They took back the Hawk Mountains, the Kallians having long gone. There was no sense of victory about it. The fortress had cost far more than it should have, far more than they could afford. Although they and gained a great asset, they had still lost. Rose and a thousand others were lost for this. It was a lacklustre victory, rather than a triumphant return home. The morale boost they had expected—and relied on—had faded.

Despite most of their host setting up in the Bird of Prey Mountains or in Topaz, Myra and the other leaders stayed in Azul, now the makeshift capital of the entire rebel movement. It was well protected, north enough to ensure they had prior warning of attack, defended by mountains on two sides and river and snow on another. The only place it was vulnerable was to the east, but they would know an attack was coming a week before it arrived if the Kallians took the sea route.

They had begun to train the valkyrie citizens. Although Nala and Talia might have been sceptical on the numbers they'd get, nearly every valkyrie physically capable had joined up and those who couldn't fight occupied themselves with other, menial jobs. Keepers had come from the four cities and the countless small towns and villages, each swearing to defend their country's art and knowledge as fiercely as they had once nurtured it. Each and every one had some trace of war-gift, some weak enough to make them almost human, but others so strong that they had barely missed cut-off for training as warriors. But best of all were the ex-warriors and City Guard who had managed to escape notice. They were all strongly war-gifted, and almost as good as the warriors of old. Soon thousands bolstered their ranks.

Of course, all of this was quite irrelevant if they couldn't teach them to fight. So they had sent MindWeaved Kallians and true rebels alike to defend the border and buy time to train their citizens. They would have months at best to turn a bunch of volunteer fighters into an army. Naturally, Myra had been tasked with the job.

"Faster!" She called out to the volunteers. "Slowest person gets an extra lap!" The first thing they had to do was work on fitness. Endurance. Naturally, their war-gifts made these things easier than it would have been for humans, but they still needed work. Those she had deemed best had moved onto weapons training, learning the basics of archery as quickly as possible as well as developing the strengths of their animal forms. Myra called over some of the fastest-many of them previously mine-workers-and told them to join the rest of the new archers, who Gemma was examining with her remaining—and rather sceptical—green eye. Once those were deemed to have progressed enough they moved to a more advanced stage with harder bows. Those who had no potential in archery would try melee weapons and those who had no potential at all were assigned to menial jobs that kept the army running, such as food distribution or supply driving.

This was the third day of training. Each day was very much the same. Everyone in the army-including those already trained-got up at dawn to run. Afterwards they would split up into different categories—elf, valkyrie, Tarua Teris and MindWeaved Kallians—and into further categories still. Elves would train with those with the same or similar abilities. Valkyries were split into groups with roughly equal training and war-gift. Tarua Teris split into different forms of fighting—assassins, archers and melee amongst them. The MindWeaved who wanted to convert to their side went through loyalty tests first and then trained separately from the less compliant ones.

Myra spent most of her time with valkyrie citizens whilst Gemma usually took on the more advanced classes. The warrior was a far better teacher than she, even with only one eye to watch her students. The only class she couldn't manage was, of course, use of animal forms. Nala managed all forms of the Tarua Teris training, with masterful displays of wall-climbing, advanced archery and bashing-people-with-spiked-club skills. Talia trained with the MindWeavers, who made up a large portion of the elves given the Silver Court and Guard.

Even leaders who didn't fight played a role. Between Kestra inspiring every valkyrie within a fifty-mile radius, Jasper soothing relations between humans and God-Born and Layla sharing some insight from professional trainers about elven magic-as it turned out, every scholar and teacher of magic had been sent to try to control her Singing-everyone was playing a role in the army. They didn't have any time to lose. Medea's small-time attacks weren't threatening, as Lysandra predicted, but they cost soldiers every time. They needed to take Asriel and the Isthmus to destroy one of the easy passageways to Miras.

Things were routine, peaceful even. Every night after their evening run, Myra, Jasper and Kestra would retire and spend their few remaining hours of consciousness together. Something in her longed for Rose and felt guilty for abandoning her, but in Gemma she had found someone just as trustworthy and reliable. The one-eyed warrior was fierce, brave and determined. Myra at last felt as though the army would be in good hands if she died.

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Layla

She finally felt like a leader. Her own kind of queen. Not like Myra, leading her people to war with her sword and her ingenuity. Not like Talia, fighting with magic on the front lines and in interrogations. Not like Rose, building up an army to save Miras. Not like Lysandra, who ruled-or schemed to-with lies and intrigues.Not like Nala, ruthless and determined, resisting the Empress in the shadows of her own country.Not like Kestra, who led her people with speeches and words, inspiring weary soldiers and terrified citizens for the battles ahead.

