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Sterling stands rigid beside me, his hand hovering near his sword. But we both know weapons won’t solve this. I step around him, drawing breath into lungs that feel vast and ancient.
Something shifts inside me. Not in my stomach where anxiety usually coils, but deeper, resonating through my bones like a plucked string.
It’s anger at seeing things that shouldn’t be. People turning on each other because they fear what they don’t understand.
“What are you doing?” My voice carries across the Divine Commons with a resonance that gives people pause. “Look at each other! These are your neighbors, your friends.”
A few heads twist toward me. Like a wave encountering resistance, the fighting slows. The enormous amphitheater, with its soaring columns and intricate stonework honoring every god, shouldn’t be filled with violence. This sacred space, meant for unity, reverberates with condemnations and fear.
I take another step forward.
Sterling’s fingers brush my elbow in a warning, a reminder of danger, but I shrug him off. The crowds that were pushing toward us, waving fists and shouting about lost magic, begin to fall back.
“I understand your anger.” The words tumble out, honest and unpolished, so unlike the careful speeches I’ve been rehearsing since becoming queen. “We never intended to destroy magic. We intended to destroy Narc and the drachen, who were spreading corruption through our lands like poison.”
A man with a bloodied lip snorts. “Convenient excuse, Your Highness.”
I meet his eyes, unfazed by the smoldering hatred in his gaze. “It’s not an excuse. The gods themselves helped me find what we needed to purge Narc’s tainted existence from the soil. Nyc, Narc’s own mother, asked me to burn his bones and return him to her so he could finally rest. Otherwise, the corruption would have devoured our world. We did only as the gods demanded. What needed to be done.”
The crowd ripples with uncertainty. Doubt replaces rage in some faces, especially those older citizens who remember the teachings about the gods before the Devoted began twisting them.
“How many of you knew someone who was corrupted? Someone whose body and mind were enslaved to Narc and his drachen and his obsession with ‘perfected humans’? People who were stripped of their free will? My own sister killed a dear friend under Narc’s control.” And our own mother. “Thousands more would be corrupted by now if the drachen were still here. I’m truly sorry for the loss of magic, but I will not apologize for doing the right thing.”
The fighting stills completely.
A woman with black hair and a scythe at her waist raises her hand and blanches. To my right, a virtual giant hunches his shoulders while others exchange glances heavy with shared grief.
They know. They watched the monsters imprison their loved ones’ minds and use their bodies like puppets.
“My husband,” the woman with the scythe whispers. Yet in the strange acoustics of the Divine Commons, her words reach everyone. “He came back changed. Spoke of perfection, of a new world order. When I refused to follow, he—” She stops, touching a scar that runs along her jaw.
For a brief second, understanding bridges the gap between Tirene and Tír Ríoga. Between every kingdom present. Between those with magic and those without. Between queen and subject.
Then a voice cuts through the momentary peace.
“Pretty words from Tirene’s queen, who can stay safe in her magical kingdom.” A sandy-haired woman in the dark robes of the Devoted comes forward, the star-mark on her hand glinting in the light filtering through the amphitheater’s open ceiling. “While our children grow weak and our crops fail. While our people suffer.”
My skin crawls from whatever drips from her voice. Not just hatred, but something calculated. Manufactured. I’ve heard this exact cadence before, from street preachers in Tirene’s market squares trying to sow division.
The uneasy crowd stirs again.
“Magic sustained us for generations.” The Devoted woman squares her shoulders. “And now it’s gone.”
“That’s not—” I snap my mouth shut, because what more can I say? The damage is done.
Her words ripple through the gathered masses, reigniting the anger that had just begun to cool.
The crowd surges worse than before as people begin shoving toward us from all sides. Sterling inches closer to me. Guards struggle to maintain a perimeter around us. I reach for the short sword strapped to my side.
That’s when I feel it.
A tremor beneath my feet.
The ancient stone floor of the Divine Commons shudders. The immense pillars supporting the vaulted ceilings tremble.
“Sterling. Do you—”
“Yes.” Hand on his own weapon, he scans the amphitheater.
