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Brielle had already commandeered a seat at the bar, ousting two other patrons and warding off other interested parties with a shameless boot slung across the stool beside her.

Sarina elbowed her way through the people crowding inside the wide double doors, thrown open to the night despite the light rain falling.

The conversation in the room was subdued, every eye trained on the magical screens floating above the bar and the live feed from the town hall.

Brielle watched the nearest screen where the representative from Tira tripped through his pledge of loyalty, holding out a cigar as Sarina approached.

“It’s not a party unless Sarina Castaro threatens to set someone on fire.

And here I thought that country life had softened you,” Brielle said, making a show of swinging her leg off the stool and back onto the brass footrest that ran the length of the bar.

“Nice to know that simpering little fool that barged into my sitting room the other day was just another play.”

Sarina slid onto the stool and snapped her fingers, flames rippling to life. She pinched the end of the cigar Brielle held out until the paper began to smolder. “ Please ,” she said with a sly smile. “You like it when I grovel.”

One corner of Brielle’s red-painted mouth lifted as if to say yes, she did .

“And besides,” Sarina went on, checking her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

Wild hair, black lips, with coal smudged across her brow and around her eyes like a mask of ashen feathers.

Eliza had outdone herself. “You know I never minded a little groveling if it got me what I wanted. Which I did, mind you. Though you certainly let your nephew run wild long enough before stepping in.”

“I almost didn’t.” Still staring at the screens, Brielle took a long drag from the cigar. “Your brother’s a good man—a good leader. But I won’t lie. Some petty part of me wanted to see you fail tonight and didn’t care if the city suffered for it.”

Sarina shouldn’t have been surprised. Not with so many years of hurt between them. Still… “What changed your mind?”

Brielle grinned around an exhale of smoke. “The fact that your human has the most glorious set of flaming brass balls I’ve ever seen.” Sarina barked a laugh. “I take it you had something to do with that?”

Sarina didn’t fight the swell of pride in her chest. “Believe it or not, she came with those. Though I like to think I had a hand in teaching her how to use them.”

Even if it had been a battle. Taly was talented, make no mistake. Smart as a whip with a natural curiosity. But she was also stubborn, impulsive, and easily bored. The teenage years were especially harrowing.

Above the bar, the screen panned to their family’s box, where Skye was leaning over, whispering something to Taly. She grinned in response, strands of gold glinting in her hair.

“She reminds me of you,” Brielle said, sipping from a glass of clear liquor. “When you were younger.”

Sarina tore her eyes from the screen. “Are you calling me old?”

“No. Just boring. You’ve been boring ever since you decided to marry that twit, Madoc.”

An old pain tugged on her heart. “ Brielle ,” Sarina warned.

“I’m serious. When was the last time you rang in the Summer Solstice dancing on top of a blazing, four-story ritual pyre dressed in nothing but your own flames?”

“A while, admittedly,” Sarina murmured.

It started when they were girls. Every Eris and Yule, she and Brielle would honor the latter’s distant Draegonian heritage by drunkenly reenacting the most arcane, most hedonistic Hrathinian [iv] rituals they could find.

Dancing naked with crowns of flowers in their unbound hair, absolutely butchering the words of the ancient songs they shrieked to the night sky, they would let themselves go wild for no other reason than the pure joy of it.

Madoc had never approved. He hadn’t approved of a lot of things. And she’d wanted to make him happy, so she’d… changed. Become someone quieter, softer, with a gentler kind of strength—a woman he could more easily love.

“Madoc was a good man,” Sarina said softly.

“No comment,” Brielle muttered.

“And he made me better. I was… I was too wild. Always giving in to my worst impulses.”

“Oh, is that what he called me? He always was coming up with the most darling nicknames.” Brielle held up her empty glass to signal the bartender, saying to Sarina, “Water for you, I’m assuming. I’m sure Madoc’s ghost is lurking around here somewhere, ready to slap your hand away.”

Sarina reined in what she truly wanted to say. She’d had too many years to master her temper to give in to such lackluster bait.

Instead, she cut straight to the heart of it. “What is this really about, Bri? Hmm? You want to punish me? Is that why you brought me here tonight?”

“No,” Brielle said with a wave of her cigar. “No, I don’t want to punish you. I have better things to do with my time than that.” She blew out a long stream of smoke, a challenge in her eye. “I just thought it might be nice to see a little of that old fire, but apparently it’s all gone out.”

