The Emperor stared around wildly, but Rann was not there. She must have been the one who shoved him; he could only hope that she had time to get away herself, too. The smell of burnt feathers was creeping all around him, and with it came a mounting, hideous panic.

If only he had thought to make that command earlier! Now it had all gone wrong, and it had been his fault, which meant it would fall to him to correct it — but he could not even begin to think how. There were screams up above, screams and shrieks and hissing, and it took great effort for the Emperor to tune it all out, to stop terror from overcoming him. He would need to go out of here, to the open ground where the shell stood; he would need to convince them, somehow, somehow —

‘Your Majesty!’

A guard nearly ran into him and jumped back hastily, bowing, grey with dust. The structure that had been put up for the feast was not meant to be traversed on foot here, at ground level — the planks and pillars stood too densely packed, too numerous, and obstructed vision so much that it was easy to lose the way even in daytime, let alone now when only faint glimmers of firelight made their way in here. Normally the Emperor would have taken wing to see where to go, but the flashes of red that came from above made him unwilling.

‘Where are my Advisors?’ he hissed at the guard. ‘Any one of them, now, right away.’

The guard trembled before him, and the Emperor knew he must be a sight — ruffled from the tumble, his decorations askew, head feathers charred. The guard waved to the right, and the Emperor stumbled in that direction, with the guard falling tentatively behind.

As the Emperor walked, hopping over the planks, he realized the acrid smell of burning was growing stronger. In just a few moments he learnt why, when they came across a body. At first when he spotted it he feared the worst, but at this close distance it was easy to see it was not Rann. The body lay feet up, and the Emperor had to circle it to peer into its face; another guard, with a deep, slashing burn across her chest. He did not take a closer look, and went onwards, trying to suppress a shiver. This was not the time for mourning. He had to make contact, had to explain — but how could he? What words to use, how to approach beings in such a defensive stance that they would apparently kill on sight?

The Emperor’s mind was too muddled from the fall and the smoke to be of much use. He had to find his Advisors and make them think for him.

Apart from Rann who was his wife, and Arenn who was responsible for the palace, he had relatively little contact with the rest of them outside of council meetings. The Third Advisor — resources, Fourth — agriculture and hunting, Fifth — scientific exploration… The Fifth might be helpful, the Emperor thought, but he was not in the capital, traveling in the western forests to seek out new species. They had all grown lax, having faced no trouble but Waterland for so long. They had not been prepared for anything like this.

In the distance — as much as he could glimpse here of it — he saw some people running and darted to intercept, but they were gone before he could catch up, disappearing into the maze of wooden poles. The Emperor gave up.

‘I have to go up there,’ he told the guard. ‘Cover me.’

But the guard looked panicky.

‘I must not let your Majesty,’ he mumbled, cowering but valiantly forcing the words out. ‘Her Majesty’s orders — safeguard Your Majesty’s life, keep Your Majesty’s out of peril —’

‘That is what you will be doing if you cover my ascent.’

‘But, but,’ the guard stammered, peering upwards where the red lights flashed, ‘but it’s too dangerous, too much risk, alone I can’t… I could never…’

The Emperor briefly considered abandoning him altogether and risking flight without protection.

‘Will you disobey my order?’

‘Never, Majesty, but…’

‘Why would you go up there?’ another voice called, and the Emperor whirled around.

Arenn stood a few poles away. Down here, amid all the dust and with the noise that came from above, her steps had been too quiet to hear. She seemed ruffled but unharmed, and the Emperor was momentarily glad.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked as she approached, but didn’t wait for the answer. ‘I must go up there, find help, so that we can explain that we didn’t mean —’

‘How?’

Arenn sounded oddly serene, and that irritated him.

‘What do you mean, how? I must talk to them, convey to them that it was a mistake, that we need not fight —’

‘How will you speak to them, when you do not know their language?’

The Emperor blinked at her as the truth of it slowly came through. He had not considered this at all. The shouting that drifted from above seemed to bore into his scull.

Still, he tried —

‘That is why I need you, you and the rest — we must devise a way to send a message, to make them understand —’

‘Later,’ Arenn said, looking past him. ‘Later we shall do that. It will take time, much time. You must leave now, Majesty. Save yourself, for the good of the realm.’

