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True fear flooded my body, the likes of which I had not experienced before. It seized my heart and magic and whipped it into a frothing frenzy of action. The sound of my boots slamming against the wooden boards would have woken the stones from their rest had they not been pried from their sleep to build this temple.

The scent of blood, fresh cracked bones, hot metal, and sweat filled my senses as I threw open the door to the storeroom where I had left her last.

Time slowed to droplets as I burst through the door. Daróg’s eyes connected with mine. Above his head, arms straining from the glow of hot magic, was a small anvil soaked in milky blood positioned right over Cricket’s head as she struggled to breathe, her skin having blanched. The mangled wreck of what used to be her delicate arm lay shattered at a sickening angle, her shoulder bruised a deep gold.

I did not stop to think, did not stop to consider how best to defuse the situation. All I saw was her. All I saw was the agony that she would feel. My magic reared out of my control and rampaged through me, leaving all thought of courtly deference choking on its rage-filled dust as it charged for him.

All I saw was the red blade of Dawn unsheathing itself.

I felt the reverberations of the anvil embedding itself into the wall as I ripped it from Daróg’s hands and threw it across the room. Next was his throat, slowly crunching beneath the grip of my massive hand as I pulled him toward me. He had always been smaller than I, but in this moment, he was but bug whose wings I intended to rip from its body.

Magic fled my arm, followed by all my strength, as the Bandrui’s fingers wrapped around my wrist to pry me from him. “There will be no deaths in my temple.”

Her voice was ancient and a command that reached into me and rattled my very essence, jarring me back to awareness.

My eyes connected with hers. I could see their plea reflect back at me from the wine dark orbs piercing me. I didn’t need to beg her to take care of Cricket, for she was already moving toward her the moment I had let go.

“You will meet me in the gardens, my King.” I gave him a perfunctory bow, my tone a razor-blade-thin line of chivalrous rage. I turned on my heel.

Every nerve in my body screamed at me for doing so, but I had to know the Bandrui would ensure Cricket would not die from this. The more important threat at this exact moment was the deranged beast who wore a crown.

“I will do no such thing. You will leave me to attend my daoire,” he bellowed, rage finally finding its voice, where there had only been fear a moment ago.

I paused at the door, lifting my head enough to see over my shoulder.

“It was not a request, Daróg.” The chill of his true name flowing over the silent room filled the space between us. “You will meet me in the gardens where we will settle this like the Fae we are, or I will slay you for your crimes against sanctuary here in the Temple and accept the judgment of the gods. Either way, you will answer for this abomination and heresy against the hospitality of the gods.”

There were few rules among the Fae we held so sacrosanct as the rules of sanctuary and the rules of hospitality. Whether King or God or common Fae, to shatter the lines of either of those two fundamental laws of our very nature was a crime from which no Fae could escape judgment. Not even an Ard Rí. And every one of the Fae, as sacred children of magic itself, was charged in the keeping of these sanctities.

Attempting to kill someone outside of ritual or rite unsanctioned by the Bandrui was bad enough, but attempting to kill a ward of Ailbhe’s grace while they were atop their healing bed? What had he been thinking? It was madness. It was pure lunacy of the highest order.

I ignored the small part of me that whispered I was only incensed because of what she meant to me. I ignored the little voice that whispered that my harshness was fueled by the guilt of my crime written upon her flesh. I even ignored the way my heart twisted, saying I had not done enough to protect her.

I did not wait for him. He would either join me or with the rise of the sun, when I was steeped in the most magic. I would hunt him through the Temple. The certainty of battle pumped through me, icy over the hot rage that boiled beneath it, where it found my feet pushing them into a pace on the gravel before the garden.

The first figure to step free of the Temple was not Daróg, though, but his betrothed. Eyes the shade of new grass set into a soft heart-shaped face looked up at me the way they had when Daróg had pulled her from the rubble of her house. Wonder and fear mixed in equal measures on her angelic visage as she drew closer. She had always reminded me of a kitten, quiet and meek, a perfect match for the wrathful Fae she had been promised to.

“Captain,” she whispered, the sound wrapping me in the soft fur of that small cat.

“My Lady Speaker,” I grated out, trying not to allow my rage to shear the flesh from her.

A delicate hand pressed to my flexing forearm, and she graced me with a soft, doting smile that wrapped around the rage within me and tried to suffocate it. “There is no need for you to be so worked up over a simple daoire, Captain.”

“Explain yourself immediately, Bastard of the Dawn,” Daróg snarled as he broke clear of the temple.

The Sapphire Speaker’s hand never came away from my arm. She merely stepped to the side to avoid any weapon that might come of this confrontation.

“You go too far, Highness! You violate the natural order of the Temple of the Ascended by bringing violence and death to its door,” I barked.

“Are Senán and Étain not gods themselves? Do they also not hold domain and right of sanctuary in this temple?” he hissed.

Soft whispers came from his betrothed, but I ignored them as we advanced on each other. “You know very well they do and that to invoke their blessings in the Temple one must be holding ritual and have leave from the Bandrui to do so. What you were doing . . . it defies all hospitality.”

“And what will you do of it?” He picked at his nails, the sound like fork dragging down a chalk board to me, and he knew as much.

“Scian an Mabh.”

The words formed on my lips as my incensed, wild magic thrashed out of my control. It howled its impotent rage as the courtier it was attached to struggled to hold its foolishness back.