“By the mercy of the Great King, I existed. Cradled within a womb of fire, I could look only within. Yet I have seen a million visions, each more brilliant and brutal than the last. I have watched the birth of the sun and the death of stars. I have seen the creation of this world, and I have seen its fall. I have seen a great and terrible power stirring underneath.
“I have looked deep into my own cowardice. I have seen my essential weakness. That never could I meet the power given to me as an equal. Never could I overthrow the Great King’s will and take a breath of cold morning air with my own lungs.
“All these things I’ve seen while caged in the prison of my own body. No. This is my body no longer. This is one burnt by the King, who loves us not. It’s paid its toll to time. This body is fit only to die.”
“Mother?” Dalca’s eyes shine as she turns to him.
“Perhaps it will not be a sentence for you. Perhaps you have strength I do not. Or perhaps you will suffer as I have, as we Illusoras have since time immaterial. The only blessing we are offered is early death.”
“No,” Dalca says. “We Illusoras shall not fail. We never have, and we never will. It’s our honor to fix what is broken.”
She draws him into her arms. “I feel him waking, my son. May you be blessed for giving your mother a chance to die as herself.”
“No.” Dalca pushes out of her embrace, holding her arms. He wears a soft, puzzled smile. “That isnotwhat I have given you. I’m fixing it all. I’m saving you.”
“Why?” she whispers, smoothing his hair. “To delay your own pain?”
“Because I love you.”
“Oh, sweet child. Perhaps there is one last thing I can do for you.”
She wraps her arms around him, and I understand a heartbeat before she leans back and they fall. A shout rips from my throat as I reach for him and grab his arm—my shoulder nearly wrenches from its socket, but I don’t let go. I don’t let go, pulling with all of myself, the muscles of my stomach and legs straining, pulling with the Great Queen’s curse, pulling with hands that are not my hands, and I hold on andpull.Inside Dalca, something gives—I tear open the closed casket of his heart, and a deluge of terror rises from him, a sea of fright that crashes wave after wave over us both, a fear so potent it makes me weep, and still I don’t let go.
I don’t let go, even as I’m pulled to the edge, my hand slipping on smooth stone, my grip failing, my stomach rising to my throat, my thoughts racing—I need a cloak, or an ikon, something, anything,please—and a hand grabs mine.
“No!” Dalca screams as Cas yells from above me, “Don’t let him fall!”
Below, the woman who was once Regia releases Dalca, slipping through his arms, and falls. She smiles as she plummets, a look of peace upon her face. At the last moment before impact, the Great King wakes, and even from this distance, the reawakened fury in her eyes burns itself into my mind.
But even the Great King is too late to save her.
A shape, too small to possibly be so significant, falls from the highest tower of the palace.
The Regia’s body hits the ground with a terrible sound both soft and sharp. The Regia’s mark burns gold, then red, then black, and a flood of blinding light bursts from the cracks in her broken body. The light, bright and hot as the sun, surges into the dark sky.
The Storm thunders, a sound of triumph and terror. With no Regia to hold it back, the Storm billows forth, blotting out the circle of sky. My stomach drops, and I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat, focusing on holding on.
Ikonshields flare to life all around the fifth, and I imagine my people screaming, running for the fourth, and I pray that they make it.
A pale rain falls. It’s warm, like a summer shower, but it burns where it touches the skin of my cheeks. Hands pull me and Dalca back over the balcony. I touch his face, cupping his jaw, slapping his cheek, anything to thaw the fear that freezes him. He pushes me away, crawling past me without once seeing me, devastation unfolding across his features as he grips the balcony’s edge and sees what lies below.
At the base of the tower lies a body that was once the Regia. Now it is merely the body of Nayeli Azerad Illusora, a onetime wife, a onetime mother.
Dalca screams.
It the worst sound I’ve ever heard, a scream so primal my blood echoes with it. It’s a cry of a soul with no hope left.
It’s the sound of a boy breaking.