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A flush creeps over Valerisse’s face. “None of that matters,” she snaps. “We’ll sort out the rest once we see a true ruler on the throne.”

Unruffled, I continue. “A true ruler would be thinking about how the empire’s citizens will find abundance of all sorts, not how to shed their blood. A true ruler would wish to raise our people up rather than tearing down what others would build for them.”

Marc continues banging on one side of the barrier while Raul is throwing his shoulder against the other side. The rest of my guards are pummeling the invisible shell around me as well. A tremor wobbles through the air.

From the tightening of Valerisse’s jaw, I think she can feel it too. She’s running out of time.

Because even trapped in here, I’m not alone. I have so many people on my side.

I’ll be the empress they deserve.

Her lips pull back as if in a snarl. “I’ll raise the empire up properly, on conquest and victory. You haven’t built anything.”

I have to hold back a snort at the thought of the very literal palaces I’m having constructed in Vivencia while we speak. “I offer them love that can cross status and borders. I offer them the cleverness to see through any battle by their own terms, no matter how great their opponent.”

“Why are you talking as if you’ve defeated me? I could run you through right now.”

I gaze back at her, softening my voice. “No, you couldn’t. Because I’m bringing peace, and my godlen and I won’t let anyone shatter it. Nothing you say or do can touch me. And everyone, even your own soldiers, is seeing that right now.”

A harsher tremor ripples through the air. Sparks flicker where my protectors are striking the barrier, as if it’s on the verge of disintegrating.

Valerisse lets out a wordless growl of frustration and hurls herself at me.

The sunlight flares off her blade and her helm. I step back instinctively. My gaze falls across her armor.

I don’t know whether it’s simply a natural keenness of sight, a lingering effect of merging my gift with Marc’s magic, or some touch of divine magic. Whatever the case, my attention catches on a shift in the armored plates over Valerisse’s chest.

There’s a small spot just beneath her breast where one slat has broken away in the fighting. It must have been bashed by a spear point or a swipe of a sword. All that lies beneath is a scrap of fabric.

My arm moves as if of its own accord, through weeks of practice and a sense of certainty I can’t totally explain. I whip my sword into position to meet the tribune’s rush, not striking out, just bracing for impact.

Valerisse is hurtling forward too swiftly to adjust course even if it’d occur to her that she should. She slams straight into my weapon, and the blade pierces through that tiny opening and into her flesh.

The impact shoves me farther backward. The blade slices through sinew and muscle to clink into the plates of steel against her back. Blood spurts over me.

And Valerisse’s sword keeps swinging at my neck.

The last part I can only attribute to Evando’s training and Lorenzo’s insistence that we focus on defensive skills. I twist to the side and roll away from the tribune’s toppling body and her vicious strike .

The blade glances off my upper arm, only carving the thinnest of stinging lines in my skin. I hit the ground shoulder first and roll further.

Valerisse slumps over against the grass, her body already limp as the life blood pulses out of her.

The magical barrier surrounding us cracks. Marc rushes in to wrench me farther away, the princes at his heels.

I hug him tight just for a moment, my lips brushing his cheek, and then ease away.

All the soldiers have paused in their fighting, watching the confrontation just as Valerisse wanted it. Before their eyes, I flip her body onto its back with my foot and yank the Sabrelle-blessed sword from her chest.

Staring down at her slack corpse and the blood-drenched ground beneath her, picturing all the other bodies strewn across the hillside and field, a sudden rush of anger crackles through my veins.

I point my sword to the sky, blood dripping down its blade, and shout to the heavens. “Sabrelle, I’ve conquered your champion. I fought my way, and I won. If you still deny me my rightful place, then it’s you who’ve betrayed me.”

I will not cower. I will not beg. She can accept me or not, but I will remain.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the clouds still streaking across the sky rumbled with her disapproval. But after a few strained breaths, all that comes is a beam of scarlet shining down on me from above, glowing over me as if the godlen is aiming a spotlight at me.

Heat washes over my skin that’s forceful but not quite hostile. I have the vague impression that she’s grudgingly embracing me and telling me I’d better not fuck up after all of this.

She lets me radiate her approval for several thuds of my heart before all to see, and then the light fades away .

My breath rushes out of me. I stiffen my spine against the urge to slump with exhaustion.

All across the field, Valerisse’s soldiers lower their weapons. They gaze around them, left adrift, all the furor of justice-seeking wrenched from their grasps.

There’s no one left to call them anything but traitors.

As I watch them, I can’t summon any fury toward them. They were following their godlen and a woman who’d always led them well against a stranger who, I can admit, didn’t fit the typical empress mold.

And now they have to live with the knowledge of their treason.

How can we welcome them back into the fold with that fact tarnishing everything else they think and do?

How will they accept the new terms I mean to offer the conquered countries after they’ve just clashed with their armies as enemies on the battlefield?

An image floats up from the back of my mind: the last piece of the vision that came to me in Kosmel’s rat pit. The wave washing over the imperial uniforms and turning them a neutral gray—neither all good nor all evil.

I turn toward the one cauldron that’s still bubbling, reaching toward my gift. “There’s one more potion I need to make. Get the medics and anyone else with healing gifts seeing to the worst-injured! Let’s save every life we can.”

My husbands gather around me as I paw through my ingredients, chasing the fragments my gift presents to me.

“What are you making?” Raul asks. “It’s done.”

“It is. I need to make sure it doesn’t continue later. Guilt and resentment can corrode the spirit so easily.” I toss in another bundle of herbs. “We’re going to wash all the treachery from their minds and let them start anew.”

By the time I’m finished brewing, one of the medics has made her way to Bastien. When his vision clears at her attentions, a shuddery sigh slips out of him .

I motion him closer. “Let’s make it rain one more time.”

He lifts the potion I’ve concocted up to meet a new clot of heavy clouds. The messengers I sent out while I brewed have urged the armies from the outer territories farther back.

The sudden deluge courses down over only Valerisse’s forces, laced with a chemical to turn their memories of the past few months into nothing but a dream.

All across the fields, the expressions turn from horrified or frightened to vague confusion.

As they drop their weapons, I walk down the hill to meet them.

“You’ve been through a trying time,” I say. “But now you can come home.”