couldn't quite read Blake's eyes as he swallowed me whole with his stares. And I didn't know if it were rage or something far greater, far more different than that.

But I did not comment. No one did, actually.

I'd never seen such tension in a single room, never felt someone almost crumbling my bones to dust with his eyes. Not a single word, not even a whisper.

But his thoughts were wild. And loud. And I did not dare look into them, listen to their murmurs and their growls. But I didn't show that lick of pure terror that seeped in my nerves, my veins, my entire being. I was Elayda, and I was Celestia, and I did not bend to fear.

Even when the mere thought of the trial awaiting me could destroy people within instants: all the pain, all the blood, the injuries. All the hiding. I couldn't break, wouldn't allow myself to do so in front of him, in front of all of them, enemies and friends. I would endure it all, would cling to the fearless, all-powerful façade until the end. I only dreaded the possibility of my runes not hanging as hard as I would. Because even if I survived, once my mask—our masks—would fall, I was just as good as dead.

It was Clair who shattered the silence, her voice a knife slicing through the muteness that had shrouded us like a cocoon. "When will the trial be, my King?"

"This sunrise." Those had been my words, not the prince's. And the look Lysithea wore, it told me enough I was not only digging my own grave, but laying my very corpse in it. But I didn't stop there; I couldn't retain the urge to bring him to boiling point, to make him mad and at rage just like what he'd done to me. Every day, every moment he crossed my mind. "It has been long since we feasted, and my tribe is demanding a hunt to satiate our hunger." I tilted my head to the side, my crown seeming to glow with all the darkness forging it. "Unless you have some men to spare."

The guards reached for the weapons strapped at their waists. They didn't pull them, but they were ready to move at any threat. Because it had been one of the very scarce rules they lived by, to never feed on their own kind.

"This sunrise it will be then.'' Lysithea rose from her throne, her velvet, black gown gleaming as the jewels sewn on the waistline caught reflecting firelight.

Sunrise, a little less than two-third an hour.

"Be ready by then. The guards will export you to the Sombers quarter an hour prior—"

"I know where the Sombers are."

The queen did not reply, only turned slightly to eye her son. He was still watching me as I rose from my throne, the seat and the crown vanishing in a dark mist that drifted away.

Blake had half-turned his body, inclining to take his next step toward the dais, when he commanded, voice hard and clear, "Let this be the last time your words cut mine, whatever the matter is."

Blood thundered in my ears.

"Your words bind me not, prince. Neither does your crown."

Oh indeed, I was laying myself in my very own grave.

He did not comment, and neither did I. But whatever it was that shadowed his eyes, it was not rage, not anger. It was something else I couldn’t quite comprehend.

"You are dismissed.''

Shadows devoured him whole, erupting in a heartbeat and fading equally as fast.

He was gone.

And we vanished the same way.

My magic had thrown the six of us at the edge of the sea, the red water washing the shore only a few steps in front of us. The Beheaded looked like rubies rendered liquid gleaming under the thin starlight. Poles were dispersed every here and there, ending in a lantern that glowed scarlet—the only real source of light here. Guards were scattered, too, each at a post I made sure to memorize.

For a moment, I closed my eyes. For a moment, I tilted my head back and allowed the night air to run through my hair, over my face, to kiss whatever skin the clothes failed to cover. I wanted to walk to that sea, wanted to submerge myself until its coldness bit my very bones…but all that blood—all the flashes of memories it contained—it made me change my mind.

And I drowned out all the sounds around us: the crackling fire, the faraway, steady footsteps of a guard on watch, the whispers of the sea, the very breathes of my friends. I drowned it all in that sea, all of it, myself alongside. Down down down, so down I didn't want to come up. So down I tried throwing the memory of those red eyes in it. Tried forgetting the version of Blake I saw today, and the one I knew before, too—I wanted to remove him whole from my mind, wanted to erase him from my thoughts and fears and happy moments.

