They meet together long after the orange sunset faded and was replaced by endless night.

"You've got the rings?" Lysandra asked. 

"It's not as though we could forget them," Talia snapped.                                        

"I put no limits on your stupidity," the princess replied. "Now, reach out to the sliver. Feel it. This will be easier for Talia, since she has experience with magic."

"I don't feel anything," Talia said after about a minute. "Not a thing. Maybe only humans can use it?"                                  

"I can't use it either," Jasper replied.

"Press your finger to the ring," Lysandra suggested. "Feel it humming. Feel the current. The energy."

"Oh," Talia said suddenly. "This is so...different.I was looking for something like elfin magic but it's not. My power is like the wind, like flowing water. This is lava. It burns."

"It doesn't like you," Lysandra quipped. "Jasper?"

"Yes, I've got it."

"Now, reach out. On the other end of the sliver, there are people, right?"

"So many," Jasper said. "We're all connected. Like there's some current running through all of us, linking us."

"Exactly. That's the force of the magic. Now, pull." He reached out through the thousand intertwining strands and felt them go limp in surrender. This was the power that had held Myra. It sickened him.

"Speak to them. Speak through the bond. Command them."

They stood by the harbour containing the smugglers' ships. Jasper now commanded a quarter of them, Talia a further quarter. Altogether two hundred thousand of them, all at the mercy of the rings. He shuddered slightly and sent words down the threads that connected them. Come to the harbour wearing your armour and weapons. Come silently. Do not tell anyone where you are going. He drew in a deep breath of relief mingled with horror as a hundred thousand strands went limp again, submitting to the command.  Talia nodded at him.

"You'll be able to command them that way until we get them into the hands of the Silver Court. Medea can unravel this pretty quickly—you'll need to move fast." Jasper and Talia nodded in understanding. "I'm going to leave now. You won't see me for a few months. Once the soldiers are here, you take off. Got me?" Jasper nodded and Talia grumbled in assent. Lysandra pulled two vials out of her pocket.

"What is that?" Talia asked suspiciously.

"Give one to Nala," Lysandra instructed him, pressing the pair into his hand. "Take the other one yourself."                                                

"What is it?" Jasper asked.

"Elixir," Lysandra replied. "Immortality elixir."                                                               

"Why?" Jasper asked, bewildered.

"Thank you would be appreciated." Lysandra muttered. "Because you've been a good friend. Because I can't imagine a worse fate than watching Nala and all my other friends grow old while I stay young and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even Myra Isidore."                                      

"Lysandra, I don't know what to—".                                                     

"Just drink the thing! Unless you want to wait a few years, but forever twenty-two sounds nice to me."                                       

"Thank you,"  Jasper said.

"Goodbye, my vipers," Lysandra smirked, a touch of sadness in her tone. "Try not to get yourself killed without me to hold your hands."

"Goodbye, Lysandra," Jasper replied, a hint of sadness in his voice as well.  Talia said nothing as the princess disappeared through the twisting streets.

Two hundred thousand soldiers arrived half an hour later, their eyes blank and listless.

Get onto the ships as quickly as you can, Jasper commanded. Do not attempt to disobey.

————————————————

Myra

A few weary days later she woke to one of the nine-year-old trainees shaking her desperately.

"The scouts noticed ships on the horizon. They come from Kallias." Myra raced out of her cave without so much as thanking the girl. Still in pyjamas, she raced up to the scout tower to see the ships. They had to contain two hundred thousand soldiers.

"Everyone get down into the caves. Scatter to the safe zones. The gryphons and wyverns will have to follow as best they can—"

"They're waving a white flag," one of the scouts pointed out.

"As if Medea wouldn't wave a false flag of truce if it served her," Myra scoffed. "The children can fit in the smaller tunnels and the smaller adults can go with—"

"They're waving Lysandra's symbol too." The other scout pointed out. "That means they're working with her."

"How on earth has Lysandra acquired two hundred thousand soldiers and twenty of the largest ships in the world to carry them?" Myra wondered, shaking her head. She still didn't trust this.

The rebel leaders—her, Nala, Maia, Layla and Zara—gathered on the beach before the mountains with a contingent of soldiers to guard them. She'd insisted that Rose and Kestra stay behind in case it was a trap. She assumed the other two had made similar arrangements. They'd be fools to trust in a few dozen rebels' protection—even if some of the Second Army were among them.

The first ship anchored next to the beach. Someone had thrown down a plank to allow people to walk off.                                                        

And walking down the plank was the boy she loved and hated, the boy who was now a man, the boy that had betrayed her.

Jasper Merson stared at her as he walked down. Myra stood, transfixed. Somewhere in the distance, Layla let out a cry as a distant figure walked down from the other ship, but nothing mattered but him, walking down towards her. Rage bubbled in her soul along with a strange other emotion: longing. Even after everything he'd done, she still loved him, still longed for the short days they'd had together with such happiness ahead of them...

That boy was a lie. The traitor, the Empress' little pet...that was the real Jasper Merson. Myra was about to fling herself at him, to claw his eyes out, to dig her dagger into his chest, but Nala held her back, shaking her head.

"I'm not a hero, Myra," Jasper said as he took his first step onto the black sand. His first words to her in five years. "I'm not a shining white knight in armour. I'm not like you. I'm just human." If he was going to give her excuses, then she would rip his throat out, Nala or no.

"So when the tide turned against us, I knew I couldn't fight by your side and save you from death. I abandoned you instead and wormed my way into the Empress' ear. I convinced her to put you in Dorgon instead. Where I could figure out something else."

His betrayal...hadn't been a betrayal at all. He had done that, gone back to the woman who murdered his family, survived in that gods-cursed court for five years...all for her. Her eyes warmed with tears.

"I couldn't ride into Dorgon and save you like the heroes do in the stories. I had to sneak you out under Medea's nose."

Yes, she was definitely going to cry.

"And I can't fight beside you like the heroes do, their swords worth a hundred thousand men." A single tear slid free, and it was the drop of water to break a dam. Suddenly a dozen hot streams ran down her face. "So I had to steal you an army instead."

He held his hands in the air. "I'm not a hero, Myra. I'm just me. All I can offer you is my heart and my Name and an average aim with a bow."

She hugged him, more of a tackle than anything else. And at last she said the words that had burned on her tongue five years ago in the ruined city of Cobalt. She told him her Name at last.

She was distantly aware of Nala and the others boarding the ship he had come off, inspecting the soldiers there. She was very well aware of the fact she couldn't care less about anybody else in the world right now.

"I love you, Jasper Merson. More than any hero out of a storybook."

"Was the speech, good? I've been practicing it for five years now. Nala and Kestra weren't allowed to tell you because it was going to spoil the speech."

"The speech was good," she assured him.

"Are you sure? Or are you just saying that?" He asked worriedly. She hugged him tighter.

"You're strangling me!"