They had taken back Azul. It had been bloody, and costly, but they had done it. The resistance had stormed the capital of Miras and taken back what was rightfully theirs. As Myra walked through the reclaimed streets, she felt a burst of pride and hope and righteousness. They had won back Azul for her people. This was their rightful home, and the Dragon had fought and fought to take it back for them.

They had lost a dozen elves, which might seem a small number, but was actually devastating. They only had a hundred in total, and each one's ability was unique and invaluable. About three hundred Tarua Teris had spent their blood on the walls, also costly. But worst of all were the hundred valkyries lost, almost all of them some of their best warriors. Those losses were a deep cut. It would be hard to go on without some of their greatest soldiers. It was also bad in terms of hoping to train a new generation. As though as who knew how to prepare warriors  died, so did a piece of their future.

The rebels mourned their losses, but they could not stand still. Even now, Myra had dispatched multiple teams throughout Miras to completely secure the country. Groups of valkyries, elves and Tarua Teris would spread across the countryside and free towns, villages and mines still held by small groups of overseers and guardsmen. Meanwhile, reinforcements would head to Topaz, Citrine and Zerena to defend the front cities of Miras from attack. And the group dearest to her heart—the group containing Rose-would march, after the official coronations, to reclaim the Bird of Prey

Mountains and establish them as their new base.The Kallians hadn't taken up in the mountain range-perhaps they had known that the mountains would never have allowed them to squat there-so they expected it would be abandoned. Myra longed to go with them of course and told Rose as much, but she had to stay in Azul and prepare the capital for 'my hero's welcome' as the warrior had said herself. Oh, how far she had come since Myra had walloped her in sparring. How far they had all come.

Whilst the rest of the army expanded and solidified control over Miras, Myra, Nala, Maia and Kestra would remain to prepare Azul for the war ahead. The fortress would be rebuilt and modified with a couple of her own brainchildren. Their people would be recruited. The palace and buildings put back in some order. Myra, Rose and Kestra's coronations handled. They would take back Miras entirely and prepare for war over the next few months. The time waiting would cost them-it would give Medea days to prepare Asriel for attack and maybe to test their border-but Myra and the others had decided it was the better move. They could recruit and train valkyries and ready for Miras as a weapon of war.

And of all people, Myra was desperate for a rest. Time to recuperate. To recover from the losses and scars and exhaustion of taking Zerena and Azul. Of planning four attacks on four different cities. Even if their frantic rebuilding and preparation wouldn't really count as rest, it was still better than all-out warfare. This way she could have Jasper and Kestra by her side. Besides, working to help her people, to defend their walls...that was far better than fighting in the midst of a battlefield.

Goddesses above, if she thought the assassinations, firestorm and siege of Zerena was bad, she had no idea about Azul. The fierce bloodbath on the streets she had loved...the death and destruction all around her...Myra Isidore had fought on the Isthmus in the God-Born War. That had been worse-or at least as bad-as Azul. But still, the blood-soaked streets and chaotic war would haunt her dreams until the day she died. Like the other two wars she had fought still did.

Myra collapsed onto her bed at one in the morning after she had spent the night and morning fighting-had she really assassinated Hadlow only yesterday?—and an afternoon and night planning for more to come. She slept for hours and hours, only waking in between because of the soft touch of her daughter's hand on her cheek.

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Jasper

He was still shaken from everything that had happened with the Kallian girl. He couldn't forget her face. Before, her, and everyone like her, had been faceless masses. Enemies with masks and weapons rather than people with faces and souls. Before her, he had been able to turn away. To not see them. The soldiers Myra and Nala killed were faceless. Cruel enemies, soulless beasts. None of them were conscripted. No, they were all nobles' children who chose this. No, they weren't people at all.                           

Jasper had forgotten the original mission of the rebels, the purpose that had driven him forward: to save these people. People stolen from their homes, families and lives and made to serve an Empress who threw them away like cannon fodder, pitting them against enemies far greater than they. People who died alone and far from home, thrown away to a useless war, their pain and suffering and entire lives forgotten.

