As Cedric listened, some secret part of him resonated in distinct familiarity with Rhea's tale. When she told of Rava's earliest years as a brothel brat in the coastal city of Velaris, he could almost taste the salty tang of the sea, the muggy air on his skin, the ripe, pungent odors of overheated bodies. Hollering voices of local fishmongers, the sting of damp stone on pattering bare feet. Cruel hands, dark rooms, and gnawing hunger.

The boy wouldn't have realized the wretched nature of his childhood. The scraps he scrounged off the streets, to supplement his thin allowance of the kitchens' leftovers, were as rich a sustenance as he knew. Cruel words and the occasional beating, directed at both him and his "older sisters," were commonplace. Only when he'd grown to a certain size did his life take such a distinct turn for the worse that even he could recognize it.

"At seven years old, Rava was sold off as a stone slave, sent to mine diamonds and other gemstones for his masters," Rhea said. "Just one of many forgotten, unwanted children trapped beneath the whips of cruel overseers."

Recognition blazed in Cedric's mind. The young boy whose eyes he'd shared...

"The Crimson Blade would have taken many more years to find him if he hadn't--"

"Found a black diamond," he finished quietly.

Rhea blinked. "How did you know?"

"Never mind that. Go on."

"When I met Rava, he'd already reigned as king for over fifty years. Kind-eyed, poised, blessed with a bottomless well of patience for my endless, childish bids for attention."

Cedric had long discarded the possibility of ever knowing his predecessor beyond the abstract force of malice conveyed by survivors' stories. To now hear of Rava the Mad's childhood, and his kindness as a brother, both gratified and unsettled him.

"He told me of his life from before his ascension, something he'd never divulged to Ayo or Asha. And even as a child myself, I could sense that scared, helpless little slave boy haunting his steps like a second shadow."

"Rava never could let go of the unspeakable cruelties he'd witnessed in his earliest years. He'd been liberated, but what of the thousands upon thousands of poor souls suffering similar fates, or worse? He was a Divine Heir, a Blessed One. If he didn't have the Goddess-given right to make a difference, who did? By the time I reached adulthood, he'd fully devoted himself to the study of the Axis of Darkness, specifically its ability to manipulate the mind and spirit."

Cedric's breath caught, and Rhea glanced up at him. "You must understand that the true power and scope of the Axes are impossible to fully comprehend, even for us. Some Scholars have proposed that the limits of their capabilities lie solely within the bounds of their wielder's imagination."

Cedric bit down on the torrent of questions suddenly clamoring to be released.

"Rava worked in the caverns beneath the Citadel, near the Vault. Criminals and other unsavory individuals were sent to serve as subjects in his… experiments."

Cedric shuddered at the implications of that word. Even now, that secret part of him conjured up an impression--too vague to be memory but too vivid to be purely imagined--of strangled screams bounced and magnified against cold, cavernous rock. He hugged his knees to his chest.

"When the first stirrings of an Awakening reached us, Rava was certain that it was a divine portent. His plan to eradicate all who bore darkness in their souls had been blessed by the Goddess Herself."

The cold light of the blue diamond cast skull-like shadows over Rhea's trembling face. The atmosphere of the cave had thickened, condensed.

"He'd discovered how to draw out and manifest what he believed to be "evil" within people's souls. The Awakening would allow for him to do this on an unprecedented scale, without need of a single diamond from the Vault." Rhea raised her head as her tears spilled over.

"The moon itself was extinguished that night. Only we, his siblings, were spared, and the three of us found Rava at the summit of the Citadel beneath the crystal dome. He looked at us in anticipation of approval, even reverence. 'Rejoice, brothers and sisters! I have purified our kingdom. After the unworthy have destroyed themselves, those who remain will never suffer again.' He couldn't understand why I pleaded with him to stop, why we didn't share in his exultation. He was beyond reason. We had but one recourse left to us."

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Rhea's voice grew thick. "The moon returned, as did our subjects' right minds, but not before many had already been lost to the void. My brother was the last."

Cedric's heart thudded in the empty cavern of his chest.

"The unworthy weren't the only ones struck by the Madness," he said through gritted teeth. "Everyone was." He sprang to his feet, fists clenