The news about Julian hadn't distracted or deterred Kestra from her search for answers about her dreams. No, far from it. She was convinced that the dream about the basilisk-girl meant something. That somehow it was related to Julian.

The memories that had arisen at his name...Kestra might not have been in that dungeon with Layla and Talia when everything had gone down, but that very name sent her back into the past. The Siege of Silvera, when everything had seemed lost...that whole war, both those wars, with so much blood and pain and death...she saw Rose's body on that pike, heard Vera's dying screams, felt the escape tunnel's grime as her words echoed again and again...You must save us...

Stop, she admonished. It's over. Julian's reappearance was nothing but a blip in the life they'd built over the ashes of the one they'd lost and he would soon be captured...everything would go back to normal. The carefully constructed, precarious world they had created wouldn't be disturbed.

Kestra arrived at the library to find that Leticia was already there. Her friend raised a hand in greeting, too immersed in her current tome to really notice that she was there. It was only when Leticia dropped her book in frustration that she spoke.

"Nothing, nothing and once again, nothing," she grumbled. "Even in the queens' writings, there's no mention of Oracles. I've been through everything in Evelyn's—the stuff that isn't dust by now at least—combed through every page Queen Miriam wrote—"

"Which one?" Kestra interrupted.

"Both," Leticia groaned. "Number one and two. It is driving me out of my mind. Miriam the First is constantly philosophising about the meaning of life, Miriam the Second does nothing but rant about the vizier system and neither of them bother to mention in their thousands of dull pages—who writes that many diary entries?—anything about their dreams, when it is accepted historical fact that they were Oracles!" Kestra was silent. It was best, she had learned, to let Leticia get this out of her system.

"So, I went to comb through Isabella's entries, thinking that maybe since she died before she could become Queen, her diaries might not have been censored and well, there were some rumours she was an Oracle, so I checked and...nothing. Zip. Nada. Nil. Not a hint. I've just been through endless pages of her journal—it must be a real drag to have to write and submit these things every day, I really sympathise with you, Kes—and you know what?"

"What?" Kestra said, fighting to hold back the smile tickling at the edges of her lips.

"Half of it is about her plans for her coronation dress! I mean, what kind of Keeper-Queen-to-be spends her days worrying about dresses? Honestly, it's a blessing that she died, otherwise we'd have been left with empty-headed ninny for a 'leader'..." And it went on. When Leticia at last finished her rant, she took a deep breath and picked up the nearest book, already back to work. Kestra turned her attention to Queen Tessa the Second with a sigh.

Unfortunately, their work had been mostly fruitless. Occasionally one or the other would let out an excited squeal and point out a certain page, only to find it had nothing to do with Oracles at all. From hours of research, Kestra had discovered two things. The first was that her predecessors had been as secretive as she about their Oracle abilities. The second was that Evelyn the First had been just as frustrated by them as Kestra was:

I fear that my 'gifts' are more a curse than a blessing. Often their prophecies only make sense once they are realised. Sometimes, they are so vague that I misinterpret them and end up working against myself.

This hadn't exactly improved Kestra's mood, especially since she found herself unable to really disagree with the ancient queen. Her first dreams had been minor and made little sense; they were merely ways to inform her of the importance of the real ones to come. The one about the shadows consuming a deserted plain had only ever made sense after the First Crimson War. This one was proving equally useless. The only thing that made her continue her research was the memory of the dream that had instructed her to send Rose after the Hidden Nests and of the one that had revealed Scarlet's 'betrayal.'

Each had been vital. But they had both been clear. Unlike this one The most she could figure out from it was that Belle was warning her about the threat that a rebelling valkyrie might pose to the Alliance, but that was about as helpful as Isabella's diary entries. She already knew that the anti-Alliance valkyries were a threat, but there were thousands of them and the elves and humans were just as dangerous.

