Weeks passed. Cities flashed before her eyes.

Once, she had dreamed of visiting Asriel. Before she understood that her mother would never allow her to go to the elfin isles. Not with the fury and vengeance that rested in her soul.

The cities had once been galleries of marvel, miracles in every corner. They had been lands of wonder to her, as a child. Veron, the city of music. Celeste, the city of rivers and crystal towers. For years, she had wanted to be an elf.

Like all phases, that had passed. But still, it hurt a little, to see those places of childhood dreams crushed.

In the storybooks, the city-states were places of a thousand colours, bursting with a thousand shades of wonder. But now they were all grey.

Grey-uniformed soldiers on broken grey streets that led into grey Draining facilities. The cities of her dreams...they were gone.

It had been years since she had been a child that dreamed of such things. Years since she had been a child at all. In her twenty-four years, she had seen the pain and suffering of those under the Kallian Empire. She had murdered her brothers, and others before and after them.

And yet maybe a part of her stone-encased heart crumpled at the sight of the broken cities of Asriel. Layla, though....

With every passing day, the Elfin Queen receded deeper into herself. She and Myra were like kicked dogs. Layla whimpered and hide deeper into herself, trying to blend into the shadows. Myra roared with fury and tried to tear the offender's leg off.

If this continued much longer, both would be rendered useless. Layla by her hopelessness and Myra by blind rage and vengeance. Lysandra had little use for such broken creatures.

Oh, let Jasper's voice in her head berate her for her heartlessness. Burning suns, she had tried to blend in with the sentimental rebel group. But martyrdom and selflessness simply weren't in her blood.

People were useful, or they weren't. If they wanted to weep over that, then they could go to summer. Nala, at least, understood the sacrifices of war. If only she had been born a Crimson. What an empress she would have made, if they hadn't lost her to the whole greater good hoax.

She was distracted imagining the glory of Layla, Myra, Rose and Jasper without the goodness dysfunction when her mother told her about the attack.

"Five hundred valkyries stormed the northern diamond mines, set fire to the Warrior's Forest and freed the miners," her mother half-shrieked at her, gnashing her teeth. "The audacity of it!"

It wasn't hard to fake surprise. Nala hadn't even told her about this. She and the chancellor were going to have a nice, long talk about telling your best asset about a major sun-blasted attack.

"They-what?" Lysandra blurted. "But-but they have to be trapped. The river-the flaming wall of sun-blasted trees. We can surround them."

"It's been three weeks. The flame is still burning. The whole forest has been burning for three weeks."

"What does that even mean?" She asked, incredulous.

"Well, it means they either have wyverns-even though we supposedly eliminated them five years ago-or it means they have FireBreathers strong enough to hold an acres-long and wide wall for three weeks."

"I don't even know which one to hope for," Lysandra muttered. 

Oh, she did. She hoped for both.

A sudden pause. Something snapped into focus in her mother's eyes.

"Or," she smiled. "They have MindWeavers." Lysandra's stomach sank like a stone

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By the time they sat down for dinner at the empty house reserved for important officials, her mother was in a much better mood.

"They will regret this," she muttered joyfully. "They stole the healers. To retaliate we struck right at their heart with Layla. Now, the mines. Like clockwork. Attack and counter. So, our counter must be better than their attack."

It had occurred to Lysandra that perhaps her mother was mad. She could never quite be sure, between her strategic genius and random fits of mania.

"What's our next move?" She asked carefully. Her mother had begun to hop up and down with glee.

"We've already used Layla with speeches," she said frantically. "But Myra is still a card we haven't pulled. Enough with parades and pretty words! We will send the Dragon after her own people!"

"If Myra is captured, then we lose her as a potential weapon," she said carefully, doing her best to mitigate this.

"She is the Dragon," her mother said confidently. "No one will be able to capture her."

"We're risking a lot-"

"Am I the Empress?" Her mother asked warningly. "You will do as I say, daughter."

"Of course, mother," she replied softly, her heart sinking terribly. "I misspoke."

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Myra

"Hello, coward," said the Dragon to the Snake.

"Hello, fool," the Snake replied. "Mother has plans for you."

"Goody, goody," Myra said sarcastically. "I've been wondering when Medea would bring me out to play. Are we going to Miras, then?"

"Oh, yes," Lysandra grinned. She felt a sudden and familiar temptation

to strangle her. "To the diamond mines, in fact." She gritted her teeth. Even the mention of those abominations made her want to shatter something. Preferably Lysandra's skull, but she'd settle for some glass.

"Your little rebels stormed into the mines," the princess smiled. "But don't worry. We're going to send you to deal with them."

Helplessness. That was the first feeling that washed over her. For years, she had been trapped in Dorgon. Imprisoned as her people suffered. She had been unable to save them from the Empress. Unable to save Layla from the sliver as her mere words sent havoc across her beloved country.

Yet she had never felt so helpless as she did now. Medea would have her march against a rebellion, against her people. March to murder her own.

She felt suddenly sick. Soon, so soon she would be forced to spill valkyrie blood. To kill the bravest her own. But worse than that. To destroy whatever hope was left.

Rage came next. It coursed from her blood and set it on fire. It burned. As the raw emotion and fury that came to a great crescendo within her, Myra was shaking and screaming and the world was suddenly a rapid blur of Viktoria and Vera, her beloved best friends and they were DEAD, and her daughter's name was Kestra but they all called her Kestrel and she had called her Star-Soul and she had painted and she had been beautiful and brave and they had killed her.

And her world was spinning and they had killed her friends and her daughter, and she was rage incarnate, and they had called her the Dragon, and she was a blade forged to end them all and she would not let them do this to her, to her people and-

She lunged for Lysandra in a heartbeat and raked her fingernails down the princess' face and tasted blood.

"I will kill you!" She screamed, and she was burning alive with fury and hatred. The flames of it coursed through her blood and she was burning up and she needed them to burn too. The world-she would burn the world and the fire within her would not be quenched.

A sudden hand on her shoulder.

"Stop," Layla begged. "Stop, or you'll get someone else killed." The words snapped her back into reality. Oh goddess. Oh goddess. What had she done? Someone else will die for this, maybe many and it was all her fault. Medea's daughter was bleeding, and the marks of Myra's fingernails were stark and red against her skin.

All it would take was a word from the princess, and her people would pay the price.

"I will not tell my mother about this," Lysandra said softly. "If you remember that I could have." Myra nodded desperately.

"Thank you," she said fervently. She would bow to Medea herself if it spared her people.

"Remember this," her enemy's heir said harshly. "Remember what your actions almost cost you. Be more careful next time." Myra barely had the energy to nod. Why was Lysandra giving her advice?

The princess leaned closer to her until her mouth was pressed to her ear.

"Your daughter lives," she whispered, and was gone.