Reubinon Palace, Pellarmus.
One week after the attack.

Britta sat at the head of the table; her palms pressed flat to the smooth wooden surface between us. Maps littered the tabletop, maps of Pellarmus, Haniver, Vayelle, and Erydia—the curling corners of them weighed down with stacks of handwritten letters and what appeared to be piles and piles of typed out transcripts. Little figurines and pins dotted each land mass and ocean, painstakingly marking each known ship or unit of troops.

I hadn't expected to be allowed to see any of this, but Britta was in the middle of sorting through the day's messages when we arrived and she didn't seem worried about hiding them from us. It was refreshing, I thought. There was a casualness to the way she cleared boxes and rolled documents from the chairs around the table, before she beckoned us to sit with her. Footman stepped forward to help her but she shooed them away, muttering something about being a fully-grown woman.

Once our places were cleared, she was back in her own seat, her expression turning focused again as she examined the letter she'd been reading. We'd only just taken our chairs on either side of the table when a maid came in and set a tray of tea and biscuits on the maps before the queen. Britta didn't even bother to look up, she was too immersed in the papers she held.

The maid spoke quietly, her Erydian stilted and shaking. "The king said you must eat."

Britta glanced up then, those blue eyes dancing with annoyance and another emotion, something softer. "I'll eat once I've finished here."

The woman pursed her lips and said, "I—I am supposed to report to him if you don't eat something now. He says you...you cannot—"

"Over do it, yes." She set her papers down on the map before her, nearly knocking over a few of the figurines as she snatched a biscuit from the tray. She made a show of adding butter and then some sort of jam. "See?" She lifted the pastry so the maid could see. "Eating." And with that, she took a bite and went back to reading.

The maid bowed once more and retreated from the room without another word—off to report to her master. Heidi and I exchanged a look, but Nadia was only smiling to herself. "You know," my friend said to the queen, "he really is right, you need to—"

Britta cut her off, her attention snapping up to us. "Sleep well?"

Heidi shifted a little uncomfortably in her chair. Britta's tone with Nadia had been curt, dismissive, but not unkind. While it was clear that Heidi and me found this a little alarming, Nadia was still smiling, unphased, as she reached forward and fixed a cup of tea.

Allies, I realized.

Nadia and Britta were already allies—friends, even.

"I slept well enough," I said.

My gaze went to the transcripts nearest my elbow. I hesitated a moment before I picked up the small stack and riffled through them. Most of the smudged typing made little sense to me, but it was clearly some sort of radio communications between the rebels in Erydian and those here in Pellarmus.

Nadia set the cup of tea in front of Britta, her lips pursed to keep her smile from turning wide as she said, "To your good health, your majesty."

Britta snorted at that and set her biscuit down on the tray. "He's such a mother hen. He fusses over me constantly. It's enough to drive me crazy."

"He loves you and wants you to rest."

Britta sighed. "Yes, well, love and resting won't win this war, will it?" She took the cup of tea from Naida and said to her, "I don't think I can bare it if you start clucking over me too."

She held up her hands, blackened fingertips on display as she said, "No clucking here, just friendly concern."

Britta sipped the tea, hummed in appreciation, and then set it down, her posture turning businesslike as she leaned her elbows on the table and said, "What can I do for you ladies?"

Everyone at the table turned to me and it was then I remembered that I was supposed to be leading this—or well, I'd been the one organize the meeting. I set the transcripts I'd been holding down and cleared my throat, the action a bit more nervous than I'd intended.

"I wanted to talk with you about the coming war and our place in it."

She blinked at me. "Anything in particular or are we just discussing the war?"

I shrugged. "I didn't really plan anything to say. I just wanted to have a few minutes to talk with you about your plans and the rebellion, since it seems you're sort of the spearhead of the entire operation."

"I can assure you," Britta said, leaning back in her chair. "There are dozens of spearheads in this operation, I am merely the person capable of aiming the bow."

"Even so," I nodded to the marked maps between us. "You have all the information at your disposal and we know practically nothing."

Britta nodded. "Well then, let's start with any questions you may have. What would you like to know?"