But still she dragged Leticia into the library every night. Still she poured through every text she could find. Because if she stopped...then she wouldn't be able to do anything, anything at all, for the investigation into Julian's reappearance. Then she'd be useless. Not a warrior, not a strategist, not a spy. Just an impotent damsel queen, with nothing but vague dreams to offer the soldiers fighting for her.

Kestra refused to be helpless. She remembered the bitter taste of it from the First Crimson War when she had been just a child, unable to stop her mother from being dragged away in chains.

She would not be weak again. It was that thought that kept her pouring over endless pages of the queens' journals. That kept her reading when even Leticia had given up and gone to bed. That wouldn't let her stop even when her search seemed pointless.

She would not be weak again.

———

Myra

A week after Julian's letter had been discovered, Myra stood in front of the War Council, watching each and every one of her generals with a stern eye. She couldn't afford another fight breaking out—not when these meetings were becoming more and more important.

"We've been looking into things," Radek said carefully. She narrowed her eyes, turning to look at him. He held her gaze. Unsurprising. She'd been trying to break Radek since the day Nala had appointed him but although he obeyed her orders, he still met her stare with unflinching steel. The only other person who still did so was his Lysandrian counterpart, Thorn. Zara, Mireia, Scarlet and the remaining generals had all bent long before and she would pay good money to know how Lysandra and Nala, the only people with any control of their representatives, had managed to gain Thorn and Radek's unquestioning loyalty.

This was just one example of their delightful conversations:

"Has Layla caught on?" Myra asked.

"I don't believe so,"

"You don't believe so. I want certainty, Radek."

"With all due respect, if anyone would know it would be you. Has Layla revealed that she knows about our operations? You speak with her daily, I believe."

"If I were to find out you had failed me through her, I would be most disappointed." Myra countered. "When I tell you to keep something secret, Radek, I expect you to be certain that no one will find out about it. High Council member or not."

Zara coughed. She hadn't betrayed them—yet—but Myra knew it would be killing her to keep such a secret for her goddess-chosen queen. And if Layla asked her directly about any of this, she had no doubt that the Asriel representative would tell her everything. She had attained the elf's loyalty, but not to that degree.

"I am certain that the Elfin Queen does not know," Radek corrected.

"Good. I assume Nala has been informed of our findings and is working on her own schemes?"

"I'm afraid I can't comment, High General." A twitch of a smile touched Radek's lips. A rare sight.

"And I'm sure Lysandra knew about Julian before Layla did?" Myra asked, turning her attention to Thorn.

"That is Her Imperial Majesty's private matter." Thorn replied, his face utterly blank.

"Of course. Ensure that she's updated on our findings." He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

But right now, Myra had no interest in bickering with them again. She went straight to the point.

"So, Radek, what exactly have you found about Julian?"

"We've spoken with the army's entire spy network—including, but not limited to, high-ranking Elfin and Lysandrian nobles—" Zara and Thorn shifted at this, but said nothing. "And we've discovered little about Julian. However, we are aware of a...movement."

"A movement?" Myra pressed.

"Not in Asriel, but Miras," Radek continued. "Numerous valkyries who advocate for the Quest of the Mirasen Empire to be renewed."

"The Mirasen Empire?" Myra said, furrowing her brow. She remembered the legend from her childhood. It claimed that if the Mirasen Empire was formed—an empire that stretched across the entirety of the Lost Continent, from the tips of the Witch Queendom to the southern coast of Calore—the goddesses would be restored to life, earth would become a paradise and valkyries would become truly immortal and completely invulnerable. It was nothing more than a childhood fable, yet even then there had been those who took it to darker lengths...who claimed that the only way to create the Mirasen Empire was to eliminate every single elf and human—children included—in the world. It had been too much for most valkyries to stomach even when they were bitter enemies with Asriel.

But still, Radek's news was hardly anything new. There had been movements gathering against her, Kestra and their new way of life since the moment they'd formed the Alliance. And whatever Radek implied, it certainly wasn't limited to Miras. Nala had such radicals in her own parliament, for Sarai's sake, and it was well-known that Lysandra and Layla had plenty of anti-Alliance nobles in their courts.

