My mother's chambers overlook the gardens, so it makes the most sense for me to come from east of the palace. The trick is finding a deserted enough street to take to the sky unseen. Even in a city full of wizards, flight isn't common. In my years living in the capital, I only saw armored Ironborn soldiers patrolling through the air a few times, when some major danger was reported and they were hunting it down. As far as I know, those kinds of spells are either extremely difficult or their use is strictly regulated. For me, flying has nothing to do with incantations and carefully measured components. I've got the heart of a sun dragon trying to burst out of my human skin. It is easier to fly nowadays than to keep my feet firmly on the ground.

In the northeastern corner of the city, where the walls surrounding the palace meet the even taller city walls, it is eerily quiet. The houses here are more like wooden sheds, ramshackle and stacked lopsidedly against the outer walls. Apprentice craftsmen or simple laborers sleep huddled inside the cramped quarters, lucky if they have a straw mattress of their very own. It would be too dangerous to have fires lit in stoveless dwellings such as those, so they'd probably wake up early to go to one of the workers' kitchens, where for a copper coin or two they could buy basic meals of rat-meat stew or boiled grain. My mother took me to one such place when I was young, to show me a glimpse at the life of the common people, who she thought would one day be my subjects. She wanted me to understand them better than my father did. To be able to see the world through their eyes.

The closest guard outpost to this corner of the city is by the forest gates, a couple blocks west along the palace wall. If I'm careful, and stay low, they won't see me fly up and over the wall, and I can use the forest beyond as cover in case someone in the city happens to be looking too closely up at the night sky.

What are you waiting for? Balsevor asks, clearly bored with my cautious surveillance of the surrounding streets. Let's just go already. Don't you want to see this mother of yours.

Part of me isn't sure, I realize. I'm full of nervous energy, muscles tensed and body restless. This is not how I wanted a reunion with my mother to be. I'm terrified of what I'll find when I finally reach her bedside. But if I don't go, and I never get the chance to see her again, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I bounce on the balls of my feet a few times, building courage, then on one particular jump I stay suspended in the air. I keep close to the wall as I launch quickly over it and soar into the thick canopy of the forest. I cannot see in the dark, but my eyes have adjusted enough to make out shadowy shapes of the trees around me, and I carefully navigate through them.

Balsevor dislikes the dark, which I've always found amusing. You'd think a powerful dragon would have superior vision than a human, but, as he loves to remind me, he is from the sun, and when its light is hidden behind our rotating planet, it unsettles him. As a creature born in an environment of searing plasma, he had no biological reason to adapt to such a cold and dark place. Regardless of his reasoning, it is comical for an ancient magical being to whine for the comfort of firelight in the middle of the night.

Careful! Balsevor grumbles as I get momentarily snagged on a thin and pointy branch.

"Oh, be quiet," I say under my breath. But I pull my long coat more tightly against my body, holding it there as we fly.

We head north for a while, past the sloping farmland nestled on the palace grounds. I judge the distance as best I can by memory, but what I forget is the crater. I slow down as the trees begin to thin out around me, flying lower so I can make out the small shapes of new growth dotting the area, like men standing huddled for warmth. And then they disappear, too, and there's just a deep black stain in the earth below me. Balsevor's grave. Not as huge and all-consuming as I recalled, but still a vast hole where forest used to be. I keep my eyes on it as we soar over, looking for some sign of the dragon's remains, a hint of glowing embers, a giant jutting bone. But there's nothing. Just darkness.

I'm not down there, Balsevor says, his tone reserved. I'm here, with you.

I veer left, cutting towards the palace gardens, but when we reach the edge of the treeline I realize I got distracted and overshot a bit. We are past the bulk of the eastern gardens, closer to the back of the palace, where rocky hills quickly rise into a steep cliffside. There will be patrols in the gardens, as they loop around the palace perimeter about every ten minutes. I will have to be very careful. I begin to descend, so it will be easier to take cover behind a hedge or decorative fountain if necessary.

No, don't land here! Balsevor protests. Just go for it! We're so close, and I'm tired of all this sneaking.

Usually, I would ignore him, but this time I don't. He's right. My mother's chambers are right there. I can see her windows, softly glowing from a fire lit within. And I see no sign of movement on the grounds below to indicate a watchful guard. With a burst of speed, I rush through the air and land as lightly as I can on the edge of her balcony.

