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He held up a rolled paper, sealed with his own insignia. Tearing it open, he said, “This is the battle plan to capture the north. We kill your mother and your sister, but Iradîo is smart enough that we could deal with her; we use her mercenary nature to have her remain a figurehead while we take possession of everything valuable in the Northern Kingdom.” He spread a handful of papers under his fingers, each digit resting on a different one. “This is how we use Empress Koque and the elven children’s affection for her to maintain control of Tavornai without a single of our soldiers in the kingdom.” He pointed to another stack of paper. “This is how we feed Forsaith and make it so that they never grow enough to feed their own population. That they only grow fruit and other luxuries, forcing them to trade at a deficit to us for basic necessities like grain and meat.”

He drew his hand away, fisting it at his side. He raised his other hand, his palm open reaching for me.

“You seek to turn yourself into a monster, but you forget I have been one my entire life. If we wanted to, we could conquer the world. With your power and my strategy, we would win. But it is not what I want. It is not what you want.” Tallu cupped my cheek and leaned forward until our foreheads touched. “You said you only ever wanted to use your powers to help the world. Scaring Ristorium into a peace treaty is not something that will make the world a better place.”

“You have so many plans.” I kissed him lightly, just the barest brush of flesh, feeling him breathe against my mouth, feeling the pulse of him under my hands as I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew him against me. “So what is the plan here?”

“Show her the benefits of an alliance,” Tallu said. “Prove who you are and who I am.”

“And who are you?” I asked.

“I am the man helplessly in love with you, who will follow you to the end. I am an emperor who wants peace.”

I breathed out, then leaned in for another kiss as though it was succor, because I could not live without it.

Then I pushed away. “All right. All right, my love.”

When I left the emperor’s quarters, my heart no longer cramped from the anxiety, I no longer worried over the future. Tallu was right, as much as it pained me to admit it. My way would be faster, but it would not last.

When I reached Turtle House, I knocked gently on Sister Themeal’s door. She answered quickly, as though she had been waiting. Her eyes searched my face.

“I assumed it would be one of the Emperor’s Dogs come to kill me,” she said. “Or are you merely here to bark out your master’s orders?”

“You know, for someone who has never met me before, you have a painfully low opinion of me,” I said. “It is usually only people who know me who think so poorly of me.”

“Is there something you wish to say?” Sister Themeal asked.

“There is something I wish to show you,” I said. I extended my hand, gesturing to the side in a motion I had seen Velethuil make the first time we had met. It might be imperial, but it was perfectly intelligible to the other air mage.

She nodded slowly, following me as we walked through the darkened halls of Turtle House, passing servants who bowed to us immediately, their fingers triangles as I passed.

“So they do respect you, even though you are foreign-born,” Sister Themeal commented. Her Northern was considerably more fluent than her Imperial.

“Yes. Nohe runs Turtle House very well, but more than that, I have earned the respect of the kingdom.” I opened the door to the garden outside. With the moon rising, the koi fish rested at the bottom of their lake, and the birds in the trees had gone quiet, except for Terror who croaked a question that I ignored. No. There were no fish on the menu right now.

Sister Themeal followed me out into the quiet garden. By the standards of the Mountainside Palace, it wasn’t large, but it would allow enough space for what I had planned.

“They say that air mages can walk into the sky. Not fly like dragons or birds, but simply step onto the air,” I said. “Is that true? Velethuil escaped the palace before I could see the extent of his powers, and even then I doubt he would have told anyone in the Imperium the full extent of them.”

In answer, Sister Themeal stepped forward, only somehow the air underneath her vibrated, whirling into a spiral. She took another step and rose further, the storm beneath her feet growing in intensity. She took another step, then another. When she stood above my head, she turned, glaring down at me. The moon backlit her, so she was mostly shadow.

The wind whipped my hair, sending my silken imperial clothes flying around me. My eyes watered from the intensity of it, giving her an ethereal glow in the moonlight.

“If you are here to threaten me, know that, unlike Velethuil, I have my full range of powers. And I have had twenty years for my grief to boil into rage. I would not even need the airships we came on to destroy the palace.” She raised her hands, and I could see the air vibrating between them.

Velethuil had killed so many men by himself before Kacha had taken him. I was sure she could do worse. He had been a young man, a newly minted mage. She had my mother’s years, if the people of Ristorium aged the same as those in the north.

“I’m not here to threaten you,” I said. “Nor am I a Dog, here to kill you. My beloved, Emperor Tallu, has reminded me of what I do want. And that is to make this world better. I am here because the powers of the One Dragon, the spirit of the One Dragon, has been gone too long. And I intend to make that right.”

Now that I had seen her magic, I knew what I could do. I felt my body changing underneath the moonlight, scales flowing beneath my skin. She walked on a storm, but I could do better. I stepped onto the air, and a cloud formed beneath my feet. Each footstep was light, bringing me up higher into the air until I was at eye level with her.

She stumbled backward, losing her concentration and falling. Before she could hit the ground, I extended magic, and she landed on a soft cloud that lifted her back up.

I offered my hand, and she stood, unsteady on her feet. Her white garments were nearly translucent, and she followed me as I continued up into the sky, chasing the moon. When we were high above the Mountainside Palace, I asked, “Is the story of how the air mages of Ristorium lost their wings true?”

She laughed, but it was a giddy, nearly hysterical sound, as though she were having trouble concentrating on our conversation, with the spread of the palace beneath us. It was no wonder Velethuil had been such a competent warrior. The air mages walked on violent storms, so walking on a soft cloud made of nothing more than magic must have been as foreign as me trying to sail on a blanket rather than a boat.

“There are many stories about how we lost our wings. Some say it was punishment by the One Dragon, others that when we stopped dreaming of the stars, we lost the wings to reach them. I prefer something between the two. I think when we became bound by mortal concerns, our wings disappeared along with our joy.” She released my hand suddenly and jumped forward. The cloud beneath her rushed to catch her, and she laughed again, the sound still hysterical. She leapt forward again, dancing above the Mountainside Palace.