The makeshift war council was plunged into shocked silence.

"It would kill you?" Nala asked. "You're certain?"

"Yes," they replied. "We'd be able to create it-just. Then we would plunge into a coma and almost certainly die."

"How can you be so certain?" Kestra asked sceptically. "People like you can never be certain of your limits, can you?"

"No. But my sister and I are of the Silver Court. Our lives have been constantly under threat, ever since the fall of Silvera. We have come too close to the edge too many times to count. We know our limits very, very well."

"There must be something else, then," Kestra appealed to her mother. "Some other way. You're the Dragon. You can think your way out of this without losing them."

But Myra fixed her eyes on the two MindWeavers. The sisters-Rhea and Reyna, weren't they?-stared resolutely back at her.

"Are you willing to do this? I will not make you."

"I am. For the Court long-lost, the Lady stolen from us and the Queen imprisoned. I will do it." Rhea declared it with such bright light shining in her eyes that Kestra wanted to scream. She couldn't bear it if such light was snuffed out.

"I am." Her sister, Reyna, repeated. "For my friends gathered here today for this cause. For my friends gathered in the world above who fought for us and died for us. For the future we seek to build, I will do it."

Her mother gave the pair a grim nod and a flash of understanding seemed to pass through them. They were all warriors; they had all made great sacrifices. Nala was nodding along too. She and her mother were both generals, both warriors. They knew and accepted the sacrifice of few for the survival of many.

"No," she choked out. "There has to be another way. We can't just let them die."

Myra held her hand gently. "There is no other way, Kestra. You are strong. You are a queen now. You must accept this. There is no other way."

"No," she said, taking a step back and shaking her head vehemently. "It is weakness to accept this, not strength. There is another way. I won't let them die!"

Nala turned to her, her voice soothing and calm. "I wish there was another way. But would you let hundreds die out there for the lives of these two?"

"They could make it out," Kestra said, shaking her head. "They're illusionists; they don't have to die with us."

"Let them make their own choice, Kestra," Nala said softly. "They aren't yours to protect. These two elves are making a valiant and brave decision. This is their choice."

"What's your plan, anyway?" Kestra asked, a little more harshly than she meant to.

"We rig the entrance to the mine with explosives and move out of the way out of the impeding Kallian army. Rhea and Reyna create the duplicate army and use it to lure the army in. We creep up behind and force their army inside if necessary. Their backs will be against the mountains-it's not impossible. We explode the entrance and trap the Kallians inside."

Kestra shook her head. "It's too risky. A hundred things could go wrong. And Rhea and Reyna might just die for nothing."

"We're ready to face that," they insisted, speaking as one.

Nala put an arm on her shoulder. "You're too young to make these decisions, Kestra. I pity your position. But there is no choice. Don't you see? This is the only way out. Think of all the lives this will save-not just the warriors here, but thousands, all across

the continent. Not one more valkyrie sent into those mines. Not one more elf forced to participate in the Draining. Not one more Kallian conscripted into the army, forced to hunt down their own, family and friends that broke laws trying to stay alive."

Kestra couldn't face this. Could not accept it.

"Not one more Keeper Queen killed before she could grow up and become extraordinary," Nala insisted.

"The moment we start doing this—justifying one life for a hundred—we become like her. And everything is for naught."

"It's not like that, Kestra. We're different. If Rhea and Reyna told us that they wouldn't do it, that they refused to die for this then we wouldn't even be suggesting it."

"Really, Nala? Or is that just what we tell ourselves?" She whirled to face Myra, hoping for support from her mother.

"If it were me, would you do this? If I wasn't a Keeper Queen or anyone at all, if I was just your daughter, would you sacrifice me?" She begged, demanding the answer from her mother.

"No, I wouldn't," she said with a heavy sigh. "Even if you wanted it."

"Then how can you do this?" Kestra asked. "These people they have a family, too. A mother, a father, sisters and brothers."

"No, we don't," Rhea told her. "They are all dead, either by the hand of rebels against Silvera or by the hand of the Empress. By the very people we are fighting against. And that is why we will give our lives. That is why we will fight. Because this cannot go on."

"I won't be a part of this," Kestra said, her voice shaking. "But I won't stop it, either."

