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“Prince Aerynn, move back—” the High Mage gasped, her hands shaking as she wove threads of golden healing magic, driving the light straight into the gaping puncture wound in my gut.

The moment the light touched the edges of the torn tissue, it did not knit the flesh together.

The magic hissed, turned black, and instantly withered to ash.

The star-iron of Vaelthrys had done its terrible work. The First Era executioner’s spear had not merely cut through skin and muscle; its dark metal had left a creeping, dark decay inside the wound—a lingering, corruptive venom that actively consumed any healing magic forced into the tissue. The golden threads dissolved into thin air, and the blood continued to pour out, thick, dark, and relentless, flooding the black sand beneath my hips.

I forced my swollen eyelids to blink back into the fading light long enough to see the High Mage’s face.

The elderly woman’s glowing hands sputtered and died. She looked down at the pool of blood soaking the volcanic grit, then raised her eyes to look at Aerynn, then at Caspian.

Slowly, devastatingly, the High Mage shook her head.

“The weapon was forged for blood magic,” the mage whispered, her voice trembling with solemn defeat. “The star-iron has poisoned the core. The tissue is dying faster than the blood can regenerate. My magic... my magic cannot save her. She is fading.”

The words hung in the cold mountain air like a falling blade.

“NO!” Aerynn screamed, throwing his head back toward the grey sky, a sound of absolute, soul-destroying heartbreak tearing from his chest.

Caspian didn’t scream.

He didn’t weep. He didn’t let out a broken cry.

Instead, a suffocating quiet dropped over the High Captain.

I looked up at his face through the swimming dark spots dancing at the edges of my vision. The frantic, bloodshot terror in Caspian’s eyes vanished. In its place, a terrifying, unhinged fire ignited—a roaring, apocalyptic tempest of pure madness that burned brighter than a dying star.

He looked down at my pale, clammy face, at my bleeding lips, at the fading spark in my green eyes.

“No,” Caspian rasped low, his voice dropping into a flat, deadly register that carried no doubt. “No.”

He didn’t wait for the High Mage to speak again. He didn’t look at King Fjörn sitting frozen on his distant throne. He didn’t acknowledge the High Lords staring down in horror from the spectator tiers.

Caspian reached down, sliding one broad, iron-clad arm beneath my knees and the other behind my shoulders. With a smooth, explosive surge of physical power, he lifted my limp, bleeding body completely off the ruined sand, pulling me tight against his broad chest.

“Caspian, what are you doing?!” Aerynn yelled, scrambling to his feet, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Put her down! The healers need to—”

“The healers are useless!” Caspian roared, his gravelly voice cutting through the arena like a thunderclap.

He turned on his heel and began to run.

He ran with a terrifying speed that bypassed every vanguard law in the keep.

My head fell limply back over his broad arm, my damp waves trailing in the cold wind as he sprinted away from the challenge ring. My cheek rested against the leather of his jacket, feeling the violent, frantic hammering of his heart against his ribs. Every hard, pounding step of his boots against the stone sent a sharp, agonizing jolt through my torn stomach, but I was too weak to cry out. I could only hold onto the faint, fading threads of his heat.

Behind us, the keep erupted into utter, chaotic madness.

“CAPTAIN! HALT!” Commander Manem’s voice boomed from the royal dais, followed by the metallic clatter of dozens of vanguard guards drawing steel.

“CASPIAN! STOP!” Aerynn’s frantic screams echoed down the stone corridor as he and Dax gave chase, their heavy boots slamming against the flags behind us. “WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HER?!”

Caspian didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t even look back.

He smashed straight through the heavy oak doors leading out of the subterranean amphitheater, his broad shoulder splintering the wood as he carried me up the winding, spiral stairs of the eastern tower. He moved like a male possessed, a shadow-striker driven by a singular, unholy obsession that refused to accept the reality of death.

“Hold on, Trouble,” Caspian rasped into my hair, his breath coming in sharp, ragged hitches as he bounded up the stone steps three at a time. “Hold on to me. Do you hear me? You don’t get to die today. I won’t allow it.”

“Cas...” I whispered, my voice barely a thread of air, blood trickling from the corner of my mouth onto his collarbone. “Soren... Soren is...”