‘You mean run away?’

‘I mean do your duty.’

Their eyes met, across the air that was slowly filling with smoke.

‘Where is my wife?’ the Emperor asked, looking at both of them — Arenn and the guard. ‘I will only leave when she is with me.’

‘That is unwise,’ Arenn said. ‘She is a warrior, she can save herself. You must leave before this whole place is ablaze.’

‘Exactly. We will go up —’

‘We will go to the forest.’

The Emperor could take it no longer.

‘What is wrong with you, Arenn? My duty is here, to protect my realm, my people who are murdered out there, for a single mistake — I must correct it, I must, and here you are daring to order me —’

‘I am not ordering, Your Majesty, only reminding you of your duty.’

‘You’re not listening! Haven’t I said just now —’

But she only pointed upwards, and when he looked he saw the top reaches of the structure on fire already.

The guard was staring at it, too.

‘Please, Your Majesty,’ he whispered, visibly shivering. ‘Please let us leave, before this… this…’

The wood was dense and had been treated, therefore could not burn fast, but even so the fire would reach the ground soon. Most of the smoke must be blowing away, but enough of it made its way downwards that it was becoming hard to breathe. The Emperor could not tell if the heat he felt was from the fire or merely imagined, but he could no longer argue.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We go.’

Arenn ducked down into a low arch of sorts, and he remembered that she would know how this was built — she had supervised it, after all. She would know a way out.

True enough, only a few twists and turns later they came out into the cool night air. The Emperor looked around, still hoping to see Rann, but there was only a palace wall, with a door open in it, and nobody in sight.

He was not immediately sure what the place was — the red flashes made the world look unfamiliar, confusing. But once they stepped inside he recognized the interior, and wordlessly shot forward, taking wing now that he knew the walls protected him.

‘Where are you —’ Arenn began as she caught up, flying close to him.

‘The library,’ he said curtly. ‘Maybe there will be something — ’

‘No!’

Something pulled him down, so abruptly that he had no time to resist. Arenn’s face flashed past as she threw him against the wall, letting go as he fell to the floor in a heap. The guard rushed forward to help him up, and as the Emperor got to his feet he saw Arenn land on the floor, too, panting and giving him a glare furious enough to pass for Rann’s. The small wounds left by her claws had begun to hurt, but any indignation he might have felt about the assault winked out under her stare.

‘Emperor or no Emperor,’ she spat out, ‘duty or no duty, I will not let you kill yourself. What library, what are you doing, have you lost your mind? Do you think there is anything there on blue six-legged beasts, something about their language, their weapons perhaps? Nobody has seen this before, nobody knows what they are!’

‘Don’t you see?’ He felt drained. ‘This is my fault. I have done this when I didn’t order the weapons down in time. I made them turn on us — I might as well have killed my people myself! I should have…’

‘They turned on us before we fired,’ Arenn said in a softer tone. ‘That is not on you.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I must save my people.’

‘It’s quite impossible by now.’

The red lights danced on the walls — weaponry or fire, he could no longer tell. The torches indoors paled next to the blaze outside. The Emperor looked around, looked at his things — his palace, his home, to be abandoned now to the invaders. Many generations of his ancestors had collected these riches, these relics, but he would have to leave it all to destruction and flame.

‘Where can we even go?’ he said. ‘We will need to organize people, to create some way of resisting these… beings. We will need Rann. Where is she?’

‘I’d let you find her if I knew,’ Arenn said. ‘But I don’t. If she makes it out, I shall be glad, but if she does not, we may not need her, after all.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Erren. Make peace with him, and he’ll help.’ Arenn stepped closer to him, her eyes strangely intent. ‘I brought the prisoner down again, to where his artifact was —’

The Emperor was appalled.

‘Arenn! That is not your province, you had no right —’

‘We are under attack,’ she said simply. ‘I did what I could to help us.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I had him call Erren. He is here with his people, in the forest. They have come, after all.’