Never insult a fire mage’s flames. Never.

“You take that back,” Sarina growled, heat and ash scalding her throat. So much for mastering her temper.

Brielle’s smirk was sharp as a blade. “Or what? You’re going to make me? The way you made that little shit nephew of mine take his seat. Except, oh wait… Your human did that. Because, unlike you, she still has some spark left in her.”

Smoke rippled from where Sarina’s hand sat flat against the bar, the wood beneath it glowing.

Brielle tsked her tongue. “Careful, Rina. Singe me, and that could be considered an act of war.”

The bartender set down two glasses, one with liquor, the other water.

Sarina reached for the liquor. “War is a man’s game. Surely, we’re more civilized than that.”

Then she knocked it back.

It tasted vile—burned all the way down and left her skating along the edge of something reckless and wild. Something she’d thought she buried a long time ago.

The man behind the bar was a skinny, floppy-haired Fey with stains on his shirt and a decidedly harried look about him.

“Barkeeper,” she shouted. When he didn’t turn around, she snapped her fingers and lit a fire beneath his ass—literally—that had him yelping and frantically patting at his trousers.

“We need ten, no—make that twenty shots of your strongest liquor.” A glance at Brielle. “Each.”

Brielle’s eyebrows lifted in an expression of unmitigated shock and delight as the bartender began plunking down shot after shot of clear liquor. “As your friend, I feel it’s my duty to tell you this is a terrible idea.”

“Oh, look at that, Bri. You grew a heart.”

“Thank you for noticing.” Brielle picked up a glass. “Do these festivities have rules?”

“Only the usual,” Sarina said and did the same. “Though tonight we’re going to be saluting my victory.”

“Oh?”

Sarina glanced at the screen where the debate was still ongoing, some pointless bit of minutiae concerning the food supply and its distribution.

Brielle smiled. “You paid them off.”

“Please. No coin ever changed hand.”

Though Sarina had done her due diligence.

Visited every noble House, subtly reminding them of their loyalties or, for those without any formal allegiance, planting the seeds of arguments Ivain could easily refute.

She had no doubt tonight would play out in her favor once those pompous blowhards ran out of wind.

“The game,” Sarina said, “is for you to figure out which strings I pulled.”

Brielle leaned forward. “You’re going to lose.”

“You think you know me that well?”

On the screen, a woman from Corvell with hair the color of spun gold began, Very few moments we are called upon—

“That’s you,” Brielle said.

Well, that didn’t take long. Sarina knocked back a glass, crinkling her nose at the horrid taste.

We dare not forget—

“Also you. Sorry, Rina, but none of those idiots could muster that kind of charm without a script.”

Sarina knocked back another, already feeling the heat of it wash over her. “Okay, I can see now how this might not go in my favor.”

Taly was not where he left her.

Two cups of steaming mulled wine in either hand, Skye just stared at the empty bench.

He wasn’t surprised she’d wandered off. Really, it was his fault for not learning by now that expecting Taly to stay put was like expecting the tide not to come in.

Still, he wondered if it was possible to enchant her boots to remain within shouting distance.

The area surrounding the town hall was lit up as every shop, bar, and café had their doors thrown open to welcome the oncoming crowd.

Musicians played for wandering guests, and on every street corner, troupes of actors staged skits, replaying the night’s most memorable moments.

Skye wasn’t surprised to see Taly and her dagger featured in most of them.

Siege or no siege, people were still out to make a living, looking to afford what small luxuries could still be found. It was a welcome sight, bustling and cheerful despite the grim news Ivain had gathered them to deliver.

Three blocks over, the crowd began to thin. The shop windows became sporadically dark. Still, the bond pulled him onward as the buildings grew taller, new construction giving way to the city that came before it.

Old Tempris. There were still a few patches left here and there—relics of a bygone era of splendor.

Massive towers rose on all sides, the top floors crumbling, the exteriors smooth, seamless, and made from a luminous stone that glowed in the lantern light.

Bridges overgrown with ivy and night-blooming flowers formed a web between them.

This had been the financial district once—clean, severe, and rich enough to scrape the sky. Now half the signs were handmade. Doors had been carved into walls that weren’t meant to open. Wealth had left, but people hadn’t.

Finally, he found Taly.