"Will you let us fight?" Heidi asked.

The queen nodded a smile spreading across her face. "I will never turn away anyone who is willing to fight alongside me. If you want to fight, then fight."

Britta always looked a good deal like Viera, but when she smiled—they could be twins. She looked like the portraits lining the walls of Oredison Palace, except that there was a light to Britta that her mother had always seemed to lack. Even in the darkest moments of Britta's life, I doubted she'd ever truly been as drained and angry as Viera had been. Even so, it was sometimes difficult to look at her without that old terror seizing my heart.

She is not Viera.

And what was even more important—she was not Larkin.

"How long have you been planning this?" Heidi asked. For someone who hadn't known about this meeting before thirty minutes ago, she sure had organized her list of questions.

Britta rose to the challenge, unbothered. "Actively, a little over a year. But the rebels working for me—with me—have been organizing for years, some of them since after my mother was first crowned. I've been able to give them aid and direction, but their activism was prevalent in our country long before I joined the cause."

Heidi opened her mouth to ask another question, but I cut her off. "And what is your stake in this? Did you only offer the rebellion help because you wanted to be queen?" I knew the answer—or I felt pretty confident I did. But I wanted my friends to hear her explain herself too.

Britta tapped a fingernail against the side of her tea cup. "I'll be the first to admit that I know very little of what my people—of what many of you—have faced. I have not starved alongside them. I have not been beaten or lost limbs or had my life stolen in the name of the goddess or some false sense of justice. I don't know anyone who has worked in slave camps. I have never served in the army or been called up in a draft. I have never lost a child to war or to famine or to the Culling." She sighed and glanced up, her eyes scanning our faces as she said, "But over a year ago, I was sent to tour our cities. And I went against my father's orders, I didn't stay in the prettiest, wealthiest places—I wandered. I saw those things. Saw the brokenness of our—my— people. I listened. And I realized, very quickly, that even though their experiences were not my own, they were too common. Too many people shared those experiences. They were real."

"And so, the princess took it upon yourself to be the savior? What a martyr." There was a level of annoyance to Heidi's voice, a sharpness, that had me shooting her a glare.

We weren't here to be Britta's opponent. We weren't trying to fight her—we wanted Caine dead. We wanted the Culling dead. She was offering to do those things. Why attack her and question her genuineness?

But Britta did not recoil from the accusation. She only leveled her gaze on Heidi. "I saw an opportunity to be useful and I took it. Nothing was going to change without my mother's death. Without my father's death. And I knew that if Cohen was made king and another goddess-touched girl was put on the throne, people would continue to die. I also knew that my mother was not going to step down. Neither of my parents were keen on the idea of losing the throne. My mother even argued against having the Culling at all. So, while you may think I set myself up to be 'the savior'—as you put it—that was never my intention. I only wanted to save Erydia and, if possible, save my siblings as well."

Before Heidi could say something else, Nadia spoke up, "When you become queen of Erydia, what will happen to us? Will there be more Cullings?"

"No. It—It will take some convincing and I'm sure the temple and the devout will be angered by the dismantling of the competition, but I will not allow it to continue. As far as I am concerned, the Culling is over."

"But what if there are more goddess-touched girls?" Nadia asked. "After us, I mean."

I noted the way Britta kept her gaze locked on the map before her, on the small figurine of a crown nestled directly over the south side of Gazda. "The birth of goddess-touched girls has always been sparked by the males of the Warwick line. I—After this war that will no longer be an issue. There will be no more Warwick heirs and no one to continue the Culling. Any heir will come from the Blackburne line."

And there it was—the declaration I'd known was coming and yet was so afraid to face.

They were going to kill Kai.

They had to.

If he didn't die—If he didn't die, then he could have a son and the Culling could start again. But...I swallowed, resisting the urge to ask more questions. I wanted to know why he couldn't live. The Culled had intended to sterilize Cohen, that way he couldn't have children. There would be no male heir, but he could still live. Why couldn't the same be done to Kai?

Because Kai was the enemy. Cohen had been an ally. They would not have mercy for Kai.

