“What?” Xivan woke up. “I left my whole family up in the great hall.”

Senera shook her head as she tucked the stone back into her bodice. “I just asked. They were gone by the time the palace exploded. Your family is still alive.”

“Of course they are,” Janel said. Disgust had replaced shock.

“What do you mean, ‘of course they are’?” Xivan brandished Khoreval, seconds from using it on Janel.

Janel exhaled. “Do you think Suless would give your husband—your son—a quick death? Does that really sound like something she’d do?”

Brother Qown’s stomach clenched. It didn’t sound at all like something Suless would do. He shuddered. Quur had a thousand stories about what the witch-queen Suless did with stolen children. Ten times as many existed in Yor about what she did with men. She’d always been a monster.

Xivan dragged a hand over her face. “How did this happen?”

“That’s the question I’d like to know too,” Janel answered.

Qown said, “Somehow my gaesh, Suless’s gaesh—they’ve vanished. I have no idea how. It should be impossible. Would you stop that?”

The guards had started advancing again.

“Stand down,” Xivan ordered. She motioned for the guards to lower their weapons. “Free the Marakori woman. I have no interest in taking prisoners today. Let them all go.”

The Spurned exchanged some looks, but no one protested her order. A woman untied Ninavis.

“Oh,” Senera said.

Janel turned to her. “Oh?”

“Someone’s finally done it. Fulfilled one of the prophecies. Destroyed the Stone of Shackles. That means someone’s found Godslayer—Urthaenriel. And so, all gaeshe have been broken, just as predicted.”

Xivan started to laugh, a wild, crazed sound. “Perfect. Just perfect. My husband looked for that damn thing for decades, and someone finds it now.”

Senera rolled her eyes. “Finally.”

Janel threw Senera a murderous look. “Finally?” Janel turned to Qown. “Didn’t you tell me, all the way back in Barsine Banner, that the only thing keeping every demon bound and unable to enter our world unsummoned was a gaesh?”

Qown’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“We anticipated that,” Senera snapped. “The prophecies made it perfectly clear. Why do you think we had Aeyan’arric freezing bodies after we killed them? Do you have any idea how many souls Thaena has been able to recover from demons because of us? How many demons she’s been able to destroy because we left them trapped for her to find?”

“I thought you hated Thaena,” Qown said.

“Oh, I do,” Senera said, “but I’ll still use her to destroy demons. She has to be good for something.”