QUICK LINKS: TL;DR Summary // Chapter Summary 1–3 | 4–14 | 15–21 | 22–30 | 31–40
Chapter 41: Gillethrye
Despite his injuries, Kingfisher stands and recounts Gillethrye’s fall.
Arriving with his wolves, Kingfisher found Malcolm’s horde already slaughtering the city. When he confronted the vampire king, Kingfisher discovered that Belikon had allied with Malcolm, and now learns Queen Madra was also part of their pact.
Belikon proposed a coin toss to decide the city’s fate, but Malcolm caught it mid‑air, ensuring Kingfisher’s loss. With the people already dead or turning, Kingfisher chose to barricade and burn the city to stop the horde from spreading.
Malcolm later built a labyrinth in the colosseum, hid the coin at its center, and filled the stands with the burning Fae of Gillethrye. Kingfisher endured 110 years trapped there until Saeris awakened the quicksilver pool in Zilvaren.
In the present, Kingfisher uses Malcolm’s taunt as a distraction. With sudden speed, he snatches Solace from Saeris and drives it into Belikon. Madra screams, and chaos erupts.
Chapter 42: That’ll Cost You
Chaos erupts as Belikon bleeds out. Malcolm lunges at Kingfisher, but Lorreth counters with Avisiéth. Kingfisher calls for everyone to run to the labyrinth.
Harron attacks Saeris, but she fights back, taunts him, and snaps his neck.
Meanwhile, Carrion slays several feeders with Simon. Kingfisher orders Lorreth not to fight Malcolm but to head for the labyrinth instead. The four of them sprint into the entrance as Malcolm warns that it’ll eat them alive.
Guiding the group into the labyrinth, Kingfisher watches its walls shift constantly. Their path soon brings them face‑to‑face with Morthil, a grotesque spider demon that tracks movement, stuns its prey, and devours it slowly.
Kingfisher explains that Saeris must locate the quicksilver pool at the labyrinth’s center, the only way to choose the correct exit. Concentrating, she finds the pool and points to the far‑left path behind the demon. The group fights Morthil and kills it, though Kingfisher warns it’ll return.
At the labyrinth’s center, a mountain of silver coins and the Triumvirate await. Malcolm reveals he built the labyrinth to imprison Kingfisher, while Belikon vows to kill Kingfisher and exploit Saeris’s Alchemy. Carrion then provokes Malcolm into biting him and reveals that his Daianthus blood is poison to vampires.
As Malcolm convulses, Kingfisher urges Saeris to find the true coin and end the game.
Alone in the still labyrinth, Saeris races forward, her pain sharpening as the Widow’s Bane fades. She struggles to locate the quicksilver coin until the sentient metal responds, demanding a future favor in exchange for guidance, and leads her to Morthil’s corpse, where the coin is hidden.
Saeris hesitates, then admits Kingfisher is her mate, igniting her permanent marks and God Bindings. She forces herself to reach into the demon’s throat and retrieve the coin.
At that moment, the corpse stirs, and Malcolm seizes her wrist and demands she hand over the coin.
Chapter 43: Another Way
Weakened by Carrion’s blood, Malcolm battles Saeris for the coin. He calls her a rare Alchemist, coveting her power to restore himself.
When Saeris refuses, Malcolm hurls her against a wall, injuring her. Noticing her mate mark, he recalls Kingfisher’s defiance in the labyrinth and vows she will heal him, help raise his army, and watch Kingfisher submit.
Saeris then stabs Malcolm in the throat, but he strikes back with a mortal wound. Bleeding, she reveals she has the coin, flips it, and frees the trapped Fae souls.
While Malcolm laments, Saeris severs his head with Solace.
As Malcolm’s body burns and Solace’s energy fades, Saeris collapses. Kingfisher’s voice reaches her, and she guides him to her before losing consciousness.
When Saeris wakes, Kingfisher and Taladaius are beside side. Taladaius warns that her wounds are fatal. Kingfisher offers part of his soul, but Taladaius reminds him he’s already given too much to Lorreth.
Saeris refuses Kingfisher’s sacrifice, vowing to reject the mating bond if he compels her. Taladaius suggests turning her into a vampire without making her a feeder. As Saeris fades, Taladaius demands consent, and Kingfisher answers for her.
Chapter 44: Axis
Saeris drifts in and out of consciousness as the amphitheater collapses. In Kingfisher’s arms, she hears the quicksilver’s voice offering her a choice: pass into the afterlife or stay and endure suffering. Looking at her mate, she chooses to stay.
The quicksilver immediately calls in the favor Saeris owes and demands an audience. Before she can answer, an invisible force rips her from Kingfisher’s arms, hurling her backward through the labyrinth at terrifying speed until she’s dragged beneath the quicksilver pool.
Saeris wakes in a sunlit field where twin goddesses, Bal and Mithin, greet her and reveal she’s in the Corcoran, the realm of the Gods. They lead her to a hill crowned by a great oak rooted in quicksilver, where she meets Zareth, the Fae God of Chaos and Change.
The God explains that the tree represents all realms, now rotting, and shares that Saeris and Kingfisher form a powerful axis that inevitably draws evil. Every future in which they remain together ends in destruction.
Zareth admits he altered Saeris’s destiny to make her human, but fate still reunited her and Kingfisher. In rare futures, life survives only when she and Kingfisher fight side by side, bound by their God Bindings.
So Zareth offers Saeris the choice to sever her thread from the universe, making her invisible to the Gods and free to live her own life. He insists this is the only way to save Kingfisher and avert ruin.
Saeris accepts, her God Bindings flaring as Zareth wishes her luck and thrusts her into the quicksilver.
Chapter 45: Choose Wisely
In a luxurious bedroom, Saeris wakes violently ill, her memory blank. Taladaius explains she has transitioned.
Taladaius shows Saeris a mirror, where pointed Fae ears and sharp vampire canines stare back. Half‑Fae, half‑vampire, she’s no longer human. Reeling from the revelation, she asks where Kingfisher is. Taladaius assures her that he’s safe but refuses to reveal their location.
When Saeris opens the curtains, light sears her eyes, and she discovers her new sensitivity. Taladaius admits he blocked her memories to spare her trauma. Removing the block, he restores her memory of his bite, meeting Zareth, three days of pain, and the moment she bit him. He reassures her that no harm was done.
Torn between gratitude and anger, Saeris listens as Taladaius shares his centuries of suffering under Malcolm and warns her to “choose [her] version of immortality wisely.”
When Saeris confronts Carrion about his Fae identity, he admits he’s heir to a throne and that Kingfisher’s father hid him from Belikon. Orlena Parry rescued him from the quicksilver, raised him in Zilvaren, and ensured that her descendants preserved his heritage until the gates reopened.
Carrion describes sensing the quicksilver the day Saeris was taken to the palace, which later led him to The Mirage, where Kingfisher found him. He apologizes for hiding his identity when they slept together, though he jokes that her anger is really worry.
Saeris tells Carrion that Lorreth had already explained that he survived Malcolm’s bite because his bloodline is poisonous to the vampire king, who killed his parents for that reason.
Finally, Kingfisher arrives, his mental bond with Saeris still intact, and asks Carrion to leave. When she notices less quicksilver in his eyes, Kingfisher explains that Te Léna and Iseabail have begun to weaken its hold.
Kingfisher then shows Saeris they’re in Ammontraíeth and tells her the vampire court has decreed she’ll be crowned queen of Sanasroth, since Malcolm left no heir and she killed him.
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