king?
I didn’t know, but just being close to her soul eased my despair at the frigid wreck the world had become. I hadn’t felt this despair for a thousand years as a lich, but now—alive again—it was drowning me.
If I could visit Ali’s soul on the astral plane, that meant she was alive. That I’d saved her from certain death at my father’s hands. I’d sacrificed my chance to be with her to ensure she was safe and at home with her people.
A sense of peace enveloped me, and only then did I allow my soul to drift back to my body.
“Prince Galin!”
A gruff voice roused me from sleep. I cracked open my eyes. A guard stood above me, grimacing.
“What do you want?” I croaked, my neck stiff and cold. I really needed to stop sleeping on the floor, and I should probably stop sleeping naked if guards were going to barge in here.
“The king has requested your presence at breakfast.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I just saw him last night.”
“He demands to see you now.”
I groaned, crawling to my feet. Towering over the guard, I watched him shrink back from me. He was shaking. “Fuck off while I put some clothes on,” I grumbled.
Two minutes later, dressed in a clean shirt and pants, I was following the guard up one of the Citadel’s many stairways. I actually felt relatively well rested, my limbs imbued with strength. The floor might be hard, but it was familiar.
When we reached the king’s chambers, the guard pushed open the gilded doors, and I followed him inside.
“Prince Galin,” he said, announcing my arrival.
Buttery light streamed in from the windows. King Gorm, Revna, and Sune sat at a table laden with food. Plates were heaped with croissants, butter rolls, fruit jellies, and scrambled eggs. The king slathered a croissant with orange jam while Revna and Sune sipped from coffee cups.
My stomach rumbled, and it took me a moment to recognize what hunger was. Hunger for real food instead of blood—another thing that kept disorienting me.
Revna looked me over. “Still sleeping on the floor?”
“It suits me.”
“It seems very manly,” she said.
“Revna!” Sune’s lip curled. “Please tell me you’re not flirting with him.”
At least my brother and I had that disgust in common. Probably the only thing we agreed on.
Her eyes went wide. “Of course not!”
The king waved at an empty chair, his fingers sticky with jam. I could see it still—the fear in his eyes. He tried to mask it, but it was palpable.
“Sit,” said the king. “Sit. Stop arguing. You must try these preserves.”
I sat, but didn’t take any of the food. “Why am I here?”
“Why are you here?” The king laughed like this wasn’t the first time he’d ever invited me to breakfast in a thousand years. “Because you’re my son, of course. We’re having a family breakfast. I wouldn’t dream of excluding you.”
Just a happy family here. Never mind that he was trying to kill my mate, that he laughed at the thought of her starving to death. Never mind that I fantasized about severing his head from his body.
“I said, why am I here?” I growled.
I watched as the pale hair on his arms rose, and he seemed to shrink away from me. Even before he answered, I winced as the Helm of Awe began to hum. This close to him, the circlet was hypersensitive to anything even vaguely threatening. The