“How far are you willing to go to save your people and recover your crown? What are you willing to compromise? Give up? Betray? How dirty are you willing to get your royal hands?” As she asked the question, Zephyr raised her own hand, the one adorned with the menacing red glove.

Aurora wished she could respond immediately, assert that she would do whatever it took, but she knew there was far more than her own life at stake in this decision.

“And once I decide that line,” Aurora said, “what comes next?”

“Then we use one problem to solve another. There’s no point defeating the Lockes only to be destroyed by the Stormlord. Nor will there be much use in deposing the Lockes if there is no kingdom left to rule. From what Taven has told us about the Stormlord’s interactions with Locke soldiers in the field, he seems particularly fixated on this family, even taunting them with his kills. If we are lucky, they are all he wants. So, the logical solution is to deliver the Locke family to the Stormlord, either by stealth or violent insurrection.”

It was a sound plan, even if it made her stomach turn. She wished a great many things on the Locke family, but did she wish them dead? Or worse, perhaps? The Stormlord was said to be mad and cruel. If it truly was the Lockes he wanted, what would he do with them? And what was to say he would stop once he had the Stormlings he wanted? But it was a plan, something tangible they could work toward, which was more than she had. That would have to be enough for now.

“How do we begin?” Aurora asked.

Zephyr laughed. “What’s to say I even want you involved? You are just another Stormling who will stomp all over the rest of us. This is my revolution. If you want to be part of it, you will need to prove your worth.”

Aurora tipped her chin up, and met Zephyr’s gaze with a hard stare of her own. “And if I decide I would rather start my own revolution? Taven will side with me, won’t you?” The soldier looked uncomfortable, but he gave Zephyr one solemn look before nodding his head.

“My life is to protect yours,” he replied.

“Not to mention,” Aurora continued, “I spent eighteen years exploring the halls and rooms of that palace. No one knows it better than I. And the skyfire that runs through my veins will open the palace gate.”

That point was a bit of a bluff. She hoped that the skyfire in her chest would work just as well as a normal Stormling affinity, but she did not know for sure.

“You do drive a hard bargain,” Zephyr said, her pretty, dark-red lips curling.

“I have not offered you a bargain, yet. But I am prepared to.”