So Erren had done as promised. This could be the chance to mend it all — could be, if only Erren played along. If he came to help, then perhaps he could be forgiven — perhaps on that pretext, at last, the Emperor could sell to the council the idea of letting Erren live… If only he meant it, if only he would be true for once, all could still be recovered. After a year of wishing, dreaming of the impossible, trying and failing to come to terms with the finality of it, to now have this hope was unthinkable — unthinkable yet sweet, making the Emperor forget for the moment where he was and what was happening outside, forget everything but his dream.

Then he remembered Rann, absent, lost somewhere out there in the fires, and knew as his heart fell that he could not abandon her, whatever the cost.

‘Erren can wait,’ he said, forcing himself to seem indifferent. ‘We will go to the forest after we collect the survivors, whoever they may be. We will exit the palace and wait outside, where those beings cannot see us. We will watch the place, come to intercept anyone leaving and call them to our side. And only when there is no-one left will we depart. And you,’ he told Arenn pointedly, ‘will not try to stop me again.’

‘As Your Majesty wills,’ she said. ‘But if you wish to collect the survivors, we should start with the spy. The rest may get out on their own, but he cannot.’

There probably was some argument to be made against this, but at the moment the Emperor could not quite think of one.

Flying across the forest was not the only way to reach the lower levels; underneath the palace, tunnels lay that led there, too. The Emperor had never used them before, unwilling to stay underground longer than was necessary; but now that the usual route was too dangerous he had no choice but to follow Arenn down into the passages that were cold and seemed endless.

The Emperor watched her back as they flew, watched her wings beat up and down, and wondered if he was walking into a trap. Normally he would not expect this of Arenn, but after she had contacted the rebels — and, worse yet, after her attack — he was no longer as certain. With only one guard, he would not be able to put up much of a resistance in case of trouble. A part of him wished to turn back, or at least to speak of his suspicions to her. But he had hesitated for too long, and now it was too late. Then again, perhaps a trap would not be so bad after all, if it was Erren’s. In silence, the Emperor flew on.

When at last they emerged into the familiar corridors near the interrogation room, the Emperor was fully prepared to meet an invading force. But there was no-one in sight here either, and again frustration and mistrust rose in him. Had Erren truly come, was he waiting in the forest? Or had it all been a lie, and he had been home in Waterland all this time, directing the Emperor to the forest only for the sport of it?

Rann would have known what to do; she would not have doubted, or longed, or felt lost.

In the interrogation room, the artifact lay in the corner, quiet and dark now. The spy sat next to it on the ground, with a plateful of rat bones next to him.

‘You have returned for me,’ the spy mumbled, looking up at Arenn with gratitude. But then, as he noticed the Emperor, his expression soured. ‘Has he come to kill me?’

‘No,’ Arenn said. ‘I’ve convinced His Majesty. We’re leaving to join your people. Can you fly?’

The child was out of his bonds, fed, and seemed improved overall; but when he tried to spread his wings it was obvious they were broken, and the movement hurt him. Arenn waved him down.

‘Flight might be dangerous anyway,’ she said. ‘In this much light, we’ll be visible despite the night. We’ll do better to crawl.’

‘Cover his eyes,’ the Emperor said. ‘I would not have him know the way.’

Arenn bound the prisoner’s head with cloth like she would a wound, while the Emperor instructed the guard to support and lead the prisoner. Together, the four of them exited the place and entered the long corridors again.

The smoke was beginning to make its way even here. Coughing, they turned and turned, following Arenn, hurrying on foot over the dusty floor and sending mice scurrying at their approach. But this time the path was shorter; soon enough, they came to a door, and once Arenn pulled open the trick lock and pushed the doors ajar, he understood why. They had not gone under the palace this time, but took a side turning and came out outside the walls.

The Emperor felt a peculiar coldness as he turned to stare back at the door, so well-camouflaged that it seemed one with the rocky hillside, likely impossible to see when it was closed.

‘Does my wife know of this?’ he asked.

‘Have you seen the lock?’ Arenn gave him an odd look. ‘Of course she does.’

‘I see what they meant when they spoke of the Empire’s foulness,’ the spy said unexpectedly, as the guard was unwinding the bandage from his eyes. ‘No trust, no reliance, only the fear of each other that chains you down and obscures the light…’

‘Quiet,’ the Emperor said. ‘We know nothing of the senses these beings possess. We must cross unseen and unheard. Let us cover ourselves.’