This was what Medea wanted. To make them question. To make them hesitate. It had been her greatest weapon against the old rebellion. Greater than spies, greater than numbers. The fact that every single fighter questioned and saw alternate versions of themselves staring right back at them.

Just like Jasper had, staring at that nameless girl. He'd seen himself looking right at him. A Jasper that hadn't had an uncle and aunt who hid him from conscription. A Jasper that hadn't been found by the valkyries. A Jasper who Lysandra hadn't helped when he was new to court. That girl was just a different version of him. And just one more person that both Medea and the rebels were willing to sacrifice. So what if the rebels sacrificed them for a better reason? Jasper still couldn't do it.

So he had hung back for the rest of the time as they opened the gate. When he did shoot, he targeted the officials, the generals, the nobles' children who hardly ever died in the way that other peoples' children did. He watched as the others threw themselves into the fray, some dying, some losing limbs, all fearlessly and devotedly fighting...

A familiar guilt crept back up on him. He was a coward again. He was hiding whilst the others fought again. But this was different. This time he wasn't hiding from death. He was hiding from dealing it. Maybe it made him weak. Maybe it meant he was playing right into Medea's hands. But he couldn't kill again. Not the conscripted. The beaten-down. The starving. He couldn't let them die in pain, alone at the end, passing from a world that would forget them, only their families left to remember their names, their faces. Jasper wouldn't do that to anyone. Not anymore.

So when he found Layla Swallow bearing the same look as he did, looking as haunted as he did as she watched the rebels giving their enemies the respect of a graves, he was surprised. She was the Elfin Queen, after all.

But as she watched him, she seemed to recognise her own expression glinting in his eyes. So he walked to her. Came to sit next to her. And for a while, there was silence.

"I didn't do it for Talia," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. But he heard it, and her eyes, the guilt, the mourning...in a flash, he understood her cryptic words. She must have seen in his eyes what he saw in hers, if she dared to tell him that.

They sat together, each uncertain of where to start.

"We're not like them," he said, saying first. "Not like Myra and Nala and Lysandra. Not like..." he stopped.                                             

"Not like Talia?" Layla asked. He nodded. "We can't turn away. We see their faces. I can't kill them. Conscripted or not. Good or not. That's the reason I made the deal. Not for Talia How could I do it? Choose strangers over all of Asriel? I'm weak." She spat out the last word with such hatred, such self-loathing that for a moment, Layla reminded him of himself. "I'm too weak to let them die. Too weak to kill. I'm not a Queen. I'm just a girl."                                           

"I don't think it's a bad thing," Jasper said softly. "I mean-I don't think what Myra and Nala and Talia are doing is bad either. I think they're making hard choices. Sacrifices.Being...strong. Doing what's right for the greater good. But there was a Kallian girl today...she didn't want any of this. She wasn't a bad person. I couldn't kill her."  Silence lapped over them. Layla started to move away.                           

"Don't go." He said quickly. "I think we can still do something in this war. I've been talking to some of the humans. Trying to build bond between them and the valkyries and elves. I think that's  what I'm meant to do. Build rather than destroy. So I think you can still do something. As Queen. Even if it's not leading battles or making hard decisions."        

"I'm not like Kestra," Layla said bitterly. "I can't make speeches or comfort people or inspire our soldiers. I've tried. She's tried to help me. I just can't. The words never come."                                                        

"Maybe that's because you're trying to be queen her way rather than your own,"Jasper said, eyes twinkling. "You need to forge your own path, not follow someone else's. Be yourself, Layla." She only sighed.                   

"I'm not a queen. I'm just a girl. Broken, half-mad, hopeless. There's no point in being my being myself when myself isn't enough."                          "Let's go to the hospital," he said. "It's not like last time, when they had valkyrie Medics and elven healers to spare. They need every hand they can get, even if they have no training." He sighed. "Come on, Layla. You have to do something."                                                                          

"It's my fault, though," she whispered. "I let those people go. And that's the reason why so many are injured. I can't look them in the eye."     

