Ayla went to her, claiming the last few inches of bench. The inflexible leather chest plate made it difficult to sit down, digging into her hip bones if she hunched over even a little. She leaned into Crier’s side and peered down at the cloth bundle, which Crier was cupping in both hands like it was a baby bird, something fragile and alive. “For me?” Ayla asked in a murmur. “What is it?”

Crier held it up, letting the cloth fall away, and Ayla’s breath caught in her throat.

It was a deep blue stone about the size of a clenched fist, the surface smooth and polished. Ayla had seen this stone before. Not in real life, but in memory, Siena’s memory, this blue stone like a cut of night sky in Siena’s hand. Ayla stared down at it, speechless. Tourmaline. True Tourmaline, not in its rawest form like the stone that formed the blue powder bombs, but alchemized Tourmaline. Maker’s Tourmaline. Yora’s heart.

There were tiny symbols etched into the surface. Concentric circles: the four elements, then gold. It was repeated all over the stone, except in one place.

“How . . . ?” she rasped.

“It was in my father’s trophy room,” said Crier. “With all his other artifacts of war. It was mixed in with a collection of human jewelry, covered in dust. It must have been there for years. Perhaps ever since the raid on your village. I’m sure he thought it was just another gemstone. Another little trinket.”

Ayla couldn’t speak. She couldn’t look away from the stone. Was that a flicker of movement in the very center, the heart of the heart? A tiny pulse, the faintest bluish glow, even after all these years without a body, all these years spent just gathering dust? Was Yora’s heart still beating?

“It belonged to your grandmother,” Crier whispered. “And now it belongs to you. It is your heritage, Ayla. Take it, and do with it what you will.”

This is a bomb, Ayla thought, staring down at it. This could be a bomb. If she wanted, she could turn it into the deadliest powder bomb yet and take out an entire battalion, take a hundred leeches in an instant, turn the tides of this war, that’s for my village, that’s for my parents. She could destroy half the palace if she wanted to, with Hesod inside.

Crier winced, lifting a hand to her forehead. When she noticed Ayla’s questioning look, she explained, “I . . . haven’t had heartstone. Since the Iron Heart. I’m . . . I’m beginning to feel the effects.”

No heartstone since—Ayla swallowed. Not good, not good. Kinok was coming, and Crier was his number one target. If there was any fighting, if she was in harm’s way for even a moment, and she hadn’t had heartstone in days . . . She wouldn’t heal. She’d be as shaky and vulnerable as a starving human. She’d be in danger.

Ayla could use Yora’s heart to destroy half the palace.