more moments before she could make sense of what she saw. She crouched on a hard surface. Splinters and other debris covered the floor around her. Smoke filled the air, dense and black. A few crimson sparks floated slowly to the ground. Except for a hissing noise, the study was eerily silent, invisible behind that black veil. Her first instinct was to touch her ring finger. Yes, there was Daya, or at least its essence.
The smoke stirred. A voice—harsh and low—spoke a word, and the darkness lifted.
Valara knelt by the doorway. Her eyes were wide, rimmed with pale circles, her ghostly essence thin and insubstantial. “Ilse?”
The room lay in shambles. Smoke blackened its walls and ceiling; dozens of cracks marred the tiled floor. One bookcase had collapsed, scattering papers and books everywhere, and the floor was littered with the shattered remains of Dzavek’s desk.
The sight recalled Ilse to her senses. She scrambled toward the last place she had seen Leos Dzavek. She found him stretched out on the floor, pinned beneath the marble pedestal. She dropped to her knees beside him. “Leos.”
“My brother.”
He coughed noisily. Ilse tried to lay her hands upon him, but her spirit sank through his body. Cold, cold, cold. He was dying in truth this time.
Dzavek jerked upright, in spite of the pedestal’s weight. His eyes were blank, unseeing. But then he sniffed the air, like a dog scenting a fox, and he swiveled around to Valara Baussay. “Andrej. You…” He coughed. “You will not—”
He crumpled over. Ilse wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Her touch meant nothing, and yet he stopped and gazed into her face with his blind eyes. They were almost white now, like a winter snowfall.
“You never loved me,” he said.
Truth at last.
“No,” she said softly. “Because you loved Károví too dearly. You were a king, Leos, even before they set the crown upon your head. And yet, I would have been proud to be your wife and your queen.” Memories of those early days came back to her, of the time before Leos Dzavek and his brother traveled to Duenne and the imperial court, when she and he had been companions, if not lovers. He had returned entirely changed. The jewels. The break with his brother.
“But you doubted me,” she said softly. “You believed I wished to betray you. I never did. I left because I loved Károví, too, and I did not wish to watch our people die in war.”
“You loved that man.”
“I did,” she admitted. “Then and now, Leos. But I also love both our kingdoms, as much as you love Károví. I would see them live in peace. Can you understand?”
His lips moved soundlessly. Ilse bent close and kissed her once betrothed, spirit to flesh. Leos must have felt that insubstantial gesture, because he shuddered and laid a hand over his heart. There was blood behind the clouded eyes, and his lips were chilled. “It is time to die?” he said.
“Time and long past, my love.”
He closed his eyes. Breathed out a long slow breath, so easily that she did not realize at first what was happening, until his body went limp and fell through her arms to the floor. She reached toward him, as if she could recall him from death. Stopped herself and touched his brow. She felt the difference at once, a stillness that went beyond sleep. “He’s gone,” she whispered.
The magic current stirred. The air in the study turned thick. It was a tide of magic, greater than any she had ever dared to summon. For one moment, Ilse felt its burning brilliance course through her veins. It was like the first time she crossed into Anderswar, when colors sang and the air tasted of light. She heard the echo of a familiar voice. It spoke in a fluid Erythandran, with an accent of years ago—Leos. A triplet of voices overlaid it—Daya’s and Rana’s and Asha’s. She had the sense of a conversation among elders, one not hers to share. Then the current shuddered, ebbed away.
Before her lay a thin film of ashes. Leos Dzavek’s body had vanished.
And so we give the flesh to the earth. The spirit itself lives on.
Abruptly, voices sounded outside the room. The door banged open, and a stocky man appeared in the opening. Ilse froze, then realized he did not see her. She felt a hand on her wrist. Valara. Together they drew back against one wall, taking care not to disturb anything.
More guards appeared behind the first. They