We are welcomed to Thistle with fanfare and celebration and after a few days of rest, Queen Akina throws a parade to celebrate Dette’s safe return.

We watch the procession of horses, soldiers, acrobats, and greensmiths from the highest balcony of the palace. Thistle is a port city, and from our vantage point, I can hear the sounds of the harbor and see the tall masts of the square-sailed Zelenean ships clustered near the docks. Their colors are brilliant in the morning sunlight—snowy white, emerald, and carnelian red. I spot a little caravel with sails of pure white and bottle green sliding into port over the sparkling water to unload its cargo.

A score of acrobats begins a series of complicated death-defying acts on the paving stones below. Their tumbling is followed by the greensmiths, who make vines grow over the stones of the courtyard and up the side of the balcony to Dette’s feet. The vines burst into bloom in unison, filling the air with sweet perfume.

Dette thanks them and picks one of the flowers, tucking the blossom into her curls. Dette wears a kirtle of green velvet over a gown of red silk with slits cut in the sleeves and skirt. A crown of polished acacia surmounted with emeralds is on her head, and her long hair is loose. The glossy ringlets bounce when she waves to the crowd gathered below.

I declined to be laced into a gown for the festivities but agreed to a clean tunic of pale green sateen and a new cloak, as the one I wore from Lazul was weather-stained and ragged.

Once similar feats of magic and prowess have been performed and signs of fealty made by the ambassadors of various heads of state, Queen Akina approaches the balcony, resplendent in golden robes festooned with embroidered green vines and red roses.

Akina waves to the commoners’ cheering and begins a speech outlining everyone’s delight and relief at Dette’s return, offering special thanks to me and my three companions.

“A powerful elemental with the heart of a lion, Thedramora of Lazul is sure to have a promising career as the future leader of our ally Lazul,” she says.

The crowd cheers, and Akina presents me, Plover, and Agate, adorning us with sashes decorated with Zelen’s national crest. Dette lays a bouquet of blood red roses in my arms. Agate is wearing a smile brilliant enough to blind a thousand fawning admirers, but I only offer the crowd a conciliatory wave before returning to my seat. My people may be cold and stoic, but they are mine all the same. Folk of sand and frost, hard as iron and tempered diamond. There’s no need for me to cater to Zelen’s ripe and lusty hordes.

“Thedra the Lion-Hearted,” muses Dette as I sit back down. “That suits you. Momma says the tale of the lightning-wielder who saved Princess Dette from the evil Rothbart will be told for centuries in all three kingdoms.”

This is a far cry from Akina’s former opinions of me, but I don’t say so. “I guess it’s a better nickname than Thedra the Impetuous, which is what Gate says they call me in Lazul.”

Dette laughs, not unkindly. “Your impetuosity has saved my life, and I am forever grateful.”

“You don’t have to keep thanking me.”

“Don’t I?”

A servant comes by, bearing a tray of white wine and fruit and offers it to me. I take one of the glasses of wine but decline the fruit. Dette takes a plum and bites into the plump flesh.

“You should eat something,” she says. “You barely touched breakfast.”

I take a sip of the wine, ignoring her mothering. The drink is made from the yellow grapes in the palace vineyards, and the flavor is tart and golden on my tongue. “I didn’t save you,” I say. “Neev did.”

“Neev betrayed me and lied to you. To both of us.”

“She also sacrificed herself for both of us. She admitted her mistakes.”

“Thedra, don’t make yourself sick over this.”

“Over what?” I ask sharply.

“The death of someone who didn’t deserve you.”

“I don’t think either of us can understand how few choices she had. She should be here wearing this stupid sash.”

Dette’s chest, pushed high by her corset, rises higher as she takes a deep breath. We’ve already spoken of this, and we both know where the other stands, but it keeps coming up again. The morning after we defeated Rothbart, she didn’t spare a glance for Alder Tower and neither did I, despite the many happy summers we spent there. It will always be the place she was imprisoned, the Lake of Tears where she swam as a captive.

For me, it will always be the place where my dearest friend was tortured, and where I lost the girl who might have become the love of my life. Some people are so sick they have the power to stain a thing, to change it and take the goodness right out of it. Rothbart’s sickness was that sort.

Agate gives the crowd one last wave and strides toward us with a swirl of his blue cape. His high black boots are polished so thoroughly they shine like jet in the sunlight. The emerald green sash Queen Akina draped over his shoulder complements his brown eyes and dark hair. He accepts a glass of wine from the servant with the tray and hands it to Plover, who still has a bandaged wing.

