Spider squabbled with his brothers and sisters over their parents’ inheritance.
I am most deserving, he said, for being the youngest, I had them the least amount of time.
One by one, the others grew exhausted by the discord, leaving Spider standing alone in a prison of victory.
—COLLECTED FOLKTALES
The normally tingling buzz of Earthsong was an earthquake against Jasminda’s consciousness. She was no longer linked with Osar, but another Song shook her to the core. The swelling force pulled her under, leaving her sputtering, coughing, gasping for breath.
She could now fill her lungs completely. Feeling came back to her body. Her bones were in their proper places, her body whole again.
A warm, solid hand rubbed her back in gentle circles. She focused on the feeling, the comfort, and leaned into a familiar embrace. Hands stroked her head, her face. Lips brushed her forehead. She wanted those lips someplace else, so she rose to meet them.
Jack.
His kiss was like air to her. She breathed him in and held him there inside her, never wanting to exhale. His arms tightened around her, and he pulled his lips away. She whimpered, wanting to keep kissing him. On his chuckle, she opened her eyes.
His smile undid her. She stared at him, drinking in the beauty of his features.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered.
“I thought I’d lost me as well.”
His expression shuttered, and he blinked back tears. He pressed her to him again, wrapping his arms around her as she became aware of her surroundings.
Shell-shocked refugees—healed of their injuries—rose from the ground, staring in awe at a point behind her. She pulled away from Jack, craned her neck around, and nearly fell backward.
Floating above them was Queen Oola, ethereal and beautiful, fierce and overpowering. Jasminda gaped at the Queen’s familiar face. Looking at the woman was like looking into a mirror.
Something hard jabbed Jasminda’s closed fist. She uncurled her fingers to reveal a bronze pendant bearing the Queen’s sigil attached to a thin metal chain. The caldera surrounding the pendant was gone, burned away by the awakening spell.
A hush of quiet descended. The refugees began to kneel. Jasminda climbed off Jack and kneeled as well, bowing her head.
“Jaqros Alliaseen. Jasminda ul-Sarifor.” The Queen’s voice rang out, rich and thick as raw honey. “Rise.”
Jasminda darted a glance at Jack; both of them stood on wobbly legs. Power surged along her skin as she and Jack were gently lifted into the air and drifted over the heads of the awestruck crowd. The spell released her a handful of paces away from the Queen. The difference between Her power and the True Father’s was night and day.
Queen Oola floated down until She was almost at eye level. The pendant in Jasminda’s hand seemed to transfix Her. Jasminda held it out in offering. The chain lifted into the air and settled around Her neck, where it belonged.
Jasminda tugged at her mother’s pendant, the same spidery sigil of snaking, curved lines around her own neck. The Queen’s mark.
“I owe you gratitude for awakening me,” the Queen said. “You must bow before no one.”
Jasminda’s Song flared to life. The slow trickle of her weak capacity for power enlarged, and she was engorged with a rush of Earthsong. She struggled to catch her breath as the sensation shot through her. It was like being in the link all over again: everything around her sharpened into focus. She gasped as pure energy pulsed inside her. Her Song expanded, stretched, changed. It grew larger and more powerful—a raging river, with white-capped waves shuttling over its banks.
This was different from what Oola had done for her brother, who’d had no Song to enlarge. This had the feel of permanence to it.
Jack caught hold of Jasminda’s hand to steady her.
“Your Majesty,” she said, inclining her head. “Why me?”
Queen Oola drew closer, Her dark gaze peering deep inside Jasminda as if seeing her very soul.
The power gushing within her made it hard to concentrate, but Jasminda stared at the pendant resting against Queen Oola’s chest to bring her thoughts into focus. “Why was I the only one affected by the caldera? Why could no one else see the visions?”
Queen Oola’s expression did not change, but Her eyes lightened and a breeze lifted Her hair. Blood magic may be broken only by those who bear the blood.
“Whose blood? Mine? I’m sorry, but I don’t under—”
“Prince Jaqros,” the Queen interrupted, out loud this time.
