Only then do I see someone familiar appear on the roof. It’s Talin’s mother, followed closely by Adena, the two of them bursting out from the stairway and rushing toward me. Behind them come a disorganized line of rebels. All I can think is that it must mean they have overtaken the palace.

The thought sends me to my knees. I crumple slowly and wait as Talin’s mother and Adena reach us. I must have tried to say something to them—explaining what happened to Talin—because Adena immediately pulls off her own jacket and starts to wrap Talin’s back tightly. Talin’s mother leans over to me, shouting.

“She needs blood,” the woman says. She and Adena help me steady Talin’s body as I gingerly lift her in my arms. “We need to get her downstairs!”

We leave the roof. As I start to descend the stairs, I cast a final glance over my shoulder. Constantine’s body stays there on the edge of the roof, alone and undefended, just an object to be gawked at and pointed to by the crowds below. All the destruction he has caused, all the lives he has destroyed—but in the end, he is just a lone, frail figure, another body. And in time, like all bodies, he too will vanish into dust.

Think of all that a single person can do. All the indescribable good. All the unspeakable evil.

There is a moment in the hospital of the inner city when I think Talin has died. Her heartbeat grows so faint that I can barely detect it. Outside, the city is flooded with the chaos that comes from the end of an era. When I look out the window, I see people tearing down a statue of Constantine’s father that has been in the center of the Solstice Circle for as long as I can remember. People from every conquered nation have dared to appear in the streets today, many of them crouched, weeping, before the monuments stolen from their countries and now adorning the main thoroughfare.

As the chaos sweeps through the streets, I stay by Talin’s side. A nurse from the former lab institute has already come by to set up an infusion of liquids into her body. Sometimes her heart quiets so much that I have to lean my head against her chest to hear her pulse for myself. Her mother stands beside her, her steady hands carefully sewing the horrendous wounds that Talin has sustained on her back. Beside her, Adena assists, occasionally looking at Talin’s face in the hopes that she might wake up.

I don’t know what time it is when Jeran and Aramin walk through the hospital door to see us. The day has come and gone, and night has fallen over the city again. Outside, Cardinia still sounds like a roar, but I see fewer soldiers clashing in the streets. Instead, there are arrests, and rebels waving the flags from a dozen fallen nations. The flag of the Karensa Federation burns everywhere.