Nura vows not to make the same mistake twice. The Threllian girl’s mind needs to be strong enough to handle the power she will be Wielding. And so, they test her, train her, measure her.
And meanwhile, there are still pieces to be moved on the board.
It is easy to make Ara hate Queen Sesri. The girl is so young, so easily led, with fears so easily manipulated into violence. It is almost laughably simple, to turn her against the Lords who were not Order supporters and replace them with ones that are. To make her a terrible option, with any acceptable replacement.
Zeryth revels in it, but Nura takes no joy in any of this. Sesri is just a frightened child. They are doing a horrible thing. Still, it is better than the alternative.
The gears turn, and the plan progresses.
Tisaanah proves herself. She is a talented enough Wielder, yes, but more importantly, she has a strong mind. And Max has proven himself, too, to be a good teacher — as good as Nura knew he would be. Every time she sees them together, she watches it grow. First, respect. Then, admiration. Finally, friendship.
For a long time, she tells herself that it would be enough. To have Tisaanah know him. To give Reshaye that thread of familiarity to cling to. Nura won’t take more from him.
But every night, she still goes to Reshaye. Every night, she tries to Wield it. And every night, she digs deeper, catching fragments of those nightmarish visions, each one more bloodstained than the last, and her desperation grows.
He would never help them, anyway, she tells herself.
But then, there are Tisaanah’s trials. Then, there is the Orders’ ball. And then, there is Max, looking at Tisaanah the way one looks at a second chance.
Nura does not want to see it. But she knows, in that moment, that she could make him do anything.
Nura will never forget the way he looks at her when he finds out the truth. The betrayal in his eyes still hurts as much as it did eight years ago. And she knows he wants to believe himself, when he says he wants nothing to do with it, when he says that he will leave and never come back. Even she wants to believe him.
But days later, when Max is back at the Towers — back at Tisaanah’s side — she is not surprised.
After all, it is easy to control someone who wants something so much.
A sea, a sky, a ship. Plains stretching out for miles and miles. Fire and magic in a white marble building. Threll.
It gets a little closer to disaster than Nura would have liked. But in the end, it turns out perfectly. The Mikovs removed, Tisaanah’s friends rescued, and, most importantly, the magnitude of Reshaye’s power confirmed.
It is good to have the former estate of the Mikovs under Orders control. This was her idea, though Zeryth was more than happy to go along with it — Nura suspects he has his own little imperialist fantasies. But Nura wants a foothold in Threll for the more practical benefits. Ara gains an outpost across the sea, a prime vantage point far less isolated than Ara’s distant island. And Nura gains easier access to the magical secrets that Threll, and its bordering nations, could hold. Carefully, away from Zeryth’s distracted gaze, she instills the few subordinates she trusts more than anyone to lead here. She bribes the Threllians that plan to remain in the city, giving them more money and comfort than they know what to do with, and explicit instructions to report only to her. It is easy to buy their loyalty. It isn’t even the money that does it, but the kindness.
Nura does not trust Zeryth, not even as her reluctant co-conspirator. So she is careful, in that brief time in Threll, to make sure that this place will truly be hers.
It is the night before they leave when it happens.
The most loyal of the servants comes and gets her, late in the night. His eyes are wide and his voice shaky. The language barrier has made conversation nearly impossible, but Nura doesn’t need words to know that something has deeply frightened him. He brings her to the edge of the city, out into a stable where two stablehands stand whispering and quaking in the corner. He brings her to the back room.
And Nura suddenly cannot breathe.
There is a body here, on the concrete ground.
A body with wings.
It is a crumpled pile of limbs. The man is clad in drapes of fabric. His wings are pale, silvery gold — one is crooked, clearly injured. His face is pressed against the floor, strands of gold hair falling across tan skin. He shifts, just slightly, and she realizes he is conscious if only in the barest sense of the word. She staggers back, fear spiking.
She recognizes him immediately.
She saw that face in her nightmares every night. And she had seen it in those horrific visions — the warrior, wings outstretched, sword bared. Always coming before death fell over Ara.
She had long ago sawed away the pieces of herself that fell victim to panic, but this — this is a struggle. She had always been certain that her visions were real. Now she realizes that the threat is breathing down their throat.
The inhuman man blinks, mumbling something slurred. Nura grabs a broomstick and strikes him over the head, hard enough to make him go still. The Threllian jumps away, startled. Nura is breathing hard.
A decision falls over her.
She has the opportunity now to prepare. To study her enemy. And more importantly, she may now have the opportunity to create something powerful enough to destroy them.
She will take this threat, and make it a gift.
She straightens. In a fractured mix of Aran and Thereni, she tells her Threllian man that this is to remain a secret, for her knowledge and hers alone.
That night, she writes a letter to someone
