By the evening, Irina had brought the entirety of the Korongorod under her control. Servants lined the hall and bowed as she passed. Guards approached the throne in long rows to swear allegiance. Ministers prayed for her health and longevity. Messengers sent the news all across Itrera: the true heir has returned from the land of the dead, and she rules over us all.

I never left Irina’s side. I listened to her subjects wish the new Archon well, pledge their renewed devotion with my blade at an arm’s length away. But no one had eyes for me. Each well-wisher’s gaze stopped on Andiya, perched seated on the top step of the dais, ordering each to approach in turn. To them, Andiya was the power that had brought the Korongorod to heel, risen the princess from her grave. Andiya’s name would go down in legend—and maybe even mine.

We finally retired for the night in the archon’s chambers. The Kaeltans took an entire palace wing to themselves, barring entrance to any humans. For their safety just as much as ours, they’d said, with a hard look at Andiya’s collar.

The princess swept herself gracefully into an armchair. “Pour us a drink, Kain.”

We sipped quietly, content to simply let ourselves relax. Firelight flickered low in sitting area’s iron hearth, stoked gently by Andiya. Her collar still kept her magic at bay, but the flames seemed to draw her in—a reminder of what power waited just beneath her skin.

“Thank you, Kain,” said Irina, her eyes soft and slow. Without the court surrounding her, without the Kaeltans, she was once more the woman I’d come to know. One that allowed herself only the smallest weaknesses, when it was safe. “Thank you for more than I can ever thank you for. And you, Andiya. You both have been the only people in my life that I felt I did not need to doubt. There is little I can give you that is worth so much.”

My mouth pulled in a small, exhausted smile. “There is no need for anything, Irina. We fought for what we believed in. That’s all.”

“Rozin’s freedom,” Andiya said. “You can give us that.”

Irina and I turned to Andiya.

“You wish to leave my service, Kain?” asked Irina.

My face grew hot. I hadn’t wanted her to know that, just yet. I hadn’t even decided myself. “In … time,” I said carefully. “Maybe. Not yet. There is so much we still have to do.”

Irina nodded slowly, contemplative. “I am hesitant to grant you that, Kain. I have come to rely on you far too much, and Andiya, being what she is. But …” Irina sighed in resignation. “I cannot call myself your friend if I do not earn it. We will talk, in the future. That is all I can promise now.”

“Thank you, Irina,” said Andiya, and Irina gave her a tired smile. How would any of us sleep tonight, and how long until any of us felt safe here again?

Irina stared down at her glass. “I am to be officially crowned archon tomorrow.”

“How do you feel?”

“Not truly afraid, though I have every reason to be. I only fear that the world I wish to fight for is beyond my grasp. That in my lifetime, I will not live to see it. People are slow to change, Kain, if they are willing to even change at all; how many times I implored my father forget his past biases, to act as an archon should, and how often I tried to sway my brother to an honourable path. Instead I was ignored, vilified. Maxsim believes that my ambitions—a world without fear of the daemons—are those of a blackened soul. He believes that my intolerance of the Drahko’s posturing and aggression to be acts of unfounded war. How many in my coalition think as they do? How many will I fail to sway, if I could not change even the minds of my closest family?”

“You don’t need to sway them all,” said Andiya. “You never could.” Fire burned behind her eyes, fettered by that gold collar. “You only need to sway enough to make a difference. There will always be fear, hatred. We can’t stop that. But we can stand above it all. Help those you can. That must be enough.”

Irina put her hand on Andiya’s. “Together, we must make it enough. I cannot express the shame I feel for how I treated you when we met, Andiya. Had I known what I do now, had I not been so ignorant, I would have welcomed you to my home with open arms.”

“Like you did with my queens.”

“Indeed. So I did not make the same mistake, again.” Irina shrugged the fur off her shoulders and began to work at the pins in her hair. She looked so natural, then. Not a royal, sat above the rest. Only a tired young woman weighed down with the responsibility of a nation. “If it isn’t rude of me to ask—Andiya, it certainly feels these days that Kain does not control you.”

“Not anymore,” Andiya lied smoothly. “There is no need. Rozin and I want the same thing. And … she is my friend, now. I care about her, and she for me. As you said, I can’t call myself her friend if I don’t earn it. Why control me? Why fight those you care about?”

“To knock some sense into them, sometimes,” I said.

“And I fully intend to knock you, if that’s ever necessary,” Andiya shot back with an easy grin. “I will say this, Irina. Rozin and I changed, even if we didn’t want to. We are not who we were when she captured me. And that is why I believe we can change your, I should say our, people.”

Irina smiled. “To us,” she said, and raised her glass. “And to building a future without fear.”

And so we drank, well into the quiet cloudless night, and my heart had never felt so full.

*

My Eon’s quarters were dark, still, when we returned to them.

They hadn’t changed at all since we’d left, even though it felt like ages ago. There was the same table laden with fruit, the same rich furnishings, the same massive windows that drew in the moonlight, the same gurgle from a fountain on the porch. In an odd way, even if I had really only be in this room for a matter of a few weeks, it felt like a sort of homecoming.

My feet heavy, I sluggishly flopped onto the sofa, letting myself sink into the familiar, stiff cushions.

A hand fell to my cheek.

“Don’t be silly, Rozin,” Andiya murmured. “Come to bed.”

Warm hands drew me up, away, to the plush bed that she had claimed on our first night as Eon and bonded. She pulled off my uniform, my socks, and untwisted the brain in my hair, her touch so delicate that I felt already half in a dream.

And so we simply slept, curled together, my forehead nestled against her arm. I had not slept so deeply in all my life.