No, Layla was her own kind of queen and it had taken Jasper's interference to bring that out.

Every day she sat by the dead and the dying, the injured and the weak. Sometimes she sang, sometimes she said nothing at all and merely sat by them in the final moments. It was purposeful. Meaningful. Sad and exhausting, too, but also rejuvenating. With every person she comforted, Layla felt closer to becoming the sort of queen she wanted to be. Her own sort. She was finally doing something, helping someone. At last she felt as though her parents might have been proud.

But that wasn't the only way Layla was growing into her role as queen. She now listened on in War Councils and the common soldier's conversations. She wanted to get a grasp on the power strands running through this camp, this army. That was something she had been trained for since birth.

Division. It was everywhere. Between the valkyries and elves, who still held old grudges from the war thirty-five years ago. Between the humans and the God-Born, the former fearing the latter and the latter looking on the former with either derision or hatred, for some blamed them for their Empress' crimes. In the War Council, the same divisions existed; for although Myra and Nala were mostly united and Talia had a friendly attitude towards them, the full War Council—Seconds and lower generals and so forth—hated each other like poison. Some of the divides were political but mostly were based off the old hatreds: valkyrie and elf and human.

Whilst the valkyries and elves had deep respect and loyalty to their queens-a pro of having a religious system that put them in demigod status-the humans were less devote. The MindWeaved Kallians, even the converted ones, weren't exactly happy with any of this. Tarua Teris trusted Nala, but all trust had limits. For some of them, it was an alliance with valkyries and elves-who's countries they were bleeding for. The army was on the edge. Some had already deserted. More might later.

Layla had relayed some of this to Kestra and Maia, knowing the others trusted the Keeper Queen more than they did her. To her disappointment, no one seemed to listen. They were more focused on the war ahead. What they didn't understand was that the war within was just as frightening. Layla had done her best to soothe some of the elves' concerns, but she was no Kestra. The tension and division was too strong for her to overcome.

"Lost in thought?" The Kestra in question smiled at her. Their work for the day was done. Sunset was midway through and now everyone retired, weary to their tents or makeshift housing in the city.

"I guess," Layla shrugged. A quiet smile slipped onto her face as she and Kestra began their morning walk. The Keeper Queen was beginning to become a friend. Not like Maia, who was soul-bonded and sister and mirror and too much to ever be expressed in that simple word, but...a comfort. An ally on the Councils and against the darkness that plagued them both. They understood each other, not just in their shared queenship, but also in their dreaming, creative natures. In a normal world they would still have been friends, bonded by the different arts they loved.

"When do you think we'll march to Asriel?" Kestra asked.

"Months maybe," Layla replied. "They'll have to train the valkyries before they have a chance of succeeding. And no war talk, remember?"

"We're two queens in an army camp, fighting to save our countries," Kestra chuckled. "What is there but war talk?" But later they slipped into meaningless and dreaming things, talk of wonder and art and the way it felt when they sang or painted. They laughed and smiled and found themselves losing the hours. Afterwards, Kestra might invite Layla to the area she shared with Myra and Jasper. With them, she and Maia had a makeshift family. Their walks were the only free and joyful time in the war-camp. The mood was somber and serious, and each were lonely and busy at other times. Their time together was a brief and beautiful escape from the real world, a portal back to their too-quick childhoods.

And sometimes a silver-haired figure would watch them from behind, staring longingly at Layla and wishing she was the one walking with them and making her niece laugh.

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Talia

                                
She had forsaken the familiar black dye that had disguised her true identity for years and years. There was no point pretending to be the Talia Swallow of old for Layla. Her not-niece could never love any version of herself. Besides, it did the Silver Guard and Court good to see their Lady with that distinctive silver hair. It gave them hope, Alexander said. She trusted him, perhaps above anyone else. They had known each other since she was a child, Vivienne instead of Talia.

Talia watched on as Layla and Kestra walked together in the sun's fading light, wishing and wishing and wishing it could be here standing beside her niece, making her laugh and smile. But her niece had cast her off, her first true family and the second-the one she'd made with Midas-was gone and the false one she'd built by Orion's side was gone, too. All except for Layla and Maia. And Talia was so, so alone.

They haunted her dreams at night. Before it had just been Naomi, Elaine, and Midas that did that. Memories of her mother, father and grandfather were so locked up that she had stopped them leaking into dreams. But now she had nightmares about them, and Orion and Selene every time she closed her eyes. And when she woke, she always felt so, so alone.

