Representatives of the seven kingdoms had traveled far and wide to Ankyo, to celebrate the marriage between Princess Inessa and her royal consort, General Fox Pahlavi. I was still unused to the dazzling displays of courtiers and ornate coaches as noble guests and emissaries clustered around the palace entrance, offering well wishes to Kion officials. Conscious of my simpler garb, I excused myself and retreated to the nearly empty royal gardens, seeking a few minutes’ respite. The gardens were open to those curious enough to explore, though the fanfare at the castle gates proved more popular. I could sing before a crowd without fear, but to mingle with the nobility as one of them was distressing.

Without thinking, I sought out the twin statues at the center of the carefully manicured garden. It had been completed only a month before, though a few elder asha still protested its inclusion on palace grounds. But General Fox had insisted, and Princess Inessa seconded his wish. She was the reason, she had argued, for Fox returning to her against all odds, even after magic had ebbed away from the lands. The bone witch—no, Lady Tea—was right. The loss of the runes would not stop the tide of politics, but they no longer had the poisonous bite they once did when they came armed with spells.

I liked the monument. Even the best sculptors could not completely copy her true likeness, but it was a beautiful attempt. In it, I could see the familiar contours of her lovely face, her black hair whipping behind her, frozen in time by metal and bronze. The rendering could not accurately portray her flashing, dark eyes, alive with anger or grief or warmth or whichever mood took her, but no likeness could. Her lover stood silently beside her, clad in black, with his fingers wrapped around hers. He gazed down at her, and it softened the inexorability of his countenance.

A girl stood at the foot of both statues, gazing earnestly up at them. She was still dressed in an asha’s hua, though it was rapidly growing out of fashion in the wake of the runebinders’ waning influence; still, it suited her well.

“I wish I could have said good-bye to them,” she mourned. “Khalad says they were happy in the end, and that’s all I could’ve ever hoped for. But is it selfish of me to wish for more?”

She was a miracle, they had told me. On the day Lady Tea and Lord Kalen died, she had woken from her months-long sleep, disoriented but healthy, no longer blighted. When the news from Shadi first reached us, Lord Khalad had broken down in King Kance’s arms and wept like a young child.

I looked up at the Lady Tea’s statue and felt my own eyes fill. “It’s never wrong to wish for more happiness,” I said hoarsely.