The guillotine slams into his neck, and Jacin's severed head tumbles neatly into the low brass dish in front of the device. Blood sprays the beams and pools in the dish. The head fell at just the wrong angle, and now his wide, blank eyes stare in soulless accusation at the alcove my siblings and I sit in. Bile rises in my throat, and I tear my eyes away to gaze straight ahead.

I hate this.

I hate this war. I hate Jacin for getting himself killed. I hate the Ladies for having no regard for human life. I hate the Voices of the Book for taking Agraund instead of me, I hate politics for killing the sister I once had, I hate whatever traitor stole my mother's life, and I hate myself for failing to stop any of it.

Beside me, the Queen stands, giving some speech about everyone playing their part to stop the Kadranians and how we have to work together to defeat them.

Sick of the hypocrisy, sick of death, sick of playing by everyone else's rules when they don't, I scoff and push out of my seat. I leave, the door slamming behind me.

I walk through the hall, slowly picking up speed until I'm running, rushing down the empty corridors. The castle, empty and dead.

I know this building better than anyone else. This castle is my home, these halls my childhood. I slide around a corner, the one I cracked my head on when I was seven. I take the stairs two at a time, up to the second floor. The baking tray I borrowed to slide down these when I was six was not big enough. My fingers brush the curve in the stairs where I was finally thrown off the tray. I sprint past hall tables. The bejeweled egg the Bedeveirians brought my Mother when I was twelve glitters in the glow crystal light.

I skid to a stop in the dead-end hall Jeanna once trapped me in when I didn't want to go to my language tutor. The tapestry at the end beckons to me, and my fingers brush it. Heart still thrumming in my throat, I reach down and push a stone at the base of the wall. It groans, and I slip behind the cloth into an old, familiar passage. I press a stone inside the hall, and the door creaks shut once more. Dusting cobwebs from my face, I sink into the corner of the pitch-black corridor.

This is my home. This is my home. The Ladies may live here, and Selenia may rule here, but the stones of this castle raised me. Yet somehow the snakes and savages have twisted this place into a prison.

I had a family. It was tense and distant, but it was family. Now I have a sister I don't know and a brother who only agrees with me when he has to. Everyone else is dead.

I had a role in this castle. It was tenuous and strained, but I was doing what I was supposed to. Now the Ladies stole any credibility I might have, threw it away with my reputation, sullying it with lies of romance and manipulation.

I had a voice. Now my people are going to walk into a slaughter, and there's nothing I can do about it. Letting myself be in a position where my voice could be taken from me is just as much my fault as if I had simply stayed silent.

I'm alone, unwanted, and useless.

I drop my circlet to the ground and shove my fingers through my hair, tongue running over the sore inside my lip. How long ago did things start to fall into place in order to fall apart? When the Kadranians arrived? When Amarris captured me? When I left here? Was it earlier, something we couldn't have known would go wrong, like charging Amarris with treason? Or is it a tragedy set in the works only because of ancient legends and older grudges?

Darkness edges me from all around, and the weight of it suffocates my chest. I should get up, go about the rest of my day. I am thought a duplicitous fool, but if I am to be a fool, I should be one that doesn't lie down and give up. I still have a responsibility to this country, to this people, even if her leaders hate me. The world is a disaster, and then we die.

The best I can do is try to soften the wreckage.

Slowly, I pick myself and my circlet off the ground and lean against the wall. Somewhere far away, Marcí hosts her cousin in the Kitten, blissfully unaware. Deep into the Morineause Peninsula, little children run around, ignorant of the destruction to their north. Even here, babes play with their nurses, blind and deaf to the danger around.

The world forges on. At Selenia's coronation, I said life continues and so would I. The world may look like a crumbling castle from my view, but that doesn't matter. What I think doesn't matter. What I want doesn't matter.

Tired and angry, I march down the secret corridor, taking the turns to lead me to the stairs. Ducking, I come out at the base of them. I stride up and to the Mage Room. If we have to go through with this Stellries-forsaken plan, then by Jacqueline, we'll give the Kadranians the bloodbath they deserve.

* * *

Wind like knives streams relentlessly through the tower. Thin moonlight spatters the cloud-shadowed Kadranian encampment. Under my cloak, my warmest winter shirt fails to block the bite of the air. My toes are faintly numb.

I've only been standing here for about ten minutes. Beside me stands our only empath skilled enough to communicate farther than a couple halls away. The wind whips her short hair off her shoulders and around her face. For the third time since we've come up here, Ressa pulls her hood back onto her head.

I tug my cloak around me and lean over the edge of the tower, careful not to touch the icy stones. There's little movement in what I can see of the Kadranian camp. Averí sits at my feet, back to the wall, leaned over a blackwood bowl.

"They've made it over the wall and out of the Park," Ressa reports.

After a moment, Averí replies, "No one should be in their way from there to First Fountain Square. Changing areas." She dashes the water and empties the bowl into a pitcher. From another pitcher, she pours a little water, then casts again.

I'm amazed at her agreement to do the location-based scry for likely an hour straight, considering she called it one of the harder spells in her repertoire. She'll be exhausted by the end of it, but committing to repeatedly use one of her harder spells for an hour—that takes a mastery of casting that I doubt I'll ever attain. She's not even thirty.

Ressa stays in communication with the contingent of one-hundred wizards and soldiers as Averí runs surveillance on wherever they're about to be. With the help of Averí's map of Kadranian troops, Reyan, one of his Lieutenants, Selenia, Mage Liraena, and I plotted the course the contingent is supposed to take through the city. However, without Averí now, our men would be walking blind into who knows what.