The sky was filled with smoke, red light reflecting off it; there was enough of both on the ground, too, to give them some degree of shelter, but the Emperor wanted no risks. Following the example of Rann’s soldiers, they all filled their feathers with earth — dry and grey, it was nearly as good as dust. In the distance, they saw a few of the invaders move, shooting at the sky. The Emperor noticed some targets fall, and looked away. No time to mourn.

The forest was nearby — only a few minutes away on wing. But the need to traverse the ground in a discreet, stealthy manner made the path much longer. With each step, the Emperor hated it more and more; his body was not made for this, and he longed to fly up, but he dared not risk it. It was hard to see the far distance, but the invaders were tall enough that he could still make out their heads and long, lithe necks. Even now, after all they had done, they seemed beautiful to him, and inwardly he cursed them again and again — for rushing to attack, for coming at all. Then he cursed himself, because it had been his fault, too, regardless of what Arenn said. He had believed their splendor meant something, when he should have known better. He had believed in them, and he did not even fully understand why.

Yet there was no time to lament his own mistakes, either. The woods inched closer with each step, and he was straining his eyesight looking into the black-and-red shadows. Around him, he heard the others struggle along, coughing from time to time — Arenn to his left, the guard and the prisoner to his right. He had hardly noticed when the ground began to change, when he reached the edge of the forest. The first trees grew sparsely, and in his mind hardly counted. He crawled on, determined, starting to lose his sense of self in this world of endless insect-like crawling, when someone’s wings suddenly flapped in his face, catching him, making him stop.

Something in him moved before he even knew, before he could understand or see, rising in iridescent, giddy gladness, just from the familiar feel of it, from the scent in the air perhaps or the sound of movement, the recognition of the son he never had, of what he had thought lost forever and yet never quite believed.

Someone else pulled him up, but he did not see who; he could see none but Erren.

‘You have come to me,’ he whispered breathlessly, almost falling over with the sudden tide of exhaustion. ‘You’ve come, after all.’

Erren opened his beak, but before he could speak a clap of thunder came over them all, loud enough to make the Emperor stagger.

‘Wha —’

A flood of white light cut through the woods, turning everything clear as day, covering the ground in razor-sharp shadows. The Emperor spun around, resisting the urge to cover his eyes, but at first could see nothing but a tower of light, pale and inexplicable.

Very gradually it was fading, and for a few heartbeats the Emperor could see nothing in it; but then the light dimmed enough that he managed to make out a few shapes. They circled the sky, tiny against the looming light, and his heart skipped. Could that be Rann? Had she done something to destroy their enemies — had she found a way to win this whole fight, and save them all?

‘Who is that?’ Arenn said next to him, staring into the light, too. ‘I can’t quite see —’

‘They’re following,’ Erren spoke over her.

The Emperor saw that too, now — two six-legged figures, cantering after the crows, aiming their weapons. The red flashes stood no chance against the white glow, so whether the beings were firing remained unknown. But as the Emperor strained his vision, trying to tell his subjects apart or understand what was happening, he felt instead a strange absence, as if something was missing.

He blinked. The light had faded enough for him to see the palace towers, but they were not there. The invaders had demolished his home.

The crows were still darting across the sky, weaving their way above the creatures; it looked almost as if they were trying to move towards them rather than away.

‘Don’t watch that,’ Erren said next to him. ‘Come with me to the camp — we can talk of it all there, where there is no noise to distract us.’

‘We planned to collect our people before we leave,’ Arenn interrupted. ‘Those are our people. We wait.’

‘Those are only few,’ Erren said. ‘What does it matter? Most have fallen already. You won’t gain much if you —’

‘What is that?’ the Emperor cut in between them, unable to keep the tension out of his voice. ‘Listen!’

They fell silent. For a moment, nothing happened; then, from beyond the rustle of trees and grasses, a scream came in patches, torn by the wind —

‘You will — will pay for the death — I shall make — the death of the — you will not —’

Even at this distance, the Emperor recognized the voice.

Without thinking he rushed forward, only to be pulled back by Arenn and Erren both.