But I couldn't. It as was though he was chained to every piece of me, living within me, claiming every moment. He'd sizzled the rage that destroyed me for long days, had held it between his fingers and then it was gone, as though a heavy wind had carried it far, far away.

I swallowed down the frustrated groan growing in my throat, not willing to break the silence that lingered and lingered and—

"What is waiting you at sunrise?"

I rubbed at my temples before peering at Veidor—Luthian—only half his face slightly illuminated.

"Hell.''

He took a step closer, then the other, until he laid both his hands on my face. "What kind of godsdamn hell, Elayda?"

It was the terror limning his words that coaxed my response out of my throat. "Whatever you can imagine." I took in a breath, long and unsteady. "From sunrise to sunset, chained and beaten and tortured by whatever the prince whims. He has all the Windreapers's spells at his disposal. Surviving it will be the proof that our blood is true."

His hands tightened slightly. "But our blood is not true. He will break you, him out of all people."

He'd been told then, about what happened under that volcano, unlike the rest of the Troopers.

I placed my hands over his, squeezing gently. And the smile I tried pulling was tired and small. "He is only my prey.'' I squeezed a bit more. "I am to salvage this world, and no one and nothing will stop in my way."

"We can't let you go through it.''

I turned to Leyath, to the calm, beautiful face framed with crimson strands that swayed with the winds. But her eyes were wild, storming, simmering all at once. ''It will wreck you both mentally and physically. It will tear your muscles, it will break your bones, and you won't be even able to show a flicker of p—''

"I know."

"I—we—took an oath to protect you. And I'd rather be up there, strapped and falling for Death's grip than letting you be the one to endure it all.''

I gently pushed myself out of Luthian's hold, lazily shaking my head as I took a step back, allowing my eyes to take them all in. The five of them, each detail, each scent, even when they were so different.

I was about to speak, my words at the edge of my lips when my stares landed on Aedis. On Leon. And that pain in his eyes, it suffocated me, it held my heart and squeezed it tight until I almost gasped for air.

My voice was a cracked cry. "Don't. Please."

I'd heard the words echoing within him.

"Please.''

He might have been about to speak, his words at the tip of his tongue, but his eyes held mine. And he saw it all, the painful weakness spreading within me. I would have broken down if he spoke, would have cracked and fallen for whatever he would say, and I couldn’t do that, not here with all my family around me. He didn't push me, and perhaps it was the first time Leon Prelius bended for a plea. The Shadow, but he'd been named many things, slayer and keeper and guardian and assassin. He'd commanded and raised swords and lowered them on all those who betrayed our lands, the ones who went down still snarling and the ones begging for a last chance.

There had a moment where the only sound ringing between us was the ardent crashing of the waves on the shore, water splashing and swaying.

A moment that seeped slow and eternal, until Carter—Dier—murmured, his voice so faint the winds almost carried it. "Your blood runs in me."

My heart stopped. Then skipped a beat. Then started pounding furiously.

No.

"Let me be the one to—"

"No.''

Carter, unlike Leon—and perhaps for the very first time—didn't step back from my broken demand. Instead, he came close, closer than what Luthian had been, and wrapped me fully in his arms. I didn’t fight the arms that snaked around him by their own. I tugged at his shirt, fisting it, almost clawing his back.

He buried his face in my neck, breaths warm on my skin. "I will hold, and you know it.''

I couldn't.

"How strong has our blood become?" Our—the Armedes blood.

Dier didn’t pull back as he slipped in my ear, "It has taken full control.''

I was the one to pull back, perhaps even harder than I intended to. But…"This fast?"

"In the matter of days.''

More blood raged in my ears, in my heart, as I read what his eyes said.

Your brother. By heart and blood.

I will hold—he would because he was Armedes now. A prince born Cardelyon, named Armedes.