Plover eyes him fondly. There is a band woven of brilliant blue feathers around Gate’s wrist. I don’t know what they said to one another in the hours they spent in that dungeon, but it must have been fairly significant. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

“Will either of you be going back to Lazul with me?” I ask.

“I will, of course,” says Gate, “unless Thede has an assignment for me here.”

“What about Plover?”

Gate gives a blustery sigh, shooting Plover a look of affectionate exasperation. “He’s not fussed about the distance, says we’ll see one another next autumn.”

Plover nods, but Gate sounds a bit deflated. I’m utterly bewildered by sylph romances. Apparently, some of their betrothals can last anywhere from eighty to a hundred years, and Gate and Plover are just getting to know one another.

“I heard there’s food inside,” says Plover. “I’m going to inspect. Join me in a bit?”

Gate nods, and Plover kisses him. The sight makes my chest ache, and I take another sip of wine, hoping to dull the pain.

“You should request an assignment to help restore Lebed as a stronghold,” I say when Plover is gone. “It’s only a few days from Cliff Sedge, so you could be together. And it’s been years since we sent an emissary to Shoreana. Now is a perfect time. Mortal-sylph marriages are fairly rare, but I think it’s only because we don’t spend enough time together.”

It’s not just his relationship that makes me impatient for Gate to be settled in his career. Every time Akina looks at him, her eyes are bright with ambitious hunger. Someone with his gift and personality is every ruler’s dream. I can’t help being a bit protective of him. I found him, after all. Or he found me, depending on how one looks at it.

Gate nods, thoughtfully running his fingers over the love token on his wrist. “It’s too soon to speak of marriage.”

“Really? Maybe you ought to give that thing back then. Must’ve taken a long time for him to make.”

He takes a sip of wine and watches me over the rim of the glass. “You’re mean when you drink, Thedra. But I’ll let it go, considering your recent heartache.”

“I’m not trying to be mean. I’m happy for you.”

“You’re not obligated to be,” he says kindly. “Considering.”

Stop being so nice, damn you. “But I am. I told you he was good for you, didn’t I?”

He smiles. “You can’t take credit for everything. But I think you can take credit for this.” He gestures to the flower-festooned balcony and the crowd below.

Once the crowds have dispersed, I go back to my room and collapse on the bed. Drinking the tart wine with nothing to eat has made me sick to my stomach. My ears are buzzing and there’s a throbbing pain behind one of my eyes that’s threatening to turn into a full-fledged headache. I get them much more frequently since I drank the cursed water of Thornewood.

I hoped to leave that place behind forever, but I still dream of it sometimes, waking with the sense of its wet cold seeping through my clothes, and the sickly sweet smell that clung to everything there lingering in my nostrils.

I ring for a page and ask him to bring me water and a loaf of bread. I’m only halfway done with the pitcher of water when he returns. “Empress Akina wishes to see you in her private council room.”

I close my eyes. “I just took off my damned boots.” He blanches, hesitating at my answer, and I wave him away. “Tell her I’ll be there shortly.”

When I enter Akina’s council chamber, she’s still wearing the resplendent robes she donned for the festivities. She’s seated in an ornate chair at the head of a long table of polished ebony. I bow to her, no longer interested in fighting protocol, and she nods and gestures for me to sit to her left. I’m surprised to see Agate seated across from me. He tugs nervously at his uniform’s high collar.

“Welcome. Would either of you like refreshment?”

I decline, and Gate refuses as well. He must be nervous if he’s turning down food.

Akina dismisses the page and folds her ringed hands. “I’ve asked the two of you here because I have an offer to make.”

I toy with my vial, waiting for her to offer up greensmiths and grain yields to Lazul.

“To you, Thedramora,” she says with gravitas, “I offer my daughter’s hand.”

I gape at her. “But...a year ago, you said a marriage between us was out of the question.”

“That was before you saved Dette and secured my royal line. You’ve proven yourself both competent and committed.”

Thinking my misgivings are tidied away, Akina glances at Gate. Her eyes gleam with unveiled hunger.

I’ve seen that look, and my stomach churns. “What does Gate have to do with this?”

“Two wedded queens need a sire to continue their line, do they not? So, to you, Agate Mason, I offer the role of benefactor.”

