“So this is it, then,” Robb murmured.

“Seems so,” Jax agreed.

The Iron Shrine loomed in the distance, growing larger and larger with each passing moment. The rest of Nevaeh carried on like it was any other day in the kingdom, and the normalcy of it frightened him. The light under his skin crawled across the timelines, the near futures and past perfects, and he didn’t know which were true and which were thwarted.

But it didn’t matter—each of them ended in flames.

Ana

Ana slipped into the Iron Shrine.

While the fire had gutted most of the inside, the structure of it still stood like an indestructible mountain. Some of Nevaeh’s citizens had already taken to repairing the structure. There was scaffolding on the outside, and the charred door had been replaced with fresh wood. She pushed against the towering ornate door, half expecting it to be locked, but it eased open.

Inside, at a passing glance, it looked as though the shrine hadn’t burned at all. It oozed the warm, loving golden glow of a thousand candles set upon the rafters. They flickered in the draft from the open door and danced shadows across the walls, masking the blackened burn marks. The statue of the Goddess, alight with candles, towered at the head of the shrine, fifty feet high, just as Ana had remembered from her last visit. Dried candle wax pooled out of her cupped hands and dripped from her outstretched arms like pearlescent water.

There.

The heart must’ve been there.

Dozens of people knelt in the pews. They muttered softly to themselves, cadences of The Cantos of Light mixed with their own prayers. Four abbesses stood at the front of the shrine, holding lit censers, the smell of moonlilies fresh and strong.

“Oh no,” she murmured. Everyone needed to leave. She cleared her throat and greeted one of the abbesses who came to meet them halfway down the aisle. “Madam, you’re in danger here—”

“The Goddess will protect us,” the abbess interrupted, her gaze lingering on her scars. “Please, come and worship.”

Helplessly, Ana watched her walk back toward the front of the shrine, swinging her censer patiently.

Fine.

Setting her jaw, she took her Metroid from her holster and prayed that the Goddess would forgive her for this. She raised it into the air and fired a shot into the ceiling.

The people praying in the pews shrieked and ducked for cover.

“Everyone leave!” she commanded, her voice vibrating across the rafters. They turned to her, staring at her as if she was a phantom come home. They began to recognize the burn scars across the left side of her face, the thick slant of her brow, the bronze of her skin, the Armorov gold of her eyes. They recognized royalty in an orphan girl from the stars.

A ghost among marbled Goddess statues.

The Empress?

Ananke Armorov?

Empress Ananke?

Ana?

They stared at her in awe.

“I SAID LEAVE!” she roared, and her voice carried up into the rafters, quaking the candles.