Myra stood in front of him, and those bright blue eyes he'd come to love were filled with hatred.

"You're a coward," she spat at him. "You're a traitor. And you'll never change!"

"I did it for you," he begged her, but her face was cold and unmoved. "I love you."

"I never loved you," Myra spat on him. "Murderer."

"Please," he begged her. "Please." He was down on his knees, covered in dirt, and he was begging her to forgive him. Her eyes glinted with hatred, with malice.

"You are a coward," she said, her mouth twisted in a cruel smile. "You are a coward, and a traitor. You are a murderer."

"Please," he cried; his mouth hoarse from begging.

"I never loved you," she said, and suddenly it wasn't Myra standing there, but his aunt.

"I hate you," Nala hissed at him.

"You are no blood of mine," his uncle snarled.

"You are the shame of us," Gareth scowled at him.

"You are nothing," Natalie and Evelina hissed.

His fault. Everything was his fault—

"Wake up, Jasper." The voice cut across the dreams, and the world he had been trapped in faded to dust. He turned to find Talia looking up at him. The room around him felt like a cage-red and black, all of it. The colours of the Empress. From his window, the sun glinted in the morning light.

"I have nightmares, too," Talia said softly. In the five years Jasper had known the elf, Talia had barely spoken to him. It wasn't hard to figure out the source of her nightmares-it probably lived in the cell next to the one where his deepest fears emerged in the night.

"Why are you here?" He asked her, deciding she probably wanted a change in subject.

"Medea wants us in the court. And her daughter apparently has plans to discuss with us afterwards."

Her daughter, Lysandra, who was secretly working with the rebels, just like Jasper and Talia, and had helped them keep alive the past five years in the deadly Crimsith Court. Not to mention aided them in elevating to their current positions in the army, just below the generals.

Lysandra terrified Jasper, and he had a feeling the MindWeaver was secretly terrified of the princess as well.

Five years previous, Medea's daughter had approached them both and basically told them that she didn't believe for one moment that they were loyal to the Empress.

Afterwards she had smiled brightly and said she had zero loyalty to her mother either, introduced them to one another and then connected them to the rebellions gathering throughout the three enslaved kingdoms-Tarua Teris in Kallias, with Nala at the head, the Silver Guard and Court and the Second Army in Asriel, now with Talia\Vivienne in charge, and Rose and Kestra's valkyries in Miras.

"Well, hello, my little snakes," Lysandra chuckled as she passed them in the corridor. "Looking forward to the court session with darling mother?"

"Can't wait," Talia said flatly. Lysandra frowned. After five years, Talia remained very cold and very uninterested in camaraderie.

Aaron, the quiet younger prince, frowned at Lysandra.

"Why's the elf here?" He asked his sister, and Lysandra's face lit up at the sight of her brother.

"No one's quite sure yet," she whispered conspiringly in his ear. "I'm sure mother has some use for her, waiting to surprise us all."

"I thought you were privy to all her little schemes."

"I do know where she keeps her best wine," Lysandra smirked.

Jasper coughed and drifted away with Talia. He neither liked nor trusted Lysandra's brother.

"I wonder what she's going to do about him when it comes to killing Medea." Talia muttered, and Jasper sighed.

"The alchemist isn't a threat," he said, trying to put more confidence in his words than he felt in his heart. "He's her brother. Her family. And I think we both know what that must mean to Lysandra."

Talia flinched. Of course, she knew. Talia was surviving this court of snakes in order to protect her two 'nieces', one in Medea's prison and the other on the run. She knew what a determination to protect family meant better than most—and what the fear of losing it was.

"Have you seen your aunt recently?" She asked, biting back. The blow hit its mark.

"No." Jasper said shortly. "She's in Miras."

Naturally. With the no-longer-floating isles of the archipelago impossible to escape without the military's boats and Kallias and the Isthmus a death trap, the rebellion was centred deep within the Miras mountains.

His aunt totally wasn't avoiding him. Her absence from his life for the past five years was completely and utterly explainable.

"Safe?" Talia asked.

"I don't know," he replied, sighing. With the distance between Miras and Crimsith, news of the rebels was usually weeks away. He was isolated here, with only a brooding elf and a terrifying and absurdly cheerful princess for company.

Myra has it far worse, he reminded himself and felt a stab of guilt. The woman he loved was deep within Dorgon-his fault-and he was drowning in self-pity because he was in the luxury of the Crimsith Palace. He doubted she had any news at all, and certainly nothing about the rebels. For all Myra knew, Kestra-her daughter-was long dead and her people without hope.

I'll get her out, he promised himself for the hundredth time that week. I will get her out.

Five years ago, he had walked into the gates of Medea's palace with Lysandra and Talia at his side, imagining Myra free within weeks. Half a decade later, he had nothing from Lysandra but vague mentions of a plan in the works and the difficulties of breaking the valkyrie general out.

Talia, he knew, felt his frustration. With her so-called niece imprisoned in the depthless dungeons, Lysandra's blasé attitude about freeing Layla and Myra was probably grating on her nerves as much as it was on his.