About twenty minutes have passed, which means the men should be about a third of the way around to where they'll attack the Kadranians from. I tried to convince the Queen that sending smaller groups to attack the Kadranian scouts and reserve forces would be a more tactically sound offense than throwing them away at the main encampment, but she refused to change plans from what had been voted on in the Auditorium.

"Tell them to wait," Averí says.

My gaze snaps from her to Ressa, who nods.

"What's going on?" I ask Averí.

"There's movement three streets over. Several men. I can't identify them as Kadranians for certain."

Ressa watches me for instruction.

"How many is several? Are they headed our men's way?"

"I count twenty heads. Confirmed Kadranian. Parallel currently, but could turn at any moment."

"Possibility of interception later?"

"Likely. They're going the same direction."

I tug the map out of my cloak. The wind gusts, blowing back my hood and nearly tearing the map out of my hands. "Have them go down..." I scan the path. "Montraela's Road instead of Cleabelle's. Then they can continue east on Dírve's until they hit back on Jeaulin's."

Ressa nods and continues staring blankly into the night. We wait, tense, as the next ten minutes pass.

"The band is out of range now. We're clear," Averí finally says.

Reyan pushes into the lookout. "Any developments?"

"One detour," I say. "No contact."

He nods.

"Still another thirty minutes out."

He takes a place beside me near the wall. The tip of my nose is freezing, but my toes seem to have come to terms with the cold. In the piercing temperatures, I can feel the heat wisp off him on the wind.

Even as jealous as I am of his warmth, I'm glad he'll be here when the men attack. It'll be nice to have two sets of eyes watching for weak spots, for dangerous zones. I hope Ressa will be able to keep up with the flood of directions we'll be sending her.

We wait.

A cloud shifts over the moon, casting everything I can see into shadow. A chill runs through me, and Ressa says, "They're in position."

I glance at the Captain. "Are you ready?"

In reply, he looks over his shoulder at Ressa. "Give the order. They know where to go."

She nods. An empty, impossible second passes. Then dark figures slip through the shadows of the Park, splitting up and targeting key points in the Kadranians' camp. We knew they wouldn't have long before the savages saw them, so one group almost immediately sets fire to a row of tents. Kadranian forms stir up and scramble around the blaze. Metal clangs.

In the commotion, the second group comes from the other side of the Kadranians at the fire. Before the savages seem to understand what's going on, our men hammer them from two sides. It's only a matter of time before the rest of their army wakes up and attacks, though.

"There's a break on Group B's left!" Reyan says to Ressa.

"Delivered," she replies, and several of our men spear through the hole.

"Contact Rister Nalleaux," I rattle off. Her hand gestures sharply. "Drop the first tent ten feet ahead, fifteen to the right."

A moment later, the fire-engulfed tent rises up, flies over the heads of Group A, and drops onto fighting Kadranians. The anguished cries of dying men reach us even here.

Ressa curses and cuts her spell.

"What?" I ask.

"Kadranian hit him."

My heart falls. She wouldn't have pulled out if she didn't think he was about to die. It's dangerous to be in someone's mind when it flickers out.

"I'm back with Officer D'lace," she tells Reyan.

At my feet, Averí is curled around her blackwood bowl, asleep under her cloak. I poke her with my toe. "High Mage Averí. Averí!"

She stirs.

"Get inside." She doesn't move. "Downstairs, Averí!" She slides over to the hatch and lets herself down.

The battle rages on, with me and Reyan shouting orders for Ressa to relay. After about ten minutes, the Kadranians have pushed our men back toward the streets. It's nearly time for them to fully retreat, but our men have done a surprising amount of damage. This attack was a risk, one I don't think we should have taken, but it may have paid off.

I catch movement in the streets behind our men.

"Reyan!" I point. "What's that?"

"Snare's tongue," he curses. "Ressa, tell them to pull out. To the sides! They can't go backward. Pull to the sides!"

Our men start to disengage, backing up the way the two companies came. Immediately, hulking shadows pour out of the streets, surrounding our men. I was watching the entire time. None of their men left the camp—I know it. They couldn't have snuck into the city and behind us. The screams of dying men disagree.

With renewed desperation, Reyan and I shout orders at Ressa. She scrambles to switch between the wizards I tell her to contact and the officers Reyan says.

The barbarians fall upon them, savage warcries echoing across the Park.

I shout a wizard for her to contact. Her hand twists. I open my mouth, but before I can give more instruction, she screams and clutches her head. Face twisted, she falls to her knees, keening. Horror grips me.

"What's wrong with her?" Reyan demands.

I face the battle again, grim. "The man she contacted died."

"I still need her to contact Officer D'lace! There's a break they can escape through to their left!"

"She can't, Ren!"

He whirls on me. "If she doesn't, our men will die! The breech is already closing!"

"She's down!"

He pushes me. "You do it!"

"A cast like that will kill me."

He growls and uselessly faces the battle again. Heart aching, I turn away from it. There's nothing I can do anymore. I crouch beside Ressa. Dark blood pours down her lip. She rocks back and forth, eyes screwed shut.

"Ressa."

No reaction.

"High Mage Ressa."

I pull a handkerchief and sop up the blood.

"Avríl Ressa," I insist.

She moans, a soft, high-pitched cry.

I look back at Reyan, standing solid as a stone pillar. "I need to take her down."

"Our men are being slaughtered."

"Yes, and me watching isn't going to fix that. She needs attention now."

"Go!" he snarls.

I carry my fallen wizard downstairs.