Everyone she had ever loved had either died or abandoned her. She wasn't sure what was more painful. But what she was sure of was that thinking about Layla, dreaming about Layla, watching Layla only hurt her. Seeing her niece with Kestra, laughing and smiling and joking like she had once done with her, close as sisters with her as Talia used to be. Seeing her niece with Jasper and Myra, her niece comforted by Jasper and Myra, her niece looking like she had with Orion and Selene with Jasper and Myra...as though they were the replacement parents that Layla should turn to. Her not-niece was building a life for herself. And Talia wasn't part of it. She didn't even have Maia anymore. Their bond had slipped away in the moment of her betrayal, and whilst they made up...it was never what it was. They were distant, like second cousins instead of close family, like two schoolfriends that had been apart for years and didn't quite know how to slid back into old routines.

There was less pain in watching Layla grow into her queenship though. Even if Talia disagreed with half the things she said on War Council ...those were the first times she began to see a queen as opposed to the family she was meant to protect. And later she had followed Layla, curious, and found that her in the hospital, comforting dying elves and singing to them as they gasped their final breaths. It had filled her with such pride and love for her not-niece that she had cried quietly to herself afterwards. When she had seen Layla quietly listening to the undercurrents of power, she had felt a strange twinge of recognition. She was truly a Charlize. Selene had done the exact same thing.

Those bits were okay to watch, comforting even. But when she saw the life Layla had without Talia...it broke her apart and brought more pain than she cared to admit. Despite this, she could never look away. Maybe she wanted herself to suffer like Layla did. Maybe she was so alone that maybe there was no point in keeping going anyway...

Talia shut the thought down. Veron needed her and she owed that city a life debt for taking her in after she had been hunted across the whole archipelago. Layla needed her, whether she knew it or not. She wasn't giving up now, no matter what strange things she heard at night when a snowstorm was at full blow. No matter if she heard the voices of her beloved dead. There was still one thing to anchor her to earth. It wasn't her people and home like it was for Myra and Nala and all those martyrs. It was the very girl who didn't seemed to want her on this earth at all.

Before she had raged at Layla. Hated her. Wanted to call all the things she thought of her: hypocrite, traitor. But then the rage had faded. Replaced by the love she felt for her niece, the love of her broken, dying heart. And along with the love, a dangerous determination that had cost the people of Veron and Celeste their freedom and for some, their lives: a determination that Layla had to live, a determination that she could not lose someone else, that there would not be another dead child on her shoulders.

Maybe what she did was wrong. Maybe that determination was now a deadly obsession, just as dangerous as Layla's magic's obsession with her was. Maybe in the end, it would only hurt them both.

But Talia couldn't bear it. She couldn't lose somebody else. Her broken, battered heart might just stop beating if she did.

Not one more, she vowed to herself under the full moon's light as she watched Layla laugh with Kestra. Not one more, she vowed to herself as she watched Layla live the life she'd built for herself, the life that didn't include Talia at all. Not one more, she vowed to herself as every smile Layla shared with her new family twisted a knife in her heart.

Not one more, she vowed to herself as she sat alone under the dawn's light, watching the hands on her watch tick by.

"Talia?" Maia said softly, shaking her out of her daze. She smiled a bit as her niece sat down next to her. At least she was trying.

  
"Hey, little May," she replied. Talia barely trusted herself to speak. Maia rarely approached her like this. She was terrified to say the wrong thing and ruin the moment. But as her niece neared her, she saw the tears gleaming in her eyes, forgot all caution and wrapped her into her arms. She let her silently sob into her shoulder for a few minutes.

  
"I miss him," her niece said at last. "I hate that I'll never see him again, that everything was doomed before it even began. I hate that we didn't even get a chance. I hate that I lied. I hate that I'm so weepy and pathetic about it. I hate that I can't just move on." She said the last with such frustration and fury Talia winced a little.

  
"You don't move on," she said softly. "You never move on. It's the stupidest expression I've ever heard. You don't move at all, you don't get over it, you just stay in the same place, and you find small comforts, and you wait for time to dull the ache." She turned to look at Maia. "Who was it? Someone in Crimsith?"

  
"You'd call me a fool if I told you," Maia replied.

  
"I'm hardly one to call anyone a fool," Talia laughed bitterly. "Tell me. No judgement, okay? Just tell me."

  
"I think I fell in love," Maia began, then she told her everything.