Chapter Thirty-Nine

Gabe comes to escort Lore to the eclipse ball, promising to keep Lore safe, but Lore tells Gabe she cannot trust anything. In the atrium, the ball appears outwardly normal: courtiers dance, August sits on a smaller throne, Dani and Amelia stand with their family, and Alie greets Lore warmly. Lore sees that August has gathered many guests, though Anton and the key conspirators are not yet visible.

Bastian arrives and maneuvers Gabe into dancing with Alie so Bastian can speak privately with Lore. While they dance, Bastian urges Lore to run, revealing that another village was destroyed the previous night and that Anton sent Malcolm and some Presque Mort to collect the bodies. Lore refuses because Mortem seems to bind Lore to Dellaire, and Bastian refuses to abandon Lore, insisting that they, Gabe, and Lore are bound together in whatever comes next.

After the dance, Bellegarde enters, and August dismisses most of the guests. The remaining select group includes Bellegarde, Alie, Dani, Amelia, some courtiers, and the Presque Mort. August delivers a fanatical speech about the eclipse, Apollius’s return, and uniting darkness and light in one holy body, while Alie realizes something is wrong and tries to move toward Lore before Bellegarde restrains Alie.

More Presque Mort enter and, at August’s signal, seize Lore, Bastian, and Gabe. Bastian fights with a hidden knife, Gabe hesitates to attack his fellow monks until Alie calls out, and Gabe is knocked unconscious when Gabe finally resists. Lore and Bastian are forced before August, who declares that Mortem and Spiritum were always meant to be bound together and that Apollius chose the wrong family member.

August reveals that he does not believe Bastian is worthy and suggests Lore, not August, caused the village deaths, since no mere channeler could kill whole villages that way. At total eclipse, August cuts a half sun into Lore’s moon-scarred palm and a moon into Bastian’s sun-scarred palm, then presses their wounds together. Their powers surge between them, joining life and death, light and darkness, leaving both Lore and Bastian weakened and altered.

Anton finally appears and stops the ritual from proceeding as August expected. August says only a priest of Apollius can strike the final blow and redirect the joined magic into the proper vessel, but Anton refuses to make August that vessel. Anton says Bastian can become worthy with guidance, tells August he never acted like Bastian’s father, and then stabs August in the side.