‘Don’t!’ Arenn screeched into his ear, so loud he recoiled. Erren beat his wings at her —

‘Quiet, won’t you! I don’t need them all to run here, we have enough —’

‘It’s her,’ the Emperor gasped, trying to wriggle out of their hold. ‘Rann. I have to save her.’

‘Too dangerous,’ Arenn snapped. ‘I told you —’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Erren said on his other side, soothing. ‘See? My lady’s flying away. She needs none of us, not she.’

Yet the Emperor was nowhere as certain. He stared into the sky so intently his head hurt, watching the shadows move across the now-purple sky, where the towers of his palace stood no longer; and with each moment as he watched he grew more convinced that somehow, for some reason, Rann was not flying away at all, but instead trying to dart down — to hurt the creatures. What had she been saying? What was it that she’d screamed at them —

‘You will pay for the death of the Emperor!’

Arenn and Erren both flinched as it carried loud and clear, and the Emperor used their surprise to at last push them off.

He shot up into the sky fast as a falcon, leaving them behind, shaking the crumbly earth off his feathers as he flew. Up, up and forward — across the stretch of meadow which seemed so meager from the air — to Rann, who must have thought he’d been in the palace and burnt with it; to Rann, who had to be shown the truth and taken away from there right away, before worse happened.

‘Rann!’ he yelled, but the wind threw the words back into his throat. ‘Rann! I’m here, they didn’t — Rann…’

The two creatures below seemed sluggish, and made their shots nowhere near as often as those who had fought in the courtyard. Perhaps they were wounded, or simply tired easily. Still, it took effort to keep an eye on them and evade their attacks. The Emperor let the lights fly left and right of him, too close for comfort, yet he had no time to weave properly. He had to reach her.

Rann was dipping and rising below him, and he knew from the way she moved that she had not heard, had not seen him yet; and his disguise would make him less visible in this light and smoke — but not so much that she could not see him if only she would look up —

‘Majesty!’

One of Rann’s soldiers, the few who were with her, saw him and shot forward to intercept, trying to fall into a bow in mid-air; but the Emperor only flapped at him to get back, to save the Empress.

‘Rann!’ he screamed again, trying to be heard over the wind. She was so close now that he was sure she had to hear. Jumping away from shots, he saw with horror one of the soldiers being struck. But that body falling past her at last made Rann look up.

There was such fatigue in her eyes, and such sadness as he never knew her capable of; yet as she saw him her face lit up —

‘I’m alive!’ he shouted to her. ‘Come away, leave —’

She never knew she had been hit; he saw in her eyes she did not. He watched it as if slowed down, dreamlike and eerie — the wide red shaft of light hitting her in the chest, her stare becoming instantly emptied, as if it took only a moment to extinguish a life. He saw her body turn around a little before she lost flight and dropped down, down and gone into the smoke and shadows — gone forever.

As the Emperor watched her fall, he saw them staring back at him — the invaders, the murderers, with their great eyes shining like ice.

He had never known such rage. Perhaps it was Rann’s parting gift — perhaps finally, dying, she had with her last breath given him the strength he’d never had, the fury he’d never understood.

He had never before been so agile, so rapid; but now he darted between the red beams as if inspired, seeing his path downward as clearly as if it was a thread tugging him, binding him to his targets, making him one with their thoughts. He foresaw their movements and outsmarted them, he swooped at their heads and slashed with his talons, cutting through whatever was underneath. Dimly he understood that Rann’s soldiers had joined him, but his vision was red, and none of it mattered. When the creatures reached for him with their long arms, he feinted and made them grab at each other fruitlessly instead, while the soldiers came at them. He weaved his way between their legs and made them stumble, then fell on them again from above to peck, and cut, and scream into their faces —

But they were not screaming back, and that was odd. Something about their silence made him suspicious, and he looked up just in time to see one more being, galloping towards the fight, raising its weapon.

Perhaps it was always meant to be this way — for him to die here, by the walls of his broken home; perhaps his entire life’s purpose was to kill those who killed her, to blind those eyes and see the blood gush, to destroy and be destroyed, and thus pay for what he had done wrong.

The Emperor looked into the barrel as the light came, the world around him once again decelerating as if ready to fade out.

Then there was — heat; and then, nothing.