Gate makes a strangled sound. I wait for him to refuse, but he’s staring at Akina with round eyes and an open mouth. He looks like a toad choking on a fly. His fingers stray to the bright blue band on his forearm.

“He’s with someone,” I say for him.

Akina dismisses this with a flick of her wrist. “Marriage isn’t a requirement,” she says. “All we need is your—"

“Yes,” says Gate, finding his voice. “I understand.”

“I know you are Lazulian. Perhaps you don’t know our ways. Zelen’s royal line is matriarchal. It’s considered a great honor to become a benefactor.”

“I am sure. But Princess Thedra, well. I mean, once we might’ve... But now, I see her as...”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gate speechless before.

“Romantic desire is not a requirement either,” says Akina slowly, as if she didn’t realize she’d need to explain reproduction for this conversation and is not pleased with the task.

Gate and I look at one another, but it only draws out our discomfort.

“Well,” says Akina impatiently. “I hardly thought a consultation would be needed. But I’ll leave you to discuss.” She rises from the chair, her layers of silk rustling.

“Wait,” I say quickly.

She sits back down.

“I have three conditions.”

Akina narrows her eyes. It appears she wasn’t expecting this either.

“If I wed Dette, I never want to see my people suffer from famine again,” I say. “We must establish trade with you. Grain, citrus, root vegetables. Even if it means you must help me take my nobles to task. It’s a deal that should have been made half a century ago. Second, to your most recent proposal” —I nod toward Gate— “the laws regarding how powered children are selected in the Triumvir are long overdue for an amendment. Without them, Rothbart would never have become what he was. My mother and Neev and all his other victims would still be alive.”

“What do you suggest?”

“All individuals with magical power must be trained. But they won’t be separated from their families. Stop giving them preferential treatment and breeding them into the noble bloodlines. It’s an ethical dilemma that has gone unchecked for four hundred years. If we don’t do something, and soon, it will only lead to more problems. You have a reputation as a just and formidable empress. This would help you be remembered as a benevolent one as well.”

I glance at Gate and he’s regarding me with wide eyes.

Akina twists the ruby signet ring on her right index finger, no doubt to remind me of her sovereignty. “I’ll bring it before the council,” she says. “But you mustn’t think because you’re young and idealistic that you’re the first to propose reform. And your third condition?”

“A ship, and a crew to man it. I want the little caravel in the harbor with the green and white lateen sails. It looks fast and seaworthy.”

She waits for me to explain, but when I don’t, she asks, “What for?”

“A sea voyage.” I hope against hope that she won’t question me further.

She eyes me with vague distrust, but one small ship can’t mean much to a queen with a fleet of warships and merchant vessels in her arsenal. “Very well. One ship.”

I nod. “Good. I’d like to see Dette before I give my official consent.”

Akina looks daggers at me, but several minutes later I am shown into Dette’s room. She’s reclining on a lounge overlooking the harbor with a light throw draped over her legs and a tray of sweetmeats at her elbow. More than a month after her rescue from Rothbart’s clutches, she still tires easily. Those gifted in transfiguration use it rarely because it requires so much energy. It made my mother old before her time, and Dette was made to do it every day for weeks.

She turns her head and smiles when she sees it’s me. There’s a twisting of string in her fingers. She loops and winds the net of strings and pulls them apart to reveal a bird that flaps its wings when she moves her fingers.

“That’s clever,” I say.

She pats the edge of the lounge near her feet and pulls them up to make room for me as I sit. “I could never make them as well as the other children in my father’s palace, but I had nothing else to do when I was imprisoned in Alder Tower.”

I knead the throbbing spot above my eye with my knuckles and she frowns.

“Headache?”

I nod. “Threatening to turn worse.”

She disentangles her fingers from the string and lays her hand over the spot that hurts. In a moment, warmth grows in my temples and the pain lessens, relaxing the tense muscles in my forehead.

“Dette, don’t. You’ll wear yourself out.”

“I will not. It’s just the muscles, not something deeper or more serious. It’s here.” She taps my temple lightly. “Not enough rest and too much wine, I suspect.”

She keeps her hand over my eye, filling my pounding head with her restorative greenhealing. When the pain subsides, I pull her hand away from my face, but I don’t let it go.

“Your mother just proposed to me for you.”

She tucks a springy curl behind her ear as her dark eyes search mine. “I don’t suppose you’re here because you said yes?”

