Apolla pressed her mouth into a straight line, so hard her lips lost color. Then: “Yes. Summon everyone. I wish to make an announcement.”

The guards flanked me.

“Will you go without fighting?” Apolla turned her attention back on me. “Remember, I have Ilina’s father right here. And all your friends are back at the palace. If you can’t control yourself . . .”

“Your threats are unbecoming.” I stepped around her—moving toward the barge still moored on the rain-swollen river. We both knew I wouldn’t resist going back to the palace. That had never been a question. But the fact that she had felt the need to threaten me . . . That was revealing.

She was scared.

She didn’t know what I would do.

She didn’t know what I could do.

And maybe neither did I, because I’d never had wings without noorestones until now. But I knew what it meant: every day, I was becoming more of Mira the Dragon—and less of Mira the Girl.

When I reached the barge, I was deposited inside the main cabin, where the last of the rainwater hissed off my skin and clothes, leaving my dress torn and stained with smears of dried mud. A table held a carafe of cold water and four empty glasses, a tray of refreshments, and several sheafs of paper. Drafts of the agreements we’d discussed—before the dragons had flown away.

They closed the door, leaving me alone in the dark; no one had touched the light sigils, and I didn’t want to risk the guards seeing anything I did as a threat. Rain drummed on the roof, a desolate and hollow sound.

For several minutes, I stood in the center of the cabin, trying not to let my thoughts drift to the people who were about to lose a god, to the dragons who were losing another parent, or to my friends. I could only imagine what they would think when they were summoned to the throne room.

Finally, Apolla’s voice sounded from the deck, and the barge lurched into motion down the river once more.

When the cabin door opened, the empress stood there, framed by stormlight: bright and beautiful and unforgiving. The clatter of rain was loud against the deck, then muted as the door swung closed behind her. She tapped the nearest light sigil, and a warm, flickering glow filled the space as she just looked at me, evaluating.

Her anger had cooled, but now she was thinking clearly again. That seemed more dangerous.

“Sit, Mira.” She gestured to one of the chairs.

“I’ll stand.”

She only lifted an eyebrow before taking one of the chairs herself. “I know why you came to the Algotti Empire.” She kept her tone conversational as she poured a glass of water—for herself—and drank deeply. “I knew it the moment you entered my throne room.”

My breath caught, and instinctively I stretched out my mind for a noorestone—to burn away the anxiety—but there were none. Only the scattered piles of darkened crystals in the park, growing more distant as the barge lumbered down the river. There wasn’t even a spark left in them.