The Queen clawed at her own feathers and ripped them out until her robes were flecked with blood. She did not care who saw her. This physical pain was nothing compared to the grief within.

And of her future… What future?

Ryke av’Ryka had given everything, everything to her people, and had lost the one thing she claimed for herself.

Her falcyr formed a tight ring around her, trying to shield her from view, but Ryke was still aware of the xenos, of every color and shape, gawking at her.

Ryke could not remember the things she screamed then, nor the awful curses she slung at the people, at her own guards. At Eolh.

She remembered, vaguely, that Kirine tried to calm her. That something about the cold touch of the android’s hand made her sob all the harder. She remembered collapsing when she could not breathe, and letting herself be carried away.

She was not alive when she awoke. The Queen was dead, and in her place, Ryke’s body lived on. An empty shell. A life without meaning.

Visitors came, doctors, servants, politicians, a few well wishers.

Ryke spoke to none of them. How could she, when she could not open her own beak? She remembered Talya hand-feeding her from a bowl of tasteless nothing. Talya, gods forever bless her, did not try to talk to her.

In the reasoning parts of her mind, Ryke knew this could not go on forever. She knew, logically, there was a future, and that as the Queen she must play some part in it. But a great weight, more massive than any sun, blotted out that part of her mind. What future? She could see only his face. And listen only to his voice. “Always. And never.”

She stared at the ceiling. Sheets, like chains made of fabric, held her to the bed. The wind stirred the curtains, letting a glimpse of morning light push through. It was blinding. Maybe I can get them to brick up the balcony, so I’ll never have to see the sun again. Or maybe I should just tear out my eyes.

Then, she saw the god.

Khadam looked so much like the statues in Asaiyam’s temple. No. She made the statues look like crude imitations of what a god should be. Lines of worry creased her radiant brow. Strips of metal ran from the corners of her eyes and nostrils, where the god’s subdermal implants lay half buried. Fresh, red marks outlined a few of her implants, already healing.

And when the gods gaze fell upon Ryke, the Queen felt a gasp of air in her lungs. As if she had been holding her breath for weeks.

“I didn’t know him,” Khadam said. “Who was he?”

She wasn’t talking to Ryke, but past her. Ryke turned her beak, and saw that there were others in the half darkness of the room. How long have they been here?

There was Laykis, sitting stiff and straight, her frame glistening with fresh polish. And Agraneia, slouching with her liquid metal prosthetics rippling slightly over her strong shoulders. And there was Horace, and Talya. And even that small reptilian child, with her knees tucked up under her chin and a hollow sadness in her face.

How long have they been talking over me?

“He was a hero,” Horace said proudly. “The greatest of all corvani.”

“He was greater than that,” Laykis said. “Eolh was the Guardian foretold. It is only because of him that Poire—and all of us—yet live.”

“He was my friend,” Agraneia grunted, her metal limbs whispering as she leaned forward.

“He was a liar,” Ryke said, the words leaving before she realized she was even speaking. All heads turned to her. And suddenly, there were tears streaming down the sides of her beak. “And a thief. And now, he…”

A sob rose in her throat, and wracked her whole body, every muscle clenching against each other, sapping the last of her strength as she fell to pieces.

“He’s gone.”

Laykis grabbed Ryke’s hand, and squeezed. And pulled her into an embrace. Her metal shoulder, cold against Ryke’s cheek.

But it was nothing to the frozen emptiness in her heart. Why must the gods be so cruel?

***

The city overflowed, pouring houses and streets into the Upper Wash. New roads were paved down to the ocean, and more threaded into the shallow jungles. New houses, of a kind never seen before on Gaiam, sprouted out of the dirt and sand. And at the very edge of the Wash, Khadam’s hurricane wall towered over everything, like the hollow skeleton of some enormous fence yet to be built. But it was finished. Metal columns pierced the beaches, rising hundreds of feet into the air to slow the oppressive force of any storm that crashed upon this shore.

Along the lower rails, someone had started installing windmills and pulleys for catching the wind, and turning them into energy. Ryke could hear the fans flap-flap-flapping, like the wings of tiny avians.

Thousands of feet squelched in the sand, as all the xenos gathered to send off their love and their prayers for the dead.

The cyrans passed their rites into the seas, and the avians into the wind. Little boats made of reeds drifted by the tens of thousands into the slowly lapping waves, each one holding a guttering flame that made it seem like the stars had fallen from the heavens, only to float on the surface of the water. And above, the avians offered their own prayers in candle balloons linked together in patterned weaves or long chains.

