“I’m saying you’re scared of what I might do to him, but you’re the one who can really hurt him, Anton.”

I would never hurt him, Anton thought fiercely, but he didn’t say it aloud. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t true, either. He could hurt Jude. He already had, when he’d disappeared and left Jude to think he was dead.

And keeping this secret—this huge, terrible, ruinous secret—could hurt him, too.

“I don’t want to,” he said at last, and this at least he knew he meant with everything in him. “I would rather die than see him hurt because of me. Before I met him, I didn’t see the point in all this. In being the Prophet. In trying to stop the Age of Darkness. All I knew was just—survival. Getting by, however I could. But now…”

Now he had someone for whom he would save the world. And it was the exact person he was supposed to sacrifice to do it.

“I get it,” Hector said. “When I met Jude, I’d just lost everything. I thought there was no way forward. But he … he gave me something I thought I’d never have again. Family. And when I left him behind, when I hurt him the way I did, I hated myself for it. But we found our way back to each other, and Jude, he—he has so much heart. He gave me his trust, and I’m not going to break it again.”

Anton bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. He wondered, briefly, what would happen if he told Hector everything. Hector might be the only other person in the world who wanted to protect Jude as much as Anton did. The thought of it almost loosened his tongue.

“Hector,” he said. But there wasn’t any reason, he realized, to share this burden with him. He just didn’t want to bear it alone. Instead, he said, “I’m glad he has you.”

Hector smiled wryly. “I’ve loved him a long time. And I know he deserves better than me. I hope that’s you.”

When Hector and Anton returned to the fort, it was a flurry of activity. Paladin and stewards rushed past them in the courtyard, barely sparing Anton a glance. Ahead, in the shade of a slender tree, Anton spotted Jude and Penrose deep in conversation. Jude looked agitated, his brow creased as he spoke to Penrose in short, clipped bursts.

Anton hurried over, Hector at his heels.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

It was Penrose who answered. “We’re evacuating all the stewards and anyone else who can’t fight.”

“And those who can fight?” Hector asked.

“Are preparing to do just that.”

“What?” Anton asked. “Why? I told you, the minute we scry in the Circle of Stones—”