He could burn that intricate and marvelous little village to the ground now, couldn’t he? He could start so many fires so fast that the flames would bring down every structure within an hour, no matter what precautions against fire had been taken. And he could blast the Château itself with such bolts of heat that its plaster ceilings and murals would be blackened and ruined before any flood of saving waters poured forth from all the hidden pipes. Indeed, he could melt wires, cables, computer systems, and motion-picture screens, sconces, the chandeliers. He could spend all of his energy blasting every nook and cranny, every outbuilding and vehicle, until the horses were running wild in the snowy night and mortals were racing to find their automobiles and drive off in terror, while immortals—did what? Fled through the portals to the sky? Or rushed down into the dungeons knowing that the sunlight would eventually drive away the enemy?

And what if he decided to die in this effort, to give it all the destructive power of his body and soul as they, the ancient ones, surrounded him and sought with their bolts to make the blood catch fire in his veins, to make his bones explode?

How much did Rhoshamandes want to eradicate everything and everyone the Prince loved? How much was he willing to suffer to make the Prince regret ever lifting that ax to sever Rhosh’s hand and Rhosh’s arm? How much did he want to punish the blond blue-eyed anointed one of that fickle and infantile spirit that had sent him rampaging into Maharet’s compound to complete the annihilation of herself of which she’d been dreaming? How much did he want to punish Allesandra and Arion and Everard de Landen and Eleni for leaving him? And how much did he want to hurt Benedict, sweet Benedict who’d pulled the rug out from under Rhosh’s past, present, and future?

He honestly didn’t know. He only knew that the anger was eating away at him as if it were a fire, and that he was just on the verge, the verge of sending that first fatal bolt through the ballroom window before soaring above the castle to throw his powerful blasts of heat at the village roofs and those who slept beneath them.

Just on the verge? And why? Because a miserable mutant with a brain as empty as a helium balloon had somehow eluded all his efforts to gain information that he, Rhosh, had wanted to use against the Prince? It was as if the voices of the Dark World were taunting him, jeering at him, telling him, “You are nothing and you have nothing and all your yesterdays mean nothing and never did.”

Was that enough to bring his journey to a close? Was that enough when he might not even touch the Prince himself, or the Core inside him?