Calyx materialized out of thin air, four feet up, in a burst of golden light. Instinctively reactive, she somersaulted down to ground and landed lightly on her bare feet. Her breath came hard and fast, her skin glowed with an unearthly illumination. She looked about, and her gaze was alive with unspeakable power behind her slim spectacles as she tried to gauge what had happened.

A silent roaring hauled at her consciousness; the call of world-magic keened to her soul, hazing her mind. It had been so long – so long!

She shook her head, almost dislodging her glasses, and tried to settle her thoughts.

She’d followed Jordan, found her in the woods… They’d been at the mouth of the portal…

Oh, dear God.

Her heart stopped. She spun around, swinging her head this way and that, seeking the girl. But the darkness around her was thick and quiet, and she realised that she was unquestionably alone. The girl was gone, lost to the Betwixt… Without magic to guide her, she knew Jordan would never make it through.

With a stricken howl of rage and grief, she buried her face in her hands. In doing so, she knocked the spectacles askew, and, at last, reached up to tear them away. With grim gratification, she hurled them away into the darkness. Her mouth hardened, and she reached up to pull free the remnants of her stern bun in one smooth movement. With a flourish of her agitated fingers, she immersed herself in a swathe of bright smoke.

When the haze cleared, the vulnerable businesswoman façade was gone, and Calyx Dur’Losarl, Lat’Nemele of Andoherra once more, stepped back into her own skin. Her mane of golden hair fell wild and free, framing her haughty face. Her eyes glowed brighter than ever before as she breathed in the magic around her, and she rolled her shoulders to shake off the constrictive remnants of masquerading as ordinary for so long. But her fine-featured face remained contorted, and she let her desolate fury loose around her in a rippling flash of magic.

“God bloody dammit!” she cried, clawing her fingers, igniting a flaming ball of liquid light in each hand.

With forceful ire, she flung the crackling spheres at the nearest tree, obliterating it. Yet the ease of its destruction only irked her more, and with a savage flick of her fingers, she tore the earth upward into a giant, shivering wall of sand and stone. Reigniting her fury, she battered her makeshift target with fireballs, cursing vehemently with every plume of unleashed flame.

“Twenty – bloody – years…!”

She punctuated her tirade with gouts of fire.

“Slithering in the shadows! Living without my magic!”

A boulder in the wall exploded into shrapnel.

“And for bloody what?”

She hurled a lightning bolt, to emphasise her point.

The remnants of the wall came tumbling down, bombarding the surroundings with a deluge of soil and pebbles. She paused, breathing hard, and then sat down with a groan. The electric fire crackling at her fingertips abated.

“Oh! Excellent work, Calyx!” She hung her head in her hands. “Two Queens – two! You had one job, and you screwed it up – twice!”

Biting at her lip as she ran out of steam, she raised her hands slowly in front of her and stared at them as if seeing them for the first time.

“All the magic in the world…” she whispered, flexing her fingers. A soft tear escaped her long lashes, trailing down her porcelain cheek. “And I couldn’t save either of you…”

Her sacred duty was to stand as the Guardian of the World Queen. It was the Oath she had sworn to Asbeth Bal’Talanor, on the day the Worldkin had Ascended.

The Oath she had failed to uphold...

“Asbeth?” Calyx burst into the room, heart thundering. “Asbeth!”

There was no trace of magic in the air. The room was quiet, still as death but for the fire crackling in the hearth, which shed a sickly orange light across the couches that flanked it. Over the top of the high wing-back chair that had its rear to the door, Calyx caught sight of Asbeth’s vibrant lavender head, unmoving and lolled to one side.

“No, no, no…” Calyx’s whisper carried haltingly across the still room, and in its wake, she forced herself to approach.

Rounding the chair, she came face to face with true horror. Her lifelong friend, dead; her heart viciously carved out, white dress soaked through with silver blood. Asbeth’s left hand still clutched at the gaping hole in her chest, as if she could have stymied death’s flow. Oddly, her eyes had been pushed closed. Calyx shut her own, feeling faint, and swallowed bile at the very idea of a murderer pausing to shutter the dead Queen’s gaze.

She forced herself to look once more upon the atrocity of the felled royal, and her sight wavered through threatening tears. Beyond the blood, the skewed coronet, and the loss of Royalty, she saw the woman – her friend; a kind, thoughtful soul whose time had run out far too soon. With a stifled gasp, Calyx threw herself across Asbeth’s body, clutching at her lifeless form. Sobs crippled her with an intensity she’d never known.

“Oh Asbeth, Asbeth! Dear Malevelyn – why? Oh, Asbeth, I’m sorry, gods I’m sorry!”

Her chest heaved and she struggled to draw breath beneath her tide of tears. Time passed in a long eternity, but at last, her sobs slowed. Weak, she sat back, smearing her tears away, and pressed her hand to Asbeth’s cheek. The Queen’s skin had not yet lost all of life’s warmth – she’d not been gone long from the world.

That meant…

Calyx leapt to her feet with a cry, ashamed that the thought had taken so long to materialize.

The Heir! Her mind raced – the babe was the next logical victim for a murderer who had attacked the Queen. And with Asbeth so lately gone, there was a small chance that they had yet not reached the child.

Abashed, resolute, she looked down upon the fallen Queen and knew what her final command would be, had she been able to utter it.

“I will protect her, Asbeth,” Calyx whispered, “If it takes me to my last breath.”

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to the pale skin of her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain of goodbye. Heart aching, she stepped back.

Knowing that time was essential, she spared no ceremony for the laws of porting in the palace. She tore her magic around her and vanished from the room.

