For once, the council has decided to allow me to breathe.
As if that is easy.
As if the air slips easily into my shattered lungs.
After my most recent outburst, they have been astonishingly agreeable.
Actually hunting for themselves.
More people waking by the day.
Fruit is beginning to grow again.
Animals returning, step by step, as though the land itself is exhaling.
The more people who awake, the clearer two questions become:
How long were they frozen?
How are we going to survive?
I have no answers.
And those are not the questions haunting me anyway.
How long until Kathera is back?
What if it does not work?
I should be thinking about the Empire — its stability, its future, its people.
But all I can think about is Kathera.
I need to be stronger than this. Stronger for her.
She needs me to prepare the Empire for her return.
But how do I prepare for something I am terrified will not happen?
A knock sounds at my door.
“Come in,” I say, trying not to sound like I was drowning mere moments ago.
The door creaks open, revealing Lilly, one of the maids. “Sire, I came to tell you we have received word from Castor.” She rocks nervously on her heels, her yellow dress swaying like fragile sunlight.
My breath stops.
“What news?” The tremble in my voice betrays me.
“They have the first shard of Ilina. Kathera’s soulbearer carries the Blood shard.”
A deep, unexpected chuckle escapes me. “Of course, Kathera’s soulbearer carries the Blood shard. Kathera loves a good fight.”
“There is more, Sire.”
Lilly’s voice softens, as if afraid the words themselves might wound me.
“They discovered that the Stone of Ilina has already been used.”
My heart jolts.
The world tilts.
“Used?”
The word scrapes out of me — half fury, half despair.
I am torn between letting grief swallow me whole and letting rage burn everything in its path.
“But — they have a new plan,” she rushes out. “They are going to imbue the essence of each shard into its vessel and restore the Stone of Ilina.”
I brace my hands against the table, the wood grounding me as the storm inside builds.
“If we have to rip this realm to pieces,” I say through clenched teeth, “we will.”