A wave of magic brushed my mind, tender and warm and so terribly familiar. It throbbed like mine—almost its twin. It throbbed like my father's, too, in a way. But the new sort of warmth it carried, and the smell of the sparkling seas and summer days—it was spirit. Elemental spirit, at full work, obeying to Carter's every will, pulling it from my own magic and using it.

'Let me be here for you, protect you, for all the times I wasn't there for you.' his voice, it was his voice in my mind. Clear and stark.

I wasn't capable of swallowing the cry that evaded my chest. Weak and near-silent, but it sliced me.

My brother.

My brother who was ready to be all chained, even when I felt how hard it traumatized him. Even when I could feel memories prickling beneath my consciousness, memories that were his—that were bitter and bloodied and hard.

'I'd been chained and whipped before.' He held my hands, tight, keeping me up as my legs almost gave way, as they trembled. 'Just let me shield you from the horror it comes with.'

He'd tasted it—a piece of what I was to endure. And Leon did, too, I remembered. He'd told us—father and I—as we sat with Ramos and Siltheres. He'd told us about what Mealin had done to him in Rimelia, and it had been Rhiannon who held him while he healed, the one who had seen what horrors had eaten his body.

They'd known what it was like, they tried to shield me from it. And I didn't dare ask what Luthian and Mayra had gone through, because the way their auras swayed and shifted, it told they did go through it.

The grip on my hands wasn't enough to hold me, and I found myself knees in the sand, my arms, my legs—my entire body—quivering. I felt cold, I felt hollow.

What have they done?

I lifted my eyes, took my court in a sweeping, blurry stare. Acrid raged riled up in me, down to every nerve and cell. Burning.

It felt like the first time staring at them, like I was eyeing not the friends I knew, but all of them. Their past and present and future. I was holding them whole, with each bruise, each bleeding wound, with all their demons. They never allowed me to see them so naked, so true. Always hid, always protected.

What have they done to you?

I was done being protected.

I was done watching all my loved ones being in pain.

Something within me snapped.

"It is my turn to know what it tastes like, to be chained and whipped.''

It had been disbelieve exploding around me. And guilt. And they would have started arguing, all of them at once if I hadn't risen, pushing myself off my knees. They were family, they were friends, but I remained queen. And there was this very thin line—that one limit—that I'd let them trespass so many times before. But not today. Not when it was their own welfare resting in my hands, upon my shoulders.

So it was Sédil who spoke, "I was there for you when the First Female injured you, and every time you needed, before and far after it. I am here, too. And when the sun will set and you'll find yourself breaking and unable to stand, I will be here for you. Will always do, until my very heartbeats cease."

She'd truly been there, the sister who was older in mere months, who always had one arm around me so I wouldn't feel like I was falling. Always. All along. I would have long since crumbled without her, without her smile, without the protection she always so secretly offered.

She extended her scarred hand, and I took it. Took the embrace, the delicious warmth seeping from her skin.

And when I pulled back, I was met not only with the heirs of the court that was meant to save the world.

But with a court meant to create a new one.

A better one.

One where people wouldn't be afraid, where life could prosper. A world where no longer mothers would weep over their children's corpses, where men would not hang from their necks around towns like decorations.

I was fighting for that world as much.

For that place where they could live safe and in mirth.

I looked at the sky, at how feebly the stars were. At the time that slipped fast.

Third an hour.

"It is time we leave." I turned to eye the walls of the castle and the cities behind, noting for the first time just where my magic had dropped us. We were still in the castle's grounds, near one entrance to the lower grounds, a couple of levels before the dungeons Yenes had thrown us in. "Fly to the other side of the walls surrounding the city. I will meet you there, I still have one thing to do."

They did not object, only lingered for a second or two before they darted. Massive wings carrying them high and far, the winds playing to their whims until I could no longer see them or sense them.

Only Aedis stayed.

His wings were half a thought away, and he would have flashed before them should I have told him right here and now. But I didn't.

"Will you comment?"

He peered at me through his lashes as I walked down to the sea. Blood-reeking and stained.