Jasminda wanted to push for answers, but Queen Oola had effectively ended her inquiry. She looked around. Every eye in every direction was glued to the Queen.
“You are the rightful ruler of this land.” Oola turned to Jack.
He deepened his bow. “I rule only in your stead, Your Majesty.”
“You are loyal and true, as is your beloved.” She swept Her gaze to Jasminda, who still vibrated with her new, incredibly powerful Song and a head full of questions. “I will abdicate my throne to you. To both of you.”
Gasps sounded. Jasminda’s own heartbeat pulsed rapidly. She held onto Jack even tighter.
“My gift to Jasminda is the strength of Song she will need to be queen. Use it well. My wish is for you to unite the people as they once were. And rule. Well.”
She ascended over the heads of the troops, toward the place where the two lands met. “This border is no more.” Her voice carried, strong and clear. “Singer and Silent will live as one. So be it. See to it.”
“Be it so,” said Jasminda under her breath. She could barely think for the questions swirling around in her head. Could it really be true? She and Jack together as king and queen?
Oola rose higher into the air, surveying the land and the people. A disturbance among the Elsiran soldiers caught Her attention, and She hovered, staring at the sea of men.
“What is it?” Jasminda asked. Jack shook his head. They pushed forward through the gaping onlookers, following Oola as She floated closer to the buildings of the base.
Standing before one of the four-wheelers, surrounded by guards, was the True Father. Eero. His hands were bound before him and his mask was still in place, but his head was tilted up, clearly looking at his sister.
Jasminda tapped into the maelstrom of emotions surrounding her and struggled to parse them. The strongest by far were from Oola—pain, shame, anger, heartbreak, and finally, relief. Oddly, Jasminda could sense nothing from Eero. His emotions were a vast emptiness. Were he not standing directly on the caldera, she would have thought he was blocking her Song somehow, but perhaps he had no feelings left after centuries of tyranny.
Oola lowered Herself before Her twin until Her feet hovered over the ground. The Queen reached for him and ran a finger across his grotesque mask. Jasminda once again pushed forward, drawn toward the two as if by an invisible chain. Having spent so much time inside Oola’s head, worry blossomed within her at the Queen’s reaction.
“You have returned,” Eero rasped.
Oola winced at this new voice of his. “I have come back for you,” She said.
They spoke quietly, just for the two of them, but Jasminda made out their words.
“You came back to take from me what is mine,” Eero said.
Oola dropped Her hand. Jasminda was now close enough to see the tears welling in the Queen’s eyes. Her worry grew.
“I came back to right my wrong.” One tear broke free and streamed down Oola’s cheek. “What have you done, brother?”
She reached for his mask and pulled it off his face. A silent shudder went through those on both sides.
None alive had seen beneath the mask Eero had first donned centuries ago. Subjugation and misery had altered the collective memory, and the Lagrimari had forgotten their leader was not an Earthsinger like them. They’d forgotten why he preyed on them and stole their power.
The jeweled disguise fell from the Queen’s fingertips. Beneath it, Eero’s face was unchanged from the young man Jasminda had seen in Oola’s memories. He looked Elsiran still, with haunting golden eyes and ginger hair.
The shock of the crowd was oppressive. It slammed into Jasminda, forcing her to throw up a shield against the assault. Murmurs filled the air as Lagrimari and Elsirans alike took in the two. The beloved Elsiran Queen and the hated Lagrimari dictator. Neither were what anyone had expected.
“Will you embrace me one last time, sister?” Eero’s words echoed those he’d spoken before betraying his twin all those years ago. Jasminda froze.
Oola’s emotions sharply changed. Guilt came to the forefront; Her resolve to right Her wrong was slipping away under the weight of the familiarity and love She still felt for Her brother. The metal band of his shackles snapped—the whisper of a spell from Oola.
Eero’s amber eyes held a warmth that did not correspond to the emptiness inside him. Oola could not sense it, She had always been blinded to him, just as Yllis had said, and even now, even now, as Jasminda observed, She continued to be so.
Jasminda needed a way to get through to Oola, to make Her see Her brother for what he really was.