With my back against the outside wall, I slink towards the window and turn my head to peek inside without being seen. There is my father, sitting on the far side of my mother's bed. He looks tired, older. His beard is flecked with gray. But there is something optimistic in the way he gazes at my mother's form, nestled in layers of blankets. A tall robed figure walks into view and puts a hand on my father's shoulder. I can just make out the tapered end of his long beard, and the edge of the staff he holds in hand.

"Your highness," Rogemere says, "how is she?"

My father glances up at the wizard. He takes a moment to speak, and when he does, his deep voice sounds hollow, detached. "She seems more… at rest," he says finally.

"The seizures have stopped?" Rogemere says, and something in my chest clenches. "That is good. I sent the pneumatists away this evening, to get some rest of their own, but I am glad to hear that their efforts have eased her suffering. Trust me, my king, we are doing all we can for your dear queen."

Is he? He sounds sincere. My mother had always trusted him, had faith in the Ironborn. But Cassian and Balsevor have placed seeds of doubt in my mind, and now I question the wizard's soothing drawl. He is putting my father at ease, but is it a lie? Is he simply manipulating the king for his own gain? I remember the way he assured them I must be locked away, for my own safety and the protection of Ylvemore. They hadn't questioned him, or tried to come to me. They'd let the Ironborn soldiers pull me, soot-stained and grieving, to a prison in the sky, even as I pleaded and called for them. For my mother. She had turned away.

"I know," my father says, nodding slowly. "You are my last hope, Rogemere. I don't know what I shall do if I lose her, too."

"Do not despair yet, old friend," Rogemere says. "She seems at peace for the moment. Why don't we take a stroll? You could use a bit of air, perhaps."

My father nods again, rising shakily to his feet. When had the king become so compliant and frail? I notice how much thinner he is, the way his clothes seem to hang off of him. He stands there for a moment, hands the back of the chair for support.

"Lean on me, if you'd like, sire," Rogemere offers.

They walk out of the room, my father's hand on Rogemere's arm.

I wait, unmoving, each second seeming to stretch out longer than the last. I want to be sure no one is in the room with my mother before I enter her bedchamber.

Are we going to burn down the door? Balsevor asks.

I roll my eyes and turn the door handle. It opens easily. There are walls and guards to protect the palace from intruders. When I was young, my father brought in a locksmith to secure the balcony door off of my chambers, but that was because he wanted to keep me from sneaking out, not to keep danger from coming in.

Oh. Baslevor sighs with disappointment, and I smirk.

When I reach my mother's bedside, I find my knees buckling of their own accord. "Mother!" I say, quiet, but desperate. She doesn't stir. "No… Please, no."

She is utterly still, though I notice with relief a slight rise and fall of breath. Her eyes are sunken and cheekbones jutting sharply, creating deep shadows in her deathly pale face. Gaunt. Skeletal. If it wasn't for the graceful arch of her features, the long dark hair brushed to gleaming and splayed against her pillow, I'd hardly recognize her. I repeat my plea, praying for some sign that she can hear me, that she's still here with me, but she sleeps on. I reach for her hand beneath the blankets and find her bony fingers shockingly cold. Her skin feels like thin parchment, too delicate to touch. But I still grasp her hand tightly in mine, burning heat against her icy chill.

She's… empty, Balsevor says.

My breath hisses in through my teeth, my eyes clouding over as if from physical pain. No. It can't be too late. No. I slump against the side of her bed, pressing her hand against my cheek. It's hard to smell the scent of her in a room full of pungently sweet floral arrangements and the lingering smoke of ritual herbs.

Get ahold of yourself, Balsevor snaps. She's not dead. Something's been done to her. Look.

As much as I resent his impatient orders, and as much as it hurts to look at her like this, I push myself up so I can better see her face. I notice right away what I missed at first glance. Her lips are blue. It's not just a trick of the flickering firelight adding a bruised shadow to her already pale skin. They are the deep, vivid hue of Balsevor's eyes. A fiery sort of blue. Unnatural. Magical. And I've seen that same color on the lips of someone else, once before.

The memory hits me all at once. Young Vessimira in her shimmering blue dress, showing off a spell in the palace library. Rogemere, looming above his daughter as he scolded her. I was glued to my chair, overwhelmed with horror at everything I was seeing, the dead guards twitching on the ground around us. I didn't stand up or speak against him when Enna struggled to breathe in Rogemere's grasp, when he tortured her into revealing her true self, only to kill her when she finally complied. I did nothing. And I did nothing when his wrath turned on his disobedient daughter, his staff shining with red light, Vessimira squealing and twisting in her seat, begging him to stop. He drew something out of her, something silky-white and glowing. And when she stopped squirming and grew still, before he finished whatever terrible spell he was casting and gave her back some toxic, changed version of what he'd taken away, I'd thought she was dead. She'd looked so limp and empty. In that moment, before the crackling smoky substance entered back into her body and it lurched back to life, her lips were brilliant blue.