"You did plea me otherwise."

"I did." Bloodied water splashed my feet, seeping my torn boots. It made me shudder, but the water was cold, anchoring me. Steadying. I turned to gaze at him as he approached. "But that doesn't mean your thoughts weren't loud enough to ring in my mind."

He merely arched an eyebrow as he stood close enough for his shoulder to brush mine. "Just say you are enjoying wondering into my mind."

I kicked the water, splashing him all the way. "Because your mind is the most wonderful place to be at."

"It sure is." He splashed back, red drops splattering from my shoulder to my toes. And I wondered just how much it was taking from him, to tease me so I would still hold strong while his own fear was tearing him.

"We're here, too, just like Sédil.'' He faced me, closing the distance between us until my body almost brushed his. "I am here. Even when you'll kick me and push me away, I'll be here for you, to make sure you're safe."

My heart clenched. My blood thundered. My knees became weak. And I didn't stop myself as I leaned, pulling myself at the tip of my toes, and planted a kiss on his cheek.

His hands gripped my waist.

Our conversation at the edge of the lake came back, echoing from one ear to the other. But I couldn't seem to push those feelings down. I wanted to save him, to keep his heart protected, but it killed me, ripped me to shreds.

I needed him.

"I don't think the promise we took will hold quite long." His breaths blew against my nose, my closed eyelids, my mouth. It became familiar, standing like this, almost feeling his nose touching mine, his forehead on mine. So familiar being distant became impossible.

"I don't think that either. We'll see.''

I saw him smile through my lashes. I melted a bit more.

One hand ran from my waist up to my face, stroking it gently as he took a step back. His eyes were gleaming by then, and I wondered if he felt what I did. If his skin tingled like mine, if his magic sparked and glowed within him the same way. Whether he did or did not, he didn't let it show.

"Let's make a bet."

My smile broke out by its own. The idea was so absurd, considering all the broken emotions filling the air. But he still found a way to make me smile. "What is it you want to bet on?"

"I'll reach the other side of the walls before you do."

I raised one eyebrow. "And what is the price you name?"

His hand kept stroking my face, gently brushing my cheeks, inclining slowly until his fingers caressed my lips. Gently, gingerly, even perhaps adoringly. Breathing became hard.

"You know what I want." I knew. And—oh Gods. I was burning. I was a trashing, wild fire. And his fingers were only fueling me. "What about you?"

"I'll decide when I win."

"If you win. And that's not how the rules say it goes."

I placed both hands on his face, cupped it in my palms, and breathed with a playfulness I hadn't sensed in ages, "Remember that time in the Court Leader's office when I almost hit you with a bottle of kavaer?''

His eyes glowed like stars.

"You're making the same mistake, pushing at your queen."

He laughed. "Of course, you make the rules."

"I do.''

He laughed again, voice booming across the swaying waters, through and around the poles, almost reaching Cantelot's shores. I laughed along.

''It's a deal then."

We pulled back, wings unfurling in masterpieces of shadows and flesh and magic. Immense yet almost weightless on my back.

But before we took off, I reached into that everlasting realm my magic conjured and pulled out what remained of the Arowcinders. I drowned it all, the bitter taste burning down my throat, slipping in my veins, to the deepest bones, to my very core.

I blinked twice and shared a moment's stare with Leon.

And then we soared into the sky.

High, so high we flew. And so fast. It felt like we owned the world, like it all rested in our palms. Like we were free—not wounded, not broken, not facing the end of the world. Free. And wild.

Unbound. Together, alone.

So I flied like I never did before, claiming the sky and the earth and the sea below us. Flied until the winds singing in my ears became familiar and not at all bothering. Flied like these were the last moments of happiness, of freedom, of power I would feel and to the other side of the cities. To the Sombers.

And Aedis was alongside for every heartbeat that euphoria took me. Shared it with me.

We were once again laughing, echoes trailing behind us as we slashed through the slowly brightening sky.