He brought a foot down again, the earth shook, and I fell, barely catching myself on Thrana’s side. “The evidence is there,” he said. Again, he lifted that finger, as though teaching a lesson. He turned to the soldiers and guards. “Jovis has Mephi. I have Lozhi. We both have gifts. Your Emperor has Thrana. Does it not follow that she has the same gifts? The Alanga gifts? I know you’ve wondered. Let me give you proof.”

This was why he’d chosen this moment to turn on me. If I fought back, if I used everything at my disposal, I’d reveal what I was. I was the very thing my father had taught us all to fear. And I was not a folk hero like Jovis.

Ragan reached into the pouch at his side, popping a cloud juniper berry into his mouth.

I reached into my sash pocket and found the last cloud juniper berry there. If I held out long enough, the construct army would get here, and he’d have other things to worry about. I crushed the berry between my teeth, feeling strength upon strength flooding my limbs.

A few of the soldiers stepped forward, which warmed me, but I held up my hand. “Hold your positions!” I couldn’t have the defensive line falling apart just before the construct attack.

“Lin,” Thrana said to me. “I’m steadier than you are.” She held out a leg.

I realized then exactly how large she’d grown. Part of me would always think of her as the semi-hairless creature I’d pulled out of my father’s cavern. I clambered onto her back. Her ribs moved beneath my legs, the muscles of her shoulders sinuous. It felt like the most natural thing in the world – like we were one being.

Ragan shook the ground again and Thrana dug her claws into the mud. We held steady. Still, I had no weapons. I wasn’t a warrior. I was a politician, a practitioner of bone shard magic, an Alanga.

I was Lin. And that would have to be enough.

I watched his face, thinking about our prior conversations, about why he’d chosen to attack me. He didn’t care about who held the crown. He didn’t care if the governors or the Shardless Few deposed me and set no one in my place. At my back, Nisong marched, yearning for a place she saw as hers. Before me, Ragan sought to expose me. Why?

He held out a hand, and water began to gather from the air, from the ground. He watched me warily. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Ragan said. “Just tell them the truth. Show them.”

“The monks will never take you back, but you never belonged with them.” I was making guesses, gauging his reaction.

“And you don’t belong with these mortals either.”