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The Queen clasps her hands in front of her. “The people on the Ledge have survived too many years at the hands of Vasteel.”

“They have,” Dawsyn agrees. “But we need your assistance to ensure their safe return. They will not come at my word alone. They are too wary, too frightened.”

The Queen nods once more and then turns her back. She seems to communicate silently with her wife, and the moment lengthens.

But Dawsyn knows the Queen has no choice. She cannot leave her own people on the Ledge, no matter how much she might fear their retribution. She cannot deny her guards the opportunity to at least confirm Dawsyn’s claims that Vasteel is gone. She cannot deny Terrsaw its chance to celebrate, to live free of threat.

“I never truly believed this day would come,” Queen Alvira says, and her voice floats to the ceiling. “When I struck that bargain all those years ago, I never imagined we’d ever be free of it.”

Her hand reaches out to her wife’s, and the Queens share a long look, as though words were passed between their palms. It seems an eternity before Queen Alvira’s hand falls back to her side. She turns, and as the guards hold their breath, she lifts her eyes to Ryon, her weary stare suddenly cold.

With no wonderment left in her voice, she lifts her chin with all the grace of a viper before it strikes. “You were supposed to kill this girl, Ryon. You did not hold up your end of our deal.”

Cold. It floods Dawsyn. Drowns her.

“I’ll give you the same answer I did the last time you strutted in here, asking me to share Terrsaw with your kind, asking for myguardsto assist in your crusade. I do not trade anything without a fair return.” The Queen smiles at Ryon, kneeling before her, and derives pleasure from his stunned expression, and then she turns to Dawsyn. “He threatened me withyou, my dear. Did he never mention it? He tried to extort me for weapons, fighters, and alliances. He promised he would spread the word within Terrsaw, start an uprising, and have you reclaim your family’s title. Such joy you would have brought the masses had they known you existed, had they known you had been brought to them. Those fools bow to the memory of your ancestors like they were gods. They would have supported you.” Queen Alvira’s shoes clop indignantly against the tiled floor as she stalks toward Ryon.

“The deal was that you would kill the girl, and I would give you my alliance. Did you think when you turned up here with her again that I couldn’t see the way you had succumbed to her? You were like any other boy with a cock and two eyes, falling over yourself to protect the very woman you had agreed to kill.”

“No, Idid not–”

“Did notwhat, half-breed? Didn’t realize how charming she was? Didn’t realize how well she’d serve you in your bed? Funny, I was willing to dismiss it all once I realized that our dear Dawsyn had no idea who she was and thatyouhad no intention of telling her.”

The Queen takes a dagger from the waist of her gown, and Ryon’s eyes widen.

“So, thank you, Ryon, for taking Vasteel off my hands and for bringing the girl to me after all so that I might end what you could not.”

Ice. Dawsyn’s veins turn to ice. That sentient matter within her shrivels, turns further inward.

What did he do?

What did he do?

“I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity you have so graciously brought to my feet.”

There is only a moment. A slow second before the Queen buries her blade into Ryon’s heart.

Time suspends, and Dawsyn meets Ryon’s eyes. Those dark irises beseech her, beg her, and then the dagger is plunging through his clothes, into his chest, until the hilt meets his flesh.

A sharp gasp leaves him from the deepest pits of his lungs. Blood slips over the jeweled hilt, drips to the mosaic, and as the Queen withdraws it, Dawsyn becomes aware of a tremor in the earth, a searing burn in her throat, and the world is ending. It is collapsing all around.

“Shut her up!” the Queen orders.

And a keen slap knocks Dawsyn sideways. Only then does she stop screaming, her throat torn from the effort, the only tremors coming from her chest, her lungs. She is the one shaking, she is the one collapsing.

From where she lies, Ryon faces her. Their heads press to the floor, side by side, as though they lay together once more, memorizing the dips and planes of each other’s faces. Only now, when she whimpers his name once, twice, Ryon’s eyelids remain closed, so unlike the way he sleeps, the way he dreams. She watches, paralyzed, as he leaves.

Leaves her.

“I am sorry, Miss Sabar,” Queen Alvira continues, unaware that Dawsyn cannot hear, cannot think. “But even if you do not want my crown, I fear the people of Terrsaw will not have it any other way if they find out who you are, and I cannot allow that to happen.”

The Queen lifts her skirts and makes to leave, her wife following close behind.

“Lock her away,” Queen Alvira calls over her shoulder.

The guards hoist Dawsyn from the floor.

And as her body crumples and her feet are dragged through the pool of Ryon’s blood, an echo of light whispers inside her, from a corner she cannot reach.

Release me, it breathes.Release me.