Holland reached inside the bowl—for an instant, something in him seemed to recoil, resist the motion, but the king persisted—and as he did, shadow spilled over his skin, up his fingers, his hands, his wrists, becoming a pair of black gloves, smooth and strong, their surfaces subtly patterned with spellwork. Protection from whatever waited in the dark.

From the depths of the silver bowl, the king withdrew a circlet of dark metal, hinged on one side, symbols etched and glowing on its surface. Ojka tried to read the markings, but her vision kept slipping, unable to find purchase. The space inside the circlet seemed to swallow light, energy, the air within turning pale and colorless and as thin as paper. There was something wrong with the metal collar, wrong in a way that bent the world around it, and that wrongness plucked at Ojka’s senses, made her feel dizzy and ill.

Holland turned the circlet over in his gloved hands, as if inspecting a piece of craftsmanship. “It must be strong enough,” he said.

Ojka braved a step forward. “You summoned me,” she repeated, her attention flicking from the corpses to the king.

“Yes,” he said, looking up. “I need to know if it works.”

Fear prickled through her, the old, instinctual bite of panic, but she held her ground. “Your Majesty—”

“Do you trust me?”

Ojka tensed. Trust. Trust was a hard-won thing in a world like theirs. A world where people starved for magic and killed for power. Ojka had stayed alive so long by blade and trick and bald distrust, and it was true that things were changing now, because of Holland, but fear and caution still whispered warnings.

“Ojka.” He considered her levelly, with eyes of emerald and ink.

“I trust you,” she said, forcing the words out, making them real, before they could climb back down her throat.

“Then come here.” Holland held up the collar as if it were a crown, and Ojka felt herself recoil. No. She had earned this place beside him. She had earned her power. Been strong enough to survive the transfer, the test. She had proven herself worthy. Beneath her skin, the magic tapped out its strong and steady beat. She wasn’t ready to let go, to relinquish the power and return to being an ordinary cutthroat. Or worse, she thought, glancing at the bodies.

Come here.

This time the command rang through her head, pulled on muscle, bone, magic.

Ojka’s feet moved forward, one step, two, three, until she was standing right before the king. Her king. He had given her so much, and he had yet to claim his price. No boon came without a cost. She would have paid him in deed, in blood. If this was the cost—whatever this was—then so be it.

Holland lowered the collar. His hands were so sure, his eyes so steady. She should have bowed her head, but instead, she held his gaze, and there she found balance, found calm. There she felt safe.

And then the metal closed around her throat.

The first thing she felt was the sharp cold of metal on skin. Surprise, but not pain. Then the cold sharpened into a knife. It slid under her skin, tore her open, magic spilling like blood from the wounds.

Ojka gasped and staggered to her knees as ice shot through her head and down into her chest, frozen spikes splaying out through muscle and flesh, bone and marrow.

Cold. Gnawing and rending, and then gone.

And in its wake—nothing.

Ojka’s doubled over, fingers clamped uselessly around the metal collar as she let out an animal groan. The world looked wrong—pale and thin and empty—and she felt severed from it, from herself, from her king.

It was like losing a limb: none of the pain, but all of the wrongness, a vital piece of her cut away so fast she could feel the space where it had been, where it should be. And then she realized what it was. The loss of a sense. Like sight, or sound, or touch.

Magic.

She couldn’t feel its hum, couldn’t feel its strength. It had been everywhere, a constant presence from her bones to the air around her body, and it was suddenly, horribly … gone.

The veins on her hands were beginning to lighten, from black to pale blue, and in the reflection of the polished stone floor, she could see the dark emblem of the king’s mark retreating across her brow and cheek, withdrawing until it was nothing but a smudge in the center of her yellow eyes.

Ojka had always had a temper, quick to flame, her power surging with her mood. But now, as panic and fear tore through her, nothing rose to match it. She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t drag herself from the shock and terror and fear. She was weak. Empty. Flesh and blood and nothing more. And it was terrible.

“Please,” she whispered to the throne room floor while Holland stood over her, watching. “Please, my king. I have always … been loyal. I will always … be loyal. Please …”

Holland knelt before her and took her chin in his gloved hand, guiding it gently up. She could see the magic swirling in his eyes, but she couldn’t feel it in his touch.

“Tell me,” he said. “What do you feel?”

The word escaped in a shudder. “I … I can’t … feel … anything.”

The king smiled grimly then.

“Please,” whispered Ojka, hating the word. “You chose me….”

The king’s thumb brushed her chin. “I chose you,” he said, his fingers slipping down her throat. “And I still do.”

An instant later, the collar was gone.

Ojka gasped, magic flooding back like air into starved veins. A welcome pain, bright and vivid and alive. She tipped her head against the cold stone.