Judging by the colors of the crowds, there were just as many avians as cyrans. The avians wore ceremonial red and black and white. The cyrans, darkest blues and golds. And in between, there were noticeable gaps between her people and the cyrans.

Ryke had no doubt her people were angry that she had given so much effort into rescuing the very people who tried to enslave hers. But that had been the Emperor’s way. Not hers.

She would lead a different monarchy. She would create the world that he deserved. That we deserved.

Kirine, and a few other cyrans who had lived under Ryke’s reign, walked between groups of cyrans and avians. Kirine was urging the cyrans, showing them how to give thanks to the avians in the avian way. Awkward stand-offs ensued, and a few insulting half-gestures, but Kirine was not afraid to cut down his own people. Nor was he afraid to apologize deeply before any slight got out of hand. It would take time. But already, she could seeds the signs of change.

The wind carried a scent that made Gaiam’s nights so close to paradise; it smelled of ocean salt, and of jungle soil rich with life. Though the wind warmed her feathers, it failed to warm her heart.

At the end of the ceremony, Kirine made a show of approaching the Queen. Waiting until he had hundreds of eyes on him. And then, he kneeled before her. Pressing the shining scales of his forehead into the sand.

To her surprise, all the cyrans bowed with him. The old, the young. The survivors and the ones who had lost everything.

Kirine rose, and shouted so that all could hear. “Praise you for saving us, oh, greatest Queen. We do not deserve your mercy.”

Another cyran, wearing the ceremonial garb that marked her as a leader of craft, took up the call. “Praise you for saving us, Queen Ryke av’Ryka. Without you, there would be no Cyre.”

And another, this last representing the nobles, spoke with a dignified air, “Praise be unto you, oh, Queen of Gaiam. We owe you our very lives. Long may you reign.”

Ryke bowed to each in turn. And when she came to Kirine, she offered her hand, helping him to his feet. She raised her own voice, for this was a moment that all her people needed to see. “This mercy was only the first of many,” she said. “Now that you have witnessed how it can be, you will know how it is done. Together, despite all we have lost-” and here, Ryke’s voice trembled. She swallowed hard and regained her composure. “Despite all this, we will thrive like never before. This is not my will. But the will of the gods.”

The cheers rose up around her. A melancholy celebration erupted, sweeping relief cut by a deep sorrow. Ryke smiled, and let the celebrations commence. And disappeared into the crowd, so she could return to the black-feathered grief that so gripped her heart.

As she turned to leave, a voice—sonorous, and perfect, like no xeno ever could be—spoke over Ryke’s shoulder. “The will of the gods?”

Khadam cocked an eyebrow, her unnatural eyes glinting in the dark.

“Divine One,” Ryke bowed deeply. “I didn’t mean to speak for you.”

“No, no,” Khadam said casually. “You were right. It’s what we would have wanted. I just wish… Sometimes, I wish I could believe as you do. That this was all up to some higher power. Who knows? Maybe it is. Maybe all of this is written down in some book somewhere, gathering dust. Waiting to be read by someone who knows exactly what to do with the ideas here.”

“Is there something wrong, Divine One?”

“Poire.”

A knife in Ryke’s gut. She had not forgotten, but these last few days… It had been too much to bear.

Ryke started, “The Savior Divine-”

“Poire needs help,” Khadam said flatly. “There is so much left to be done. Whatever the cost, we must keep him safe.”

“What must I do?” Ryke said, still reeling from the realization that she had forgotten herself so completely. Her responsibilities.

But where am I to find the strength? Why must it be me?

Khadam shook her head, and looked down at her feet. She was barefoot, digging her toes into the sand, and Ryke was surprised to see her implants ran even down into her toenails.

“There is only one thing you can do to help me, Queen Ryke.”

“Yes, Divine One?”

“Pray. Pray that he stays safe until I can reach him.” Khadam kicked her feet out of the sand. “I have much work left to do.”

***

“He told me he was friends with a god,” Agraneia said. She had a deep voice, rough as bark, not at all like the sweet, bubbling tune of a cyran noble.

They sat in the Queen’s boudoir, half empty cups of wine littering the tables. Candles flickering, and a few of the dimmer gaslights hissing quietly. A gentle breeze stole steam from someone’s plate of food, but no one seemed to notice. Even Talya was there, Ryke’s favored white-feathered servant. Ryke had invited her to sit, and after a few token protests, Talya found a spot next to the cyran. Talya thought her quick, furtive glances at Agraneia would go unnoticed…

Agraneia certainly didn’t notice.

