The pain that had been so terrible moments before was infinitely worse. It was mind-rending and hungry. So, very, very hungry.

My hands wrapped around the column, nails breaking as I dug my hands into the stone to keep myself upright. I bit my lip, willing myself to silence, swallowing back my screams. The iron taste of my own blood flowed across my tongue. Wet warmth dripped down my chin. Everything melted away. Aphaea, Elysa, the Emperor, my very self, forgotten in the searing agony. But I fought. Fought against the pain and the smothering darkness. A glimmer, just the faintest of embers, burned deep down within me. I clawed and thrashed and fought to drudge it to the surface, to pull it free of the Ether, and the pain drew back. It recoiled from the light.

I breathed and through the veils of my tears, through the wavering light and darkening shadows, I watched Elysa and realized it was not my sister who stood at the altar. It was the Crone wearing Elysa’s skin.

Black magic, its oily shimmer clear even in the darkness, crawled from her hands and spilled from her mouth like a fountain of tar. The darkness dripped down, over Elysa’s body, crawling to reach Aphaea’s prone form. It wrapped itself around her as a spider cocoons its prey. And then, it fed.

The magic rose and fell. Like some horrid, unnatural infant, it suckled. It drained Aphaea of life and of magic. Before my eyes, her lips drew back from her teeth in a mummy’s smile. Her eyes sunk into her skull, the beautiful brown orbs going milky white. Her skin thinned and stretched over her bones, cracking here and there like brittle parchment.

But as Aphaea faded, Elysa glowed.

Like the face of Selene’s full moon, Elysa’s skin shone with a silvery radiance. Blood red lips parted. In the intoxication of feeding, a low moan escaped her throat. Elysa, the plain, least-loved Korai, was transformed.

A dark goddess, her beauty as terrible as her power, stood before her altar.

Aphaea let out one final pained sigh, then stilled. The flow of blood from her slashed wrists slowed to a trickle.

Sated, the oily darkness retreated, slithering across withered flesh, over Aphaea’s still rounded belly, and across blood-stained stone until it reached its dark mistress. When it touched Elysa’s silvered fingertips, it vanished.

Elysa shivered. Delicately, she wiped at her mouth, as if some trace of her bloody feast lingered there.

I don’t know how long I stood there, bloodied and torn nails digging into the stone column, but finally, the Emperor approached the altar and offered my sister his arm. She took it and, together, the dark Korai and the Emperor led the faithful from the chamber in a lurid mockery of the bright parade of Nemoralia.

The malevolent shadows followed their mistress. When the last of that terrible presence was gone, all of Elysa’s followers gone with it, my numb, trembling legs carried me to the altar. To the ruined body that lay there.

I stepped over the recessed moons carved into the stone floor, Aphaea’s blood still pooled there, and forced myself to swallow the sickness rising in me.

Her arms were still tied, spread wide in some grim echo of prayer. Milky eyes stared unseeing into the dark shadows of the undercroft.

Hot tears rolled down my cheeks. I laid a shaky hand between my friend’s breasts, still swollen in preparation to feed the little one within her, despite the withered skin that now covered them. The faintest thump thud of slow, dying heartbeats reverberated beneath my palm.

I stumbled back, shock and horror and hope warring within me. Aphaea… she was still alive.

“P . . . pleassse . . .” The whisper was so faint I thought I imagined it. “Aurora . . . pleassse . . .”

My eyes shot to her face. Her head had turned toward me, blonde hair that was still perfect drifted across her brow. Unseeing eyes searched for me. “I’m here, Aphaea. I’m here with you.”

“I . . . feel you . . . M . . . my . . . baby.”

My power was still weak. And after the onslaught of the Crone’s magic . . . I felt for my light and came up nearly empty. Though I could sense the coming dawn, Eos’ light was still too far off to aid me. Even so, I had to try.

I willed my heart to calm and closed what little space there was between us. I laid both my hands on her body, already as cold as a corpse, and another sob wracked my body.

Warmth flickered faintly at my fingertips, struggling to life, and I sent what I could beneath her skin, searching for any sign that her child still lived.

Aphaea’s blood was all but drained, most of her organs dead already or dying. It was a miracle that she still lived, the force of her will and love for her child alone that kept her heart from failing.

My magic ran through her, frantically searching for the flutter of hummingbird wings, for the quick little heartbeat of new life. Then . . . there. Faint but there.

The swollen belly . . . A weak kick bulged her mother’s skin as the baby sensed me.

My eyes flicked between that movement and Aphaea’s face. Her breath came in and out in a ragged rattle as her lungs fought to keep breathing. She didn’t have long. Minutes, perhaps. Seconds, more likely.

“The baby lives,” I said past the emotion tightening my throat. “But to save her the pain will be great. I don’t have enough strength to keep you from feeling it.”

Past the point of the speech, she sighed. The sound was one of heavy relief. Her baby still lived. She had clung to life with that thin hope. And now her soul prepared to let go of its flesh, the last of her extraordinary strength spent.