Your Majesty. Jasminda thought a message, the way she had with Osar, the way the Earthsingers of old had. He is not the boy you knew any longer. You must not allow him to sway you. If the message had gone through, if Oola had heard her plea, the Queen gave no acknowledgment. Instead, Her self-condemnation seemed to grow.
Jasminda trembled. History could not repeat itself. “We have to help Her,” she whispered to Jack.
“Help Her?”
Jasminda never took her eyes off Oola. They’d thought Her a goddess, but She was a woman, a woman with a broken heart who had nothing left in this world. A woman caught in a vortex of pain.
“She can’t do it. Even after everything…” Jasminda wrung her hands. She, too, knew heartbreak. She, too, knew loss. But somehow Oola had allowed those emotions to overtake Her resolve, and now She faltered when She needed to act.
“We have to stop him before he harms Her.”
Jack’s expression was incredulous, but he nodded. The True Father was now bound from using Earthsong by the caldera, and if Oola’s feet touched the ground, She’d also become powerless. But in the final vision Jasminda had seen through Oola’s eyes, Eero had then, too, been bound by Yllis’s blood spell. The bracelets on Eero’s wrists had been calderas with a similar spell against using Earthsong. But those bracelets had not stopped him from stealing his sister’s Song. To do that he must have used pure blood magic, Jasminda surmised. And blood magic had allowed him to destroy the calderas.
If the True Father were to access Earthsong now, there was no telling the amount of damage he could do.
Jasminda strained to remember the words Eero had spoken after he’d stabbed his sister, words Oola had not understood, for they had been in the tongue of the Cavefolk. They invoked the blood spell, and if Eero used it, so could Jasminda.
She reached out to the soldier next to her and pulled the knife from his belt. The man looked up in surprise, but upon seeing the Prince Regent, held his tongue. Jack’s gaze was questioning, but he made no move to stop her. Jasminda squeezed the knife’s handle and moved closer to the standoff between the twins, with Jack on her heels.
Oola’s face clouded in misery. Jasminda circled around Eero and approached him from behind. The king’s shoulders stiffened, but he did not turn. Instead, he took a step closer to his sister and wiped the tears from Her face, then wrapped his arms around Her waist.
With a yell, Jasminda ran forward and plunged the knife into his back, then whispered the string of words that would bring him to the brink of death and release his Song.
The stolen Songs inside him catapulted at her, their attack violent. She kept a hand on the knife, but her knees buckled under the onslaught. The Songs were tainted; they battered ruthlessly. Her connection to Earthsong flared as her own Song fought back. Like a virus infecting her, the stolen Songs wore away at her shield, dragging her under. They were oily, slick with a layer of malevolence from their former host. Jasminda took them on, having no other option, but feared she would not survive the struggle.
Her knees hit the ground. Blackness swept over her vision.
Suddenly, another Song brushed against her consciousness. Oola was trying to link with her. Jasminda gladly gave up control of her Song, and the practiced strength of Oola’s immense power took over. The Queen funneled the stolen Songs away from Jasminda. Her hand, still clutching the knife impaled in Eero’s back, was covered by Oola’s. Blood ran down Jasminda’s arm.
Using the same spell Yllis had discovered to trap his Song in Her pendant and create the caldera, Oola manipulated the energy to force the stolen Songs into the knife before pulling the blade from Eero’s back. The sickly taste of blood magic fled Jasminda’s tongue as the Songs were imprisoned.
Oola pulled both their hands away, and the knife clattered to the ground, the blood on it spreading, hardening, transforming into the red stone of a caldera.
Oola released their link, and Jasminda fell back, gasping for breath. Jack was there behind her, propping her up, his arms like buoys in the whirling sea, keeping her afloat.
Eero crumpled to his knees screaming, his brittle shell pierced at last. Jasminda slammed her shield into place as the man’s emotions sprang free of their bonds. She did not want to experience the suppressed feelings that five hundred years of ruthless brutality had forged.
Oola’s tearstained face stared blankly at Her brother’s weeping body. Her attention moved to Jasminda, eyes heavy but grateful. “It is done,” She whispered, then shot into the air, soon becoming a dot against the sky.