It was weak, and she knew it. To stand back and do nothing. She might as well have sent the twin MindWeavers to their deaths themselves. But she could not find it in herself to vote in favour.

The motion passed anyway. With a few words, two people were doomed, and hundreds saved.

Kestra could see the pain in her mother's eyes as she watched the twins.

————————————————

Myra

For the second time that day, Myra Lluvia Isidore could barely breathe.

She would see their faces wherever she looked for the rest of her existence. Rhea and Reyna, bursting with life and hope and vigour. Rhea and Reyna, brave and strong and selfless. Rhea and Reyna who she would simply allow to die.

She knew, although it had only been a few hours since the decision, that she would tell herself for years and years that it had been their choice. That it had been done for the greater good. That it had saved hundreds of lives, given thousands more a chance at freedom. She also knew that the words would give some comfort, but never truly relieve the guilt.

Kestra snuggled up next to her in bed that night, slipping back into the old tradition like a familiar pair of slippers. Whenever she had a hard day, she always slept with Myra. And if this wasn't a hard day, then she didn't know what was.

"I hate myself for it already," she whispered into Kestra's mop of black hair.

"I know. I hate myself more for standing back and doing nothing. What I said before was wrong. It is strong to let that happen. To let somebody else make sacrifices. And it was weak of me to refuse to vote either way."

"There is no right choice," Myra said, her voice hoarse. "Only the better of two options. And none of us know for certain what the better one is."

"What happened to you for the past five years?" At last she asked the question she'd been itching to know the answer to. Before she hadn't because she was afraid of knowing the truth, but Kestra couldn't stop herself anymore.

"Many things." Myra sighed. "I changed. I faced death and pain and destruction. And in the end, they won a part of me. They changed me in a way I never wanted to be changed. They made me angry, and vengeful and ruthless. I've never really hated people like I do now, hated them enough to enjoy their death. The last time that happened was when my mother died. I hate person I became then. It took me a long while to be free of her. The anger, the hatred, the pain. The girl I was before my mother died never came back fully. There was still that darker part of her there. And when...everything happened, I became dark again. I'm still crawling my way back up from that person, and I know I'll never become the woman I was before the Kallians came again."

A silence came over them. Kestra wordlessly mourned for that woman, the mother she had known for twelve years. The person here know was so much like her, but not quite the same. Her mother had changed, and so had she. Right now, they felt like munted, jagged jigsaw pieces trying to find the way to fight back together again.

"You've changed, too," her mother said at last. "What happened?"

"Many things," she answered, repeating her mother's words back to her, earning a slight smile. "I lost Viktoria, Vera, my life, my home, my safety, my childhood. For a long time, I thought I lost you too. Before I was the girl afraid of the crown. I was weak, uncertain. That girl would have shattered years ago.

"So, I became someone else. To survive, I became stronger. I wasn't a warrior, but I learnt to fight a war in a different way. To make some hard decisions. To manage my grief, my loneliness, my fear. I think a version of myself died with Vera, with Viktoria, with Azul's burning. For a long time, I was a ghost. Barely there, just trying to survive the next day and the day after that.

"Then the new Kestra crawled her way back up to life. A phoenix, reborn from the ashes of myself. I lost the little girl who feared the crown. I lost the little girl who finger-painted all over your office." The pair smiled with the shared memory. "My childhood died. I grew up, faster than I should have had to."

"I'm proud of who you became," Myra told her. "Proud of the woman-the queen-you are. But I miss that girl, too. I miss that child. You should

be like other seventeen-year-olds-muddling your way through life and hanging out with your friends."

"I mourn her," Kestra replied. "That child. Most days, I think of her as Kestrel."

"She shouldn't have grown up so early," Myra agreed, tucked her daughter's black hair behind her ear.

"War makes us all grow up too fast," Kestra sighed. "The valkyrie trainees, the young children enslaved under this empire. At least I still have you."

Kestra shifted into a snow fox, snuggling closer to her mother as Myra herself changed into a snow leopard, sleeping on each other like puppies and sharing thick fur to spare themselves from the cold.

The lines between valkyrie and beast blurred, until nothing was left but mother and daughter, falling asleep together, cocooned in the darkness and each other's fur.