"The Mirasen Empire is new, but otherwise it's nothing we haven't heard before, Radek. News on whether Julian is inciting rebellion in Asriel would be more relevant."

"But this is relevant," Radek argued. "There have been whispers...and whether they are true or not matters little really..."

"Whispers of what?" Myra snapped, impatient.

"That Juliet Diaz is alive and well. And that she is behind the new movement."

Juliet Diaz. The memories that name brought forth. Myra clenched her fists, trying to keep herself from falling into a swamp of them, but she was too late.

The stickiness of Jasper's blood on her hands...

She ran and ran and ran, blood soaking into her clothes...

She stood over Diaz, sword shining, but she couldn't do it...

The general fled, weaving through the ruined streets...

The shine of the knife as it protruded from his leg...

His sickening scream...

Memories, so many memories, out of sequence and painfully vivid...

She had screamed at Nala, demanded she help him, but she would have begged if she'd had to, would have gotten down on her knees and pleaded with her. They had some of the worst moments of her life. His scream one of the worst sounds she ever heard.

That race...that desperate race to the makeshift hospital, with his blood all over her...she still relived it in her nightmares. She'd come so close to collapsing under the weight off him. She would never know how she had made it. Everything had seemed so surreal, so distant. A single thought had clattered through her with every panting breath: he's lost too much blood.

"Myra?" Scarlet repeated, shaking her out of the endless loop of memory. Damn it. She couldn't afford to get distracted. This needed to be dealt with, personal history with the traitorous general aside.

"Diaz is dead," Myra snapped.

"She wasn't in the army during the Siege of Crimsith or during the fall of Miras afterwards," Radek reasoned. "It's perfectly possible she survived."

"They were searching for valkyries everywhere after Miras fell," Myra argued. "And Medea would have known if Diaz survived. She would have known that aside from Kestra, she was her greatest threat still at large. There's no way she lived."

"Diaz is resourceful," Thorn interjected. "She could have survived the warrior purges."

"If they had her face, she's dead." Mireia snapped, unusually aggressive. "I was in the City Guard when Azul fell. I barely escaped the initial slaughter. Medea knew the danger surviving warriors could pose to her regime. Her soldiers searched for them constantly. Whoever they found, they tortured for information, revealing dozens of others. No one who stayed in the cities survived. I escaped to the mountains and hid in the wilderness, but still nearly died countless times. Those who hid with me were all captured. I survived out of pure luck. And they didn't even have my face or my name or knowledge of my existence.

"Of all the hundreds in the City Guard, a couple hundred remain. All low-ranking officers who were lucky—when many weren't. So if they had Diaz's face and name—and they did—then she is dead beyond any doubt."

"They never publicised it," Radek replied, equally aggressive. "Why wouldn't they?"

"Maybe because Diaz had revealed information under torture about other safe places and they didn't want those hiding with her to be alerted." Mireia argued calmly. "Maybe because people had started to defy the Kallians more openly because they believed she was fighting with them and Medea wanted them to keep risking themselves and getting caught. Maybe to make us ask these very questions and be distracted from a real threat sometime in the future. There are a thousand reasons she could have hidden Diaz's capture. And not a single way Diaz could have escaped."

"But—" Thorn objected.

"Enough." Myra interrupted, forcing steel into her tone. "Diaz is dead. These rumours are spread to do exactly this—worry us, divide us and inspire more to join their twisted cause. End these lies, but don't bother embarking on a wild goose chase. And our main focus is still Julian. Understood?"

Radek and Thorn opened their mouths to object in turn, but she silenced them with a look. This was not a debate. It was a command. They didn't have to respect her, but they would obey her.

She was their High General. Things would end poorly for them if they forgot it.

Yet the dread feeling in her stomach indicated that she didn't fully believe what she had said.

And that Diaz might still be alive after all.