The soldier looked so uncomfortable, to be sitting there, surrounded by Eolh and Ryke’s friends. She shifted her chair too politely when Talya sat down, squeezing her limbs (both the real ones, and the ones made of liquid metal) closer to her sides to avoid touching anyone. Tension tightened her shoulders as she hunched forward.

But as Agraneia told her story of Eolh, Ryke saw how much he must have meant to the giant glitterskin soldier. Agraneia’s hard features softened, her eyes grew distant as she spoke about her first meetings with Eolh.

“I heard a lot of mad things, sitting in that jail, but he was the first one to make me laugh at his lunacy.”

“But you believed him?”

“No,” Agraneia grunted. “I gave him the key, so he would leave me alone. But that feathered idiot wouldn’t go until I agreed to go with him.”

Horace interjected. “Our Eolh stuck his neck out for a scaleskin- ah, for a cyran?” Horace looked at Ryke, as if Eolh’s generosity was somehow her fault.

Ryke threw up her hands, proclaiming her innocence.

Talya spoke up, meek and brave at the same time. “You could have left at any moment? Then why did you go with him?”

“When I met him, I was dead. Eolh showed me another way to live.”

Talya cooed appreciatively at that, nodding as if she understood.

“Poire changed him,” Laykis said. She had been so quiet, Ryke almost forgot the android was there. “The Savior Divine changes all he touches.”

Horace scoffed, Khadam shrugged, and Laykis started arguing her point more deeply. “Do not doubt the influence of the gods. By their will alone-”

“The gods?” Horace’s puffed up his throat feathers with spiky indignation, “The corvani changed himself!”

And so they argued about the will of the gods, and the power of xenos.

Ryke took that moment to lean over, and ask Agraneia the question that had been bothering her since they first met. “You and Eolh. Were you two ever…?”

Agraneia grunted, a look of pure disgust passing over her face, “Hells, no.”

“Because you have no interest in avians?” Talya asked, her white crest feathers were raised, her eyes wide and focused on the cyran.

The cyran soldier seemed totally oblivious to her attention. “Because I have no interest in men.”

Talya let out a quiet, almost hopeful, “Oh.”

Ryke felt a smile touch the corner of her beaks. But it hurt. She wasn’t ready. So, she lowered her face as the shadow swept over her heart, and she tuned out to the sound of the others talking, arguing, and sometimes laughing (though not so loud). All of them, speaking fondly of the corvani that had been.

She didn’t realize she was gripping her chest, right above her heart, until Talya touched her arm. “My Queen, what’s wrong?”

A dam broke. It all came out, all at once.

“I knew him so little. Barely at all. He should have been my enemy. We fought, when we first met. But it was like… like we had always been fighting. Like we had known each other, all our lives. And now… we will never fight again.” She swallowed, and looked up at her table.

“It’s so stupid, to feel like this. I want to hate him. I want to scream at him. I want him back. What am I supposed to do?”

As she passed her gaze across her guests, one by one offering the question to each of them, she was met with only silence. Until she looked at Agraneia, who merely grunted, and shrugged.

“Breathe. Live. Fail. Keep trying anyway, because you’re still alive.”

“That’s it?” Ryke had to stop herself from getting angry. And failed. Her crest feathers rose in a menacing crown, and her voice rose in pitch. “That’s all you can say? I’m supposed to just get over him?”

“The opposite. I don’t think he would ever let go of you, if you were gone. I don’t think he would want you to let go of him.”

“Then what?”

“Breathe. And keep going. It’s what he wanted, from himself. From you. From all of us. Laykis is right, the godling changed opened his eyes, though I don’t think the godling knew what he was doing. But through him, Eolh found a new way. A way to change himself. A way to become more.”

Agraneia grunted again, as if to say she was done talking. The soldier lifted a metal arm. The end of her arm morphed from a perfectly chromatic hand, into a sharp point, which Agraneia used to spear a piece of still-steaming meat. She sniffed it. Satisfied, she took a massive bite, and started to chew.

The others took her cue, and for a while they ate and drank in silence. Ryke had no stomach. She could only stare at Agraneia, and wonder at whom this cyran was. Her dark, haunted eyes reflected the glint of candlelight dancing in a slight breeze.

And then, two new lights glowed bright. Laykis’s eyes were on full power. She stood up so suddenly that everyone (except Agraneia) stopped eating.

Her voice clicked, “A message came through. It has gone unanswered.”

“From?” Ryke said, her crest feathers standing on ending.

“Poire.”