A heartbeat later, she arrived crib-side to the sleeping Heir. She shed silent tears of relief, sparing a strained, sad smile for the tiny babe who had no idea she’d lost her mother. Gently, she reached in and lifted the slumbering child, not quite in her second year. With soft fingers, she wrapped her in the swaddling that lay nearby. The baby’s nose twitched, and one chubby hand stretched out, but she did not wake. With a small sigh, she snuggled into the sheepskin wrap as Calyx bundled her into a sling against her hip.

The Lat’Nemele paused, considering.

She could not find and fight an unknown murderer without compromising the child. The thrill of the hunt had already cost her dearly, luring her away from Asbeth, and she dared not indulge her full power again. She knew the babe was in grave danger, and she realised that she had to be smart to keep her alive. She sighed. For the first time in her life, patience and restraint appeared warranted – Asbeth might have found that amusing. She tapped at her lip, wondering what the best course of action would be when sheer magical force was of no use to her.

An idea leapt upon her, and, with a twitch of her skirts, she ported away at a blistering pace, down five floors to the ground-level kitchens. There, in a small back room, she sought out a young scullery maid. The girl did not notice her at first, wiping at her running nose as she kneaded bread. Calyx flicked her cloak around to hide the sleeping Heir and approached with rapid strides, condensing the air around them with a wave of her free hand to keep others out – and their conversation in.

“Ho there, girl.”

“Mistress!” The young woman, no older than fifteen, fell to her knees and grovelled.

“Rise, child,” Calyx commanded. She ground her teeth, trying to remain patient, reached for the girl’s shoulder to hasten her movements. “I wish to know, how fares your babe?”

“She cries much, Mistress,” the girl sniffed, getting to her feet, bowing her head. “T’healer says she not likely to grown old. But I thankin’ you, for sending me t’her.”

Calyx frowned, saddened, and yet darkly relieved. She was no stranger to the knowledge that many of the lower classes of humankind struggled with ill health and poverty. It had been something Asbeth had been trying to rectify for years – she’d given aid, lowered taxes, and yet, nothing ever seemed to be enough... Knowing the Queen’s stance on such things, Calyx wondered if Asbeth would ever forgive her for the questionable morality of what she was about to do.

She steeled herself with the decision that she must act – with any means available – to save the future of them all. And she had to do it now.

“The babe is with you?” she said, trying to curb her haste and maintain her demeanour. She needed to handle this delicately, yet she felt the pitiless claws of time tapping, tapping.

“Aye, Mistress.”

The girl wiped her grimy hands on her dull skirts, reached down to pull a wicker basket out from under the counter she was working atop. She uplifted the child, and Calyx stared down at the tiny creature. The babe’s upper lip was wet with mucus and her breathing rasped through her tiny lungs. Watching her struggle, Calyx’s heart felt as though something was trying to force its way through from the inside out.

“What is her name?” she bit out.

“Mistress?”

“Her name, girl,” she repeated through gritted teeth, “I wish to know her name.”

“She be called Aggie, Mistress.”

“Aggie,” Calyx breathed, her gaze softening on the child’s innocent face. But she tore her eyes away, crushing the first hint of compassion before it could mature.

Steeling herself, she held out her hand and summoned two large coins from her purse.

“A trade,” she said, holding them out to the wide-eyed girl, “For the babe.”

The scullery maid put the child back in the wicker basket and wiped at her weeping nose, trying to make out what the Lat’Nemele required her to do. “You – you wish t’ buy her, Mistress?”

“Indeed. But be warned, you shall not see her again. Not ever.”

The maid looked down at the sickly, sleeping child, and her cheeks glistened with tears. But her fidgeting gaze flickered away again, and she eyed the two fat coins like a hen considering a grub.

“T’healer…” she sniffed, hesitant, “T’healer says she not likely to grown old…”

“I am guaranteeing that she will not,” Calyx said shortly, her face hard, emotionless.

The girl bit at her cheek, sucking at it hard. Quickly, she averted her gaze and held out her hand. In the same instant, Calyx dropped the coins into her grubby palm. The girl gathered her skirts with a sob and ran from the room faster than a Witchkin could teleport.

Calyx sighed. She shifted the sleeping Heir in the carry-sling against her hip and reached down to pick up the other tiny babe. Holding her close, she ported back to the nursery.

She breathed a hesitant sigh of relief to find it still undisturbed and quickly set about her business.

As she laid Aggie down in the Heir’s crib, tears streamed freely down her cheeks. She did not try to hold them back; she shed every last one that she had. In silence, she offered a prayer to Malevelyn, that she might come forth to claim her tiny soul, that the event might be quick and painless, with the child unaware.

The Heir shifted against her hip, gurgling, a reminder that time was short. Calyx reached in and wiped Aggie’s button nose, then leaned down and pressed a feverish kiss to her soft brow. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain in her heart, and the babe sniffled, her breathing faint and shallow.

“Unsung Aggie,” Calyx whispered, “The Queens of Andoherra thank you. One day, I will make you known as the hero who saved the realms. I will not forget. Safe travels and rest easy, little sister.”

Before she could change her mind, she stepped back from the crib.

“Andoherra cannot survive without its Queen,” she reminded herself, “Andoherra cannot survive without its Queen. The world only exists by the blood of the Bal’Talanor line. You know that. You’ve seen it. They must think the Heir is slain, that she might have time to grow into her power and return to claim the Throne.”

She took quick advantage of her self-assurance, swept the room for the most necessary childcare items, and stood ready to flee with the Heir. With one last look at the tiny hero in the heavy crib, she pulled her magic across her shoulders and vanished from the room.

She did not worry that the ruse might not work – the two babies were young enough to be similar in appearance, and only one who knew them well might tell them apart. There was also no cause for anyone to suspect a trick – the babe was in the Heir’s crib, in the Heir’s nursery… There was no reason why she should not be the Heir.

The secret was Calyx’s alone.

As was the burden of Aggie – which she would carry all her life.