I had to act fast or that impossible act would be in vain.

I searched the space around me, looking for something, anything to aid me. Elysa’s cloak was at my feet, there were the sconces . . . perhaps I could fashion something?

But there, beneath Aphaea’s curtain of hair, silver flashed.

The dagger.

I took it by its hilt, hand curling around the screaming face of the Crone that was carved there. Blood still dripped from his sharp edge.

Then I did something I’d never done before; I prayed for my mother to guide me.

Right hand holding the dagger, the left traveled low across Aphaea’s belly, searching for the right place to cut. But I paused, blade poised over her skin. Cutting a low, horizontal line would take longer and the incision would be smaller, vital if there was a chance for the mother to survive, but there wasn’t. Without another thought, without another heartbeat of hesitation, I cut her from navel to pubic bone. The flesh parted with barely a trickle of blood. I pushed the blade through layers of muscle, carefully cutting as quickly as I dared until the pink, tightly stretched flesh of her womb came into view.

Sweat dripped down my neck. This was a procedure I’d rarely performed, my light usually enough to guide a baby to a healthy birth. If I cut too deep . . . That little hummingbird heart sped in distress as Aphaea’s own heartbeat slowed further.

One final draw of the blade split the womb and I reached within, feeling hot fluids, then the warm vitality of living flesh in my hand.

I drew the infant from her mother’s womb.

Supple skin, unmarred by the dagger or Elysa’s dark magic, met air for the first time. I held the tiny body in my arms. A girl, as I knew she would be. As I was now so relieved that I’d told Aphaea she was. She was covered in a thin layer of blood and mucus. I wiped her face with the folds of Parthenia’s cloak and cleared her mouth and nose.

But the little girl did not draw her first breath.

No healthy cry sounded. I examined her face, quickly, closely. Her lips held a bluish tint in the dim light. So gently, I forced her lips apart and, with infinite care, blew into her tiny airways. Still, she did not breathe.

One final, rattling breath from Aphaea. Her chest stilled.

I looked from her dead mother to the tiny, helpless life in my arms. “Not you too . . .Please, gods, not you too. Breathe, little one. Breathe.”

But her limbs were limp, her hands and feet cold. The shadows that had retreated with Elysa again stirred, sensing the struggling, flickering flare of life in my arms. The same wraiths of darkness that had pulled at me in the hall creep closer. I could feel their malice—their hunger.

I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks, landing on the baby. Mother, guide me, I prayed as I dove deep within myself, to the deep, deep place where my magic lived and gathered what little light I found there. I willed it to run through me—willed my hands, suddenly warm with the tiny drop of power left to me, to keep the child here. To bring breath and life to her little body.

My hands heated. My light flared brighter and the shadows paused, fear of my glowing magic keeping them at bay. But still, the baby did not move. Still, she did not breathe.

Blood ran hot from my nose and my knees quaked. The shadows sensed me weakening—knew that soon my power would fail me. If they were patient, there would be two morsels to devour.

But not yet. Not now.

I tunneled down once more to the heart of my magic but all I found was a vast emptiness—a barren plain spreading as far as I could see.

A dark, oily tendril wrapped around my arm. “No!” I gasped, yanking out of its grip. My entire body curled around the fragile, fading life I held.

The shadow retreated only to thicken. Swirling like a gathering storm, it readied to strike.

I had only seconds to save the child, to force her body to breathe before the damage would be impossible for me to fix. I thought of Aphaea, of how she had clung to life when her body was past the point of living. How she had been willing to suffer a terribly painful death to save this child. This precious little one dying in my arms.

The shadow struck. Oily darkness grabbed for the baby girl.

And I exploded.

Magic flared. That empty, endless plain within me cracked like a thin layer of ice over a winter lake and I fell through. Fell, not into the cold death of the Crone’s mad darkness, but into a bottomless sea of warmth and light and life.

Dawn’s light—my light—rose. My entire body was aglow with wave after wave of incandescent heat. My power swept through the undercroft in a mighty swell that obliterated the lingering wraiths of shadow.

And as that power, so much more than I’d ever known was within me, radiated from my body, I knew with a Korai’s certainty, the truth. I’d been manipulated, chained, hidden away by a lie that Doria had woven my whole life. A lie that was carefully maintained and never spoken. I was strong. Stronger than I’d ever dreamed. Strong enough that Doria should fear me, should my power ever be loosed upon them.

And fear me they would. For Leda, for Soren, for Aphaea, and her daughter. For Aidon. For the slaves sacrificed for the Emperor’s whims, and for me.

So, I burned with my healing light, with the true strength of my own flame, so long hidden. I burned with the hurt and betrayal of Elysa, Varian, and the priestesses who’d kept me chained. And as I let my power roil through me, overwhelmed by the strength of my hurt, a sound sweeter than any music brought me back to myself.

A baby’s healthy cry.