“Just keep your promise to Nic.” Eli’s words, his piercing gaze, followed Luc all the way through the tunnel and to the palace gates the next morning, after the kingdom was asleep.

He was keeping his promise. He would hurt no one but the Kar-Tog, and that only for the sake of bringing Dom back to his senses—and keeping his promise to Rin as well. He simply couldn’t allow the little king to repeat history. He couldn’t.

Nic would have understood. Though Nic cared too much, in Luc’s opinion, for the whims of his son, even he would not have condoned this behavior. He had seen the cost firsthand.

He had something of a plan, hatched at the last minute. He knew Dom kept the girl in a room near his own in the palace. He also knew the girl had just been taken a couple of days ago, and so she would be sleeping. His fingers brushed the heavy flask of poison in his trousers pocket. She wouldn’t even see it coming. And neither would Dom.

He ducked inside the palace’s side entryway, nodding to the Takers on duty there. They wouldn’t dare question his presence. If they had any brains, that is.

They nodded back, their auras quiet and tired.

He continued down the long alabaster hall until he reached the spiraling ramp that would bring him to the king’s quarters. There he paused before the guards and nodded once more.

“High Guardian Luc.” The Takers, Ron and Ian this time, stood at attention.

“I have an important duty to accomplish this morning,” he said low, his voice hard, brooking no argument. “You would do well to forget you saw me here.”

Ron’s eyes found his. His aura solidified with light blue trust. “Of course.”

Ian’s aura shifted with uncertainty, though he, too, found Luc’s gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He moved past them to the ramp and kicked himself up, following the curve around until he saw the landing he needed. As his feet bonded back to the smooth floor, his heartbeat picked up pace. If he failed, what would become of him? Would he end up like Eli, stripped of the only remaining tie to his dignity and control over the kingdom? Dom wasn’t one to hold back in his vengeance—in fact, it struck Luc as odd that he’d chosen to let Eli off the hook relatively easily. Perhaps he just wanted to watch him suffer, which was also not out of the realm of possibility. Luc knew well how much jealousy existed between his son and the brat.

But as for himself… He knew Dom feared him, much more than he feared Eli’s superior strength. Luc was the High Guardian, after all, imbued with enormous power by the Eltana herself at his initiation. Would he get the chance to earn back his honor? Or would Dom simply dispose of him as a traitor, like he’d threatened to do with Eli?

No. The answer was simple. He couldn’t fail.

He examined the hallway he strode through. Several archways peered back at him, black against the sparkling walls. In one, two arches down from the golden expanse marking Dom’s royal chambers, a glowstone gave off soft violet light.

He crept to that archway and peered inside.

A curled-up form shivered beneath a high pile of heavy blankets. Twists of hair spilled over the side of the divan, shining a dull orange in the dim light.

It was her. A brief touch of her aura, which blazed like a campfire, confirmed her humanity.

He touched the flask again and inhaled, letting the water settle in his lungs before pushing it back out through his mouth. After tonight, Dom’s stupid mistake would be mended, and he would rest easier. The Takers wouldn’t sell him out to Dom, not if they valued their own rank.

He nodded, stepping under the archway. So help him, this would-be queen would die before she ever had the chance to reign.