He was the king of a kingdom Britta was seeking to take for herself. And, even if he was her half-brother, she did not care for him at all. She would not stand between him and this rebellion.

But I would.

I had to fight for him—didn't I?

Around me, the table was still in discussion about the rebellion and the next steps. I heard Britta say something about Haniver troops being brought into the larger cities. Safehouses were mentioned. She pointed to a few places on the map and told my friends about her most valuable spies—names I recognized. A reporter named Harper Vance. A tailor named Birk Bisley. Other people I didn't know.

And the whole time Britta talked, I could feel Nadia's eyes on me.

We both knew how I felt. I could tell them all day long that I wanted to fight against Kai, I wanted the same things they did—but Nadia knew the truth. She could see my heart and she knew it was with him. And it frustrated her. My friend, with the endless patience, hated that I still cared for a boy that should have been my enemy.

But she didn't say anything to Britta about it.

She didn't need to.

The queen of Pellarmus wasn't stupid. If she had spies in the palace, then she knew my connection to the king and how easily controlled he was by me—because of me. Darragh would have also told her about Kai's note and how he'd sent me away. I wondered if, despite her claims, Britta would work to keep me here in Pellarmus.

I was a risk.

I might stand in her way.

But she had not shied away from me or denied me this meeting. She had not hidden her plans or her maps or her rebel communications with me. She'd left them out for me to see.

Trust.

Britta knew that Cohen trusted me and she was trying to trust me too. Even if she thought I'd been a traitor. I suppose at the end of it all, she'd been one too.

The queen was still explaining the numerous safehouses and giving vague estimations on how soon we might truly strike, when there was a hasty knock at the door to the office. Britta's paused as the door opened without her permission and Dellacov stepped inside. The queen shot to her feet, her eyes widening with fear.

Cohen.

I could see the question written all over her features.

But Dellacov only shook his head, an answer to a question she'd been too afraid to ask. "There's been radio contact from Vayelle. We think—we think it may be coming from Third Corps."

Britta's brow furrowed. "Third Corps?"

Third Corps.

"That's where my brothers are." I pushed up from the table. "Take me. I—Let me hear it."

But Dellacov didn't look at me, he only spoke to Britta again. "Third Corps was the Culled base where we all stayed—it was the only base that wasn't aware of Kaius's identity or Caine's plans to take the throne. From what I've been told, some of the rebels that were freed from the palace by Darragh set out to rescue a group of hostages from Third Corps."

Britta nodded slowly, digesting all of that. "And you think it's these rebels?"

"We have reason to believe it is, yes ma'am."

Britta glanced from Dellacov to me and then slid her chair back further. The swish of her dress rustled the papers and maps as she moved towards the door. "Let's go then," she said to me.

I didn't hesitate, only hurried after her.

***

We arrived at a room that could only be described as a closet. There were no windows and only the one door. It was hot—oppressively hot, whether from the close quarters or the beeping and ticking technology lining every wall, I wasn't sure. The tables were lined with devices I'd never seen. Whirling disks of clear tape, microphones, buttons and switches and cables.

The three people sitting at the desks, one on each wall, didn't look up at us as we entered the room.

Dellacov remained in the hallway, holding the door open as Britta strode directly to the middle desk and demanded, "What's the report?"

The man seated there removed an earpiece form his head and passed it to her. She took it, putting it on herself and giving him a curt nod to show she was ready. Then, he flipped a switch on the console before him and leaned back in his chair.

Britta's brow furrowed as she leaned a hand onto the desk, her expression growing progressively more worried. A woman seated at another desk glanced over her shoulder at Dellacov. "They're requesting aid," her accident was thick and I could tell she was mostly speaking in Erydi for our benefit.

Dellacov pursed his lips. "When did the message come through?"

"Around an hour ago, we think. But there's always some delay and it's spotty. It's possible we just didn't see it come in. We aren't monitoring those channels as closely as we are the ones we've got in Erydia."

