Adena has gone to organize where to set and detonate the explosives around the palace. Our signal to act. Somewhere among the rooftops near the palace, Aramin and Jeran are crouched and waiting for my signal. Talin is among the rebels, invisible among their crush of bodies, watching for the right time to move.

The sheer number of rebels gathering here is what we’re relying on, but still, I look at their numbers and feel something sinking in me. Mayor Elland had sent word out among them to surround the palace and send up an alert if there’s any sign of the Premier attempting to leave its perimeters. When ready and directed, they should flood the east gate.

I look at those around me. In a mass, they may seem a faceless sea of people, but I take in those around me and wonder what they’ve seen, who they might have lost. We are going to use the sheer number of their bodies to try to break through the line of soldiers. Once inside the palace, Talin will have a chance at hunting down the Premier—but alone? In order to give her a chance to get in, we need to stage a large-enough distraction.

The light begins to brighten the city, casting the palace’s domes in hues of pink and gold. In the street, the rebels’ chants grow louder. Is this what overthrowing a ruler looks like? Was this what had brought the Early Ones down?

Behind me, I sense a ripple of Talin’s emotions.

Almost time, she says to me.

I’m quiet, taking in her words. The memory of her lying next to me is still imprinted sharply in my mind, and I close my eyes for a moment, wishing I could return to the comfort of her embrace.

Don’t look back, I tell her after a moment. Just keep moving. I’ll be right here.

Talin doesn’t answer right away, but when she does, her voice is calm and warm. I know.

Through our link, I can tell that she is calculating her fears, her emotions cycling in the same way they do right before a Ghost attack. She had once told me about the way Strikers train—once you make the first move, you must keep going.

Once we begin, we will have to finish what we started here. There is no going back, no returning to the thicket in the trees.

Suddenly, I feel a slight rumble in the earth beneath my feet.

I still, listening, and then turn my head slightly toward the palace. Nothing happens for a while. The rebels stop too, and with them, the Federation soldiers shuffle. I can see them looking at one another, their frozen faces twitching in sudden uncertainty.

For a while, I think that I’ve mistaken what I felt.

Then the loudest boom I’ve ever heard in my life reverberates across the city, followed by a rush of hot wind so powerful I’m nearly knocked to my feet. Everyone around us—rebel, soldier—falls to their knees. And there, on the other side of the palace, I see a ball of orange and red rise blinding into the lightening sky, the clouds of the explosion swallowing itself over and over as it grows. The earth rumbles and shakes and sighs, as if the plates of the land itself are shifting.