She’d searched for her for the better part of an hour, but the Skra leader was nowhere to be found. When Ranka questioned her coven mates, they’d simply shrugged and said something about her having business to attend to. They were lying, and it stung. She’d asked them as a Skra—and they’d responded as strangers. Even the witches she knew well—Tafa, Sigrid, Nadya, and so many she’d trained alongside, gave her the cold shoulder.

You are not one of us, their eyes said. We do not recognize you. You will have to earn us back.

Ranka’s fingers drifted self-consciously to her own clothing. Black trousers showed off her muscled legs, vanishing neatly into sturdy boots embellished with gold buckles. The Sunra emblem of an exploding sun shimmered in pale gold across her shoulders. Threads of deep, bloody red and gusts of silver wind swept down her sides, weaving together into a single, unified pattern. The tailors had opted to leave her scarred, muscled arms bare, burn marks and all, but now her old wounds looked like marks of power instead of shame. She’d nearly wept over the clothes. They fit perfectly, finer than anything she’d worn before. Instead of boorish and out of place, she looked powerful, brilliant, and strong.

And… human.

Ranka’s fingers went nervously to her bracelet and found only skin.

A hush fell across the room, and every eye turned to the gilded doors from the private wing as they swept open.

Ranka’s world went quiet.

Tonight the Sunra twins were not children. They were power.

They were ethereal in blue military dress, complete with gold-embellished decorative knives and shoulder armor. Galen’s fingers dripped with signet rings; his gold circlet shone from his brow. Delicate silver thread depicted the gale winds he always wore, but now lightning swept over his chest in vibrant gold. Storm clouds gleamed across his shoulders. The message was clear: gone was the boy prince, the wind mage, the weakling of his line.

Galen Sunra was a Skybreaker now, and he’d dressed in a storm.

Aramis looked sharp and dangerous in the neatly cut military clothes. Her mass of curls had been left free, framing her face and bobbing above her shoulders. But it was her clothing that drew murmurs. As the magicless heir, her clothes should have been plain. Instead, stark white thread depicting healers’ herbs flowered up her sides, and odd, sharp symbols cascaded down her arms. Molecule chains, she and Percy had explained, though it meant nothing to Ranka. The Hands had called the practice of science heretical. Now Aramis wore it proudly and claimed it as her own.

They stood side by side, the boy with a power born, the girl with a power made, united only by their twin gold circlets, and Ranka knew that no matter what happened tonight, this country would never be the same.