"You have to," he said, his tone surprising him with its harshness. "Don't you owe them at least that, Layla?" She nodded weakly and took his hand.

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Layla                                                                                             

The infirmary was filled with bodies. Gruesome wounds and screams filled the makeshift hospital.  Layla felt a sudden urge to turn away, but she couldn't. Jasper's words echoed in her: Don't you owe them at least that, Layla? She did. She owed them that, and more. Suddenly Kestra's words came back to her, too: you owe your people something, simply by being born with the ability to save them.

Maybe she wasn't Kestra. But maybe she could become her own type of queen.

"Thank goodness you're here," one of the valkyries smiled, seeing Jasper. "We've hardly got anyone.Do you know how to reset an ankle?" He nodded quickly.                                                

"Taught us in the old rebellion and relearnt it with the army."                  

"That's good," she said, letting out a sigh of relief. "Over there, bed three, quarter five. Everyone's so busy with the more fatal cases that he's been waiting for hours when they need him for the mines and villages." Jasper nodded and rushed over, leaving Layla alone in a sea of hospital beds. The valkyrie suddenly noticed her and gave an uncertain curtesy. Like all the other valkyries, she was uncertain of how much respect and deference she show an Elfin Queen as a subject of Miras.                         

"Your Majesty," she stammered. "What can I help you with?"               

"Nothing," she said quickly. "You have enough on your hands already." The woman rushed away to the next patient, and Layla was left to wander aimlessly. She watched as Jasper and the others rushed around, trying to help the injured and save those with hope left. But she naturally drifted to the beds of the dying and the doomed. They lay there, abandoned, in their final moment. No one could be spared to comfort those already doomed, not when there was a chance of saving others from the same fate.                    

Layla saw an elfin woman drawing her last, raspy breaths. For a moment, she looked like Talia and her heart skipped a beat. Then she realised that this dying elf wasn't her aunt-friend-enemy-family-not. She let out a sigh of relief, followed by a rush of shame. It was selfish to hope for another's death over Talia's. Especially when she still wasn't speaking to her not-aunt.

She drifted aimlessly in the direction of the woman. The elf was soaked in blood and her breaths were shallow and raspy. Layla was no doctor, but she knew that the woman was doomed. Death was mere breaths away, waiting in the shadowed corner of the room. She walked towards her anyway. The elf looked up at her, a flicker of recognition dancing across her face. Layla sunk to the empty bed-still covered in fresh blood-next to her.

Almost out of instinct, she reached for the elf's hand. In her dying eyes, she could have sworn she saw a silent request. So Layla opened her mouth and let a single note free.

Before she knew it, she was singing to the dying woman. Not a capital letter Sing, but a simple, beautiful song. It was a tune as old as time and as young as a newborn child, a tune that came not from music learned in a stuffy classroom but from her heart, her soul. It was peaceful and soft and mourning, a sweet, beautiful sound that slipped from her lips and fluttered into the air like a butterfly. The elf smiled at her, and slipped her blood-soaked hand into Layla's. She gave a hint of a smile, and a single tear ran down her cheeks. Then the woman breathed her last, rasping breath. As she slipped away from the world, the last thing she saw was her Queen and the last thing she heard was Layla's song.

Before she knew it, a flood of tears rushed down her cheeks. One of the elfin healers walked up next to her.          

"You gave her comfort," he said softly. "That's all any of us can do." His eyes shined with hope. "I now see why you are Queen."

A great, choking sadness had descended on Layla. But as his words and others' settled into her mind, she felt herself growing stronger. Maybe she wasn't Kestra, always knowing the right words to say. Maybe she wasn't Myra, making hard choices and fighting endlessly for her people. Maybe she wasn't Aella Elenith, the legendary warrior queen of ages past.

But maybe she could be her own kind of Queen after all.