Lord Vane did not look back when Solveig fell.He and his wife followed the guards dragging Liv from the hall. Most of their men went with them, but ten remained behind to prevent anyone from following.Vargr watched the doors close.Then he stopped crying.The tears disappeared from his face so quickly that one of the Ashkim guards blinked several times, wondering if he had imagined them.Vargr rose from his knee and touched the small cut on his neck.“That man called me an animal,” he said.The ten men from House Vane reached for their weapons.Vargr counted them once.Ten.That was not enough to inconvenience him.His Law-Seal flashed silver beneath his sleeve. Before the first sword left its sheath, a pale light spread across the hall and passed through every one of the men.Their eyes closed.They collapsed at the same time.The Ashkim guards stared at the bodies, then at Vargr.“My lord,” one of them said carefully, “were you not begging for your life a moment ago?”“I was being

The Valkyrie crossed the room without looking at anyone else.Each step carried her closer to Kaedric, and the heat around her grew stronger. Sigrid wanted to move farther away, but the wall behind her had refused to create more space.Kaedric remained where he was.The Valkyrie stopped directly in front of him.“Is that your wife?”She pointed towards the woman lying inside the Astral Restoration Circle.“No,” Kaedric answered. “She is someone I was moved to help.”“And the child?”Every person in the room became silent.“The child belongs to her.”The fire in the Valkyrie’s eyes did not disappear.“News has already travelled through the entire High Hall that you returned without warning, carrying your dying wife while another woman held your dying child.”Sigrid looked down at the baby.He was not dying. He had even begun pulling at the edge of her cloak with one small hand, but she decided this was not the right moment to correct anyone.“What kind of man allows his family to reach

Kaedric had refused to believe those words. He had thought Rothgar was trying to drag other people into his punishment.But now, the memory of that night returned.He remembered the rain beating against the house. He remembered his father falling to the floor with a sword buried in his chest. The man holding the sword had twisted it, and the pain on his father’s face had followed Kaedric for years.Rothgar had been there.He had been shouting. He had been laughing and talking about the end of House Ashbane.But he had not been the man holding the sword.There had been another man standing over Kaedric’s father.And behind that man, someone else had been smiling.Kaedric stopped walking.His chest began to hurt. He pressed a hand against it, but the pain continued to spread through his body.Rothgar had taken the blame because he was proud of what happened. And Kaedric was realizing painfully now that he had allowed one man’s confession to carry everything. Because one enemy was easier

“Please, do not.”The words left Liv’s mouth before the guard even touched her.Lady Vane looked at her without saying anything.“Please,” Liv continued. “You can take me anywhere else. There is no reason to bring my father into this.”One of the guards grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the carriage.Liv fought against him immediately.“I can walk by myself!”The guard ignored her.He dragged her towards the estate gates while Liv dug her feet into the ground, trying to slow him down.The last time she had seen her father, she had been standing safely behind the gates of Kaedric’s estate. His guards had surrounded her. His name had been enough to make her feel brave.She had called her father an old dog and ordered the guards to throw him into the street.It had felt wonderful at the time.Now she was standing in front of her family’s estate without Kaedric, Vargr or a single person who would take her side.It began to feel as if all the courage she had shown that morning had b

While Liv stood trapped inside her family’s estate, Kaedric had already followed the young girl into the lower market.He did not remember most of the walk.The Valkyrie’s words were still moving through his mind.They would do the same thing to Astrid?Impossible!His father had allowed too many things to happen. He had trusted people who should never have been trusted and ignored dangers until they entered his home.Kaedric would never make those mistakes!His life was already moving in a completely different direction. Anyone who looked at him now would find it difficult to believe he had come from the same man.The Valkyrie had insulted him by suggesting otherwise.Kaedric was still fighting with those thoughts when something touched his arm.He looked down.A woman was rubbing scented oil across the back of his hand.Kaedric stared at her.The woman looked up at him and smiled.Only then did Kaedric finally notice what was happening around him.At least twenty women had gathered