“I did go there planning to kill him,” Ephyra admitted, breaking the silence. “I got close.” Maybe it would never sit right, this power inside her. Maybe she’d always be drawn to the darker parts of it. “I think … I’ve believed this whole time, since we were young, that killing is just what I’m meant for. What I am. I pretended like I didn’t have a choice in it because that was easier than admitting I did. Though I don’t know if I can be sorry for it, even now, because I still think your life is worth a thousand Dracon Galanises.”

“So why didn’t you kill him?” Beru asked, her voice strangely toneless, like she was merely curious.

“When we escaped from Pallas Athos, Jude was hurt pretty bad by the Witnesses. Hector asked me to heal him. Trusted me to do it. It felt … different. Like waking up. I’ve hurt a lot of people, Beru. And I don’t just mean the people I’ve killed or the people I’ve left behind.”

“You mean me,” Beru surmised. “I can remember … the fights we used to have. How upset I was when you didn’t listen. That day in Medea…”

Ephyra flinched at the reminder. One of the worst days of her life—second, perhaps, only to the day in the tomb of the Sacrificed Queen, when the Daughters of Mercy had told her Beru was dead.

“I don’t blame you for leaving,” Ephyra said. “Not anymore.”

Beru shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just … I don’t remember why I did. Or—I do remember, but it doesn’t feel like it was me.”

A dark feeling settled over Ephyra as she looked at Beru, the girl she’d known for almost seventeen years. The girl she thought she knew better than anyone. But right now, it was like she was looking at a stranger.

When they’d been Pallas’s captives, every day was a struggle, but now that they were free, Ephyra realized the struggle had never ended for Beru. Hour after hour, she was fighting a losing battle against the god inside her.

“I’m not making sense,” Beru mumbled, wiping a hand over her face. “Don’t listen to me. I’m just tired.”

Ephyra’s chest tightened. Beru was lying to her.

Suddenly, Ephyra felt like she understood what Beru had endured all those years when Ephyra was the Pale Hand. They’d fought then, often, but worse were the fights they refused to have. Because at the center of every argument was a truth that Beru couldn’t have faced until it was staring her in the eyes—Ephyra’s bloody palm and Hector’s lifeless body. Only then had Beru let herself see the darkness that had taken hold of her sister.

And it had broken them.