"Rogemere," I whispered, staring at the same shade of blue, so bright against my mother's white skin. I felt a small bud of hope begin to grow inside of me. This could be undone. I'd seen it. I stand, filled with a sudden feverish energy. "I'll get the staff. I'll reverse whatever curse she's under, or make him do it for me."

Her power has been drained out of her, Balsevor says. But we don't know if it was the wizard, or if he used that staff of his. As much as I'd love a direct confrontation with that pompous Ironborn, you have to consider that it may be the trap Cassian warned of. You made an oath to him.

I clench my hands into fists. "I don't know how much time she has left. I can't just do nothing and watch her die. If he did this to her, I will do whatever it takes to undo it. I'll burn his whole University down if I have to."

There might be another way, Balsevor says. But I don't know if… He trails off, then starts again. We have enough life to spare, and could share with her. But our magic burns. It might save her, or…

"How?" I ask, kneeling by her side once more. I am buzzing with this strange certainty. I made it in time. I can do this. I know, somehow, that I'm meant to give her a part of this roaring fire inside of me. That this power I've been given is all for a reason, and that reason is her. None of it matters if I can't save her. "Tell me what to do."

You want to draw your power up and focus it into a steady stream, he says. It's not something I've ever done. But you want to give her pure life force, raw, not… fire. He sort of clears his throat. Magic in its truest form is simply… life. Chaos. Energy. But our magic is filtered through… me. It is me. My heart. To give it to her, you'd have to… sift out the sun.

"Oh." I can't tell if my hands are trembling from the hopeful rush of adrenaline or from my quickly building fear. What if I fail? What if instead of healing her, I turn her to ash? My heart is beating wildly in my chest.

Balsevor sighs. This kind of thing is not my area of expertise. I'm sorry, Owl.

I don't remember the last time I'd heard him apologize, or refer to me by name. I'd often felt that he was a sort of unwilling passenger, trapped with me, resentful of his ties to humanity, irritated by my petty worries and whims. Yet, right now, he sounds… sad. Genuinely sentimental, regretful even.

"We have to try," I say.

I close my eyes, slow my breathing. The fire is there inside of me, easily reachable, roaring wildly. With concentration, I pull strands of power together, weaving it into a controlled sphere within my core. With each breath in, I tighten the flaming edges of the sphere, and as I breathe out, I try to sift out some of the flickering heat. This part is hard. It doesn't want to happen. I draw on that memory of the wispy white substance Rogemere sucked out of Vessimira. Pure life force. Her mana. But after many minutes of slow exhalations, my power is still vividly colored and searingly hot, not misty and pale.

I grow impatient. This has to work. Why else would I have this stupid magic? To burn and destroy? I've never wanted anything as much as I want my mother to open her eyes and smile at me right now. And I've never felt more powerless.

Keeping my eyes closed, I bring my hands in front of my chest, inches apart, as though I'm about to clasp them together. One more deep breath in. Then, as I begin to slowly let it out, I push that sphere of power slowly out of my palms. I can feel it, nestled warmly in my hands, giving off little sparks of energy that tickle against my skin.

Owl. Careful, Balsevor says.

I keep pushing. I can feel it growing. It has to be stronger. Enough to bring the life back into my mother's cold, still body. To give her back that rosy glow, that effervescent light she always had. She always used to have her own sort of magic, a soft ray of sunshine, a tinkling song, a burble of laughter. I can give that fire back to her. I have to.

Owl! Balsevor says.

My eyes snap open. Fire swirls and crackles between my outstretched hands, licking outwards hungrily. My arms are aflame, and if not for the charms I'd had placed on my garments, my sleeves would have already burned away. My mother's blankets are not so protected. I jump up and backwards as they are just about to catch. Cursing aloud, I will the fire to shrink away, but it doesn't want to. It spreads across my body instead, fighting to stay alive.

I've lost control, and, with my emotions in turmoil, I realize I only have one choice. If I stay, I'll light the whole room on fire. My mother's bed will become her funeral pyre. I leap backwards, lifting into flight and using the momentum to hurl myself, spinning, through one of the balcony windows. Glass shattering around me, I soar into the sky. Leaving her, once again, with a burst of destruction in my wake.