"Welcome," Medea smiled her cat's smile as they filed into the room. Lysandra gave them a reassuring look as she took her place beside the Empress. "I hope all is well in your territories," she said, looking in the directions of the two governors: Hadlow for Miras, Torus for Asriel.

"We have discovered a new vein in the mines," Hadlow smiled smugly. It took all of Jasper's self-control not to throw himself at the man; to the valkyries, the mountains were so sacred that they had never mined the rich lands, filled with diamond and gold and who-knew-what-else.

"The Draining is proceeding as normal," Torus agreed. 'The Draining', as the Kallians called it, was the forced pooling of elfin magic into a reservoir for the Empress to draw on. Using it, she had managed to convert God-Born magic to Witcharian and create hundreds of thousands of slivers. "However, the elves are not preforming as they used to. I seek permission to use Layla Swallow's abilities." Medea waved away the request.

"Swallow is-and always will be-too much of a threat to allow such a risk."

"But your Majesty-"

"No buts. The Elfin Queen is unpredictable."

Torus wisely quietened. Jasper wished he had kept going. It would have been nice to see the Empress behead him for his disrespect.

"If I may, Your Majesty," Talia began. Lysandra shot her a look, but the elf was long past such things.

"Yes, Vivienne," Medea smiled. Her insistence on using Talia's true name was a clear line in the sand; the Lady would be who she wished her to be, no matter what personal ties she held to her past as Orion's Second.

"It has been four and a half years since the Draining began; after such a time, elfin magic comes close to a breaking point-rendering them entirely useless. Continuing the process without any rest has a potential to kill them. A rest would greatly increase productivity."

From what Jasper had learnt during the past war, every word coming out of Talia's—or, as it may be, Vivienne's—mouth was a lie. He could practically see the look on Lysandra's face-outrage, at the very least. But the Draining was grating on Talia with every passing day, and standing by the Empress as she did it, thanking the Empress for it, had brought her to point where her self-control had snapped entirely. Jasper hated the injustices done to the people of the woman he loved enough that he had almost snapped before; he couldn't imagine Talia's rage.

"I suppose you would know elfin magic better than all of us, Vivienne." Lysandra added quickly, clearly seeking a way to make this appear genuine to her mother. "Jasper, you were under the control of a MindWeaver five years ago and deep within the enemy camp. Would you agree?"

"From what I observed during the war, it would seem to make sense," he replied, faking nonchalance.

"Very well," the Empress smiled. "The decision is yours, Torus."

"The elves should build up a tolerance to this sort of work," he shrugged. "I say let them continue the Draining."

Jasper knew it took every inch of self-control that Talia had built up over the last five years for her not to tear out his throat. He knew this, because he needed every piece of his own to stop himself from strangling the elfin governor.

The look Lysandra shot Talia when no one watching could have made anyone lose the will to live. But Talia stood strong. She had faced the hatred, condemnation and outright enslavement of her people over the last five years, and Jasper wondered if anything could hurt the elf anymore.

Except, of course, the girl queen deep within the dungeons below their feet.

Maybe he was a fool, but Torus' blasé condemnation of innumerable lives made Jasper reckless.

"The further you push the elves and valkyries, the further you push this empire towards the edge of a cliff. There is only so far you can push them before you create an uprising. And not just in the hidden corners of this empire-but everywhere. In the streets. In the mines. In your own palaces." He declared. "Give them a reprieve, before they decide it is worth risking everything for a chance to rebel."

Medea narrowed her eyes at Merson. "I suppose you know much about this?"

"I do. I grew up in a doomed rebellion. I know what makes people throw their lives away for a hopeless cause. I have seen it myself."

"And what makes them throw their lives away?" Medea asked, her black eyes piercing.

"When they have nothing left. When their friends and their families are dead. When their lives-the lives they are throwing away-mean nothing at all."

"And what do you have left, Jasper?" The Empress asked him

"My duty. My service to my people-to you." He replied quickly.

"And if you did not have that?" She asked, her voice casual but her words anything but.

"I would have nothing." He lied.

"And what would you do?"

"I would end whoever took them from me."

"What do the valkyries and the elves have left, Jasper?"

"Their families. Their lives. If you push them, if you take that from that, they will fight back."

"I will consider this proposal, then." The Empress smiled. "You are dismissed."

Lysandra cornered them in the corridors afterwards and shook them both from head to toe.

"You idiots! Do you have any idea how risky that was? If my mother suspects you have any sympathy for the elves and the valkyries, everything we have worked for is lost. Do you understand me?"

"I'm done for the day, Lysandra." Talia said tiredly. "I'm just done."

"I'm sure you don't want to know about your niece, then?" The princess inquired innocently.

Talia froze.

"You're a monster," Jasper hissed at her. "For playing that card on her."

"Oh, am I?" asked Lysandra, her eyes wide with innocence. "I suppose you're uninterested in Myra's condition, then?"

"What." He snapped out. It was a command; not a question. Talia turned around and came back to the waiting princess.

"I have a plan for them," Lysandra smiled. "And I'm sure you'll want to hear about how I get your girlfriend and your niece out of Dorgon."