“I’m finished with getting engaged by proxy.”

She squeezes my hand, just a little, and I can’t help thinking what my father would give to be present for this moment. I wish I could make just one important decision about my life without worrying about how it might affect the crown, but it’s a futile hope. One I might as well stop wasting time on.

I meet her patient, waiting gaze. “You know I’ll always love you, Dette. I’ll give you a political marriage if it’s what you truly want. Not Thede. Not Akina. You.”

She looks at me levelly. “But?”

“There’s something I have to do first.”

She raises a questioning brow. I’m relieved to see she’s not hurt. Dette knows she is first in her mother’s heart, and the hearts of her people. She doesn’t need to be first in mine to know her worth, but she’s clearly baffled by my decision.

“I have to cross the Endless Sea.”

Her expression changes from perplexity to worry. “Why?”

“You know why. You said I was infatuated with you. And you were right. But her, I... She deserves better than this. She faded before my eyes, and I promised her as she went that I’d come for her.”

“Oh, Thedra.” Dette cups my cheek, compassion softening her features. “Goddess knows what you saw. Rothbart—”

“Damn Rothbart! I read the spell in a book in the library, and it happened exactly as described. People have come back before. Zori did.”

Dette sniffs. Zelen’s goddesses are creatures of light, life, and growth. A goddess of death and resurrection makes no sense to her.

She slips her fingers free of my hand and crosses her arms. “If anyone is stubborn enough to come back, it’s you. But what if you don’t?”

“If I’m not back in three years’ time, marry someone else.”

“As the future high empress, I command you to return to me.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” I take her hand and lean in to kiss her cheek. The rose the greensmiths grew for her is still behind her ear and I catch its sweet scent mingled with the shea oil on her skin. My throat aches. Only three months ago, I’d have been dizzied with joy at this being the end of our story together. Or rather, its beginning. But now my heart and loyalties are so divided, pulled a dozen directions—my duties to my people, my promises to Thede, to Neev, and now to Dette.

Seeming to sense my worry, she says, “Stop it, Thedra. You’ll give yourself a headache again.”

I force a smile for her. “Get some rest and don’t worry about me.”

Gate is waiting in the corridor when I come out of the room. He looks as tightly wound as a spring.

“How could you go off and leave me with her like that? I panicked and said no. I’m afraid she’s going to have me assassinated.”

I bark a laugh. “I’ve pissed her off lots of times and I’m still alive. Besides, did you really want to accept?”

“Of course not. The thought of being with you again...like that. Or worse, both of you.”

I punch his arm, but not very hard. “Agreed. Come with me.” 

He follows me down the marbled corridor to an atrium flanked by twelve columns and soaring arches. The sparkling harbor is visible between two of the arches, and I point out the bright white and dark green sails of a three-masted caravel.

“See that ship? It’s mine. Want to come with me?”

Gate laughs. “Where to, Thedra the Impetuous?”

“To sail the Endless Sea.”

Agate’s eyes widen. “Really?”

I nod.

Agate looks at me like I’m mad. “There’s no goblin here threatening to snap my neck if I don’t, and I can’t think of a single reason why I should.”

“So...is that a yes?” He gives a grating laugh, and I plead, “Come on, you know you can’t pass up an opportunity for glory.”

He crosses his arms. “I’ll think on it.”

“Bring Plover. Maybe he’ll get over his fear of the water.”

Before I leave Thistle, I must write a letter to my father telling him I wish to abdicate my place as Priestess of the Dead. He will be angry with me, but I saw enough death in Thornewood and on Lebed. And I was the author of some of it. I can’t take my mother’s place like I thought. I don’t want it to destroy me from the inside like it did her. Let the people elect their own executioner.

I walk to the harbor at sunset to see my ship. Akina is nothing if not true to her word. Sailors are already unloading their goods from my vessel, and the deck has been swabbed. The pine planks gleam in the setting sun, and the green Zelenean banners are unfurled. The gang plank has been lowered, so I board, winding my way around sailors carrying heavy cargo. The deck smells of turpentine and saltwater and is sound beneath my feet. I climb into the stern, looking toward the horizon.

The sea is turning lavender beneath a peach and cornflower blue sky and my heart aches as I watch the sun sinking below the line where water meets sky. Somewhere across that wide ocean, Neev is waiting for me. I’ll sail it to find her, even if it kills me.