"We caught it by accident," the third man said, his voice quiet enough not to distract. He nodded to the man at the desk next to Britta. "Giovani caught just the end of it. Whoever it was, they must have set the message to be repeated. We tuned in just as the broadcast was cut off."

Britta put the headset down on Giovani's desk and turned to look at him. "Play it again over the speakers."

He nodded. "Yes, your majesty."

She glanced my way. "What is your brother's name?"

My throat tightened at the look in her eyes. "I have two in Third Corps. Ambrose and Kace—"

"Kace." She pointed to the woman. "Add his name to the transcript. Kace Benson. I couldn't tell exactly what was said. I caught the surname though, knew it was the same as yours."

"Kace." The woman turned to her typewriter. "Spelling?"

I quickly spelled my brother's name. As I did, Britta stepped back from the table. The glowing lights from the different monitors cast her skin in a bluish sort of hue, but, even then, I could see how pale she'd gone. Giovani was still pressing buttons and disconnecting his headset as Britta said to me, "It isn't very clear, but—"

She didn't get to finish as the speakers crackled loudly and my brother's voice echoed around the small room.

"This—There are children here—I'm in Vayelle, in a small camp—Third Corps. I don't have the coordinates. We've been captured by Vaylish troops. We're near the Gap. The Suri Gap. We—We were captured and we need aid. I—Please. Please send aid. They are going to kill us. There are children here. There are innocent women and children here. There are elderly. They are going to kill children—Please. Please send aid. I repeat, there are children. I'm Kace Benson. I'm Erydian. We're part of the rebellion. If you're listening, please send aid. Send it now. We—"

The recording sputtered and there was a yell from the background of it, a bang like a gunshot or the slamming of a door. I flinched backward, nearly stumbling into Dellacov at the door. He caught me by the arm and held on tight as there was another bang on the recording. Then Kace was speaking again, his words rushed and broken up by the popping and clicking of static.

"We are trapped. I only have a moment. We need aid. We are trapped. There are woman and children here. Innocent people are going to die. Please—Please send—Please—Our mission has failed. Please—Please send aid. Please—There are women and children here. They are going to execute them. Please!" Then there was yelling and Kace's voice died out.

A beep sounded and the silence.

The room was frozen.

I was frozen.

I didn't even realize that Nadia and Heidi had followed us to the room until new hands caught hold of my arm and healing, soothing warmth spread through my chest. I turned to my friend, my face wet with tears as I said, "They need help. They—My brothers—" I turned, pulling out of Nadia's grasps as I whirled towards the queen of Pellarmus. "We have to send troops to rescue them."

Britta wasn't looking at me, her attention was on Giovani. "Can we get coordinates?"

He nodded.

"I know where the camp is," I said, moving towards the monitors, towards the queen and Giovani.

Dellacov caught hold of me again, pulling me back towards the door frame. "Let them discuss it."

I shrugged out of his grip. "If someone can get a map of Vayelle, I can show you where the camp is. Please. Please, we've got to act now."

Britta nodded to Dellacov. "Please go find Darragh. Tell him I need to speak with him right now. The council room. It's an emergency."

He didn't argue, just turned on his heels and went. Britta looked at me for the first time then. "We'll go back to the council room and you can show me."

I nodded, already half turning to the leave the room. But I paused on the threshold as Giovanni spoke up. "With all due respect, your highness, the odds of anyone making it into Vayelle is slim. It would take time to get access to maps of the tunnel system through the Demarti Mountains, and that's assuming such a thing even exists."

Someone took hold of my wrist and I turned to see Heidi standing there, her expression cold as stone as her hand moved to hold tight to mine. Behind her, Tavin lingered in the hallway. I wondered if she'd gone to get him or if he'd heard us heading this way and followed. Either way, his dark skin was pallid and his brown eyes lacking any warmth as he looked at me.

He knew what it was to lose a brother.

Heidi spoke up, her question aimed only at Britta as she asked, "What would you do if it was Cohen begging for help—if it was Uri?"

The queen of Pellarmus did not recoil from that nightmare gaze as she said, "I would do whatever I could save them."

***

You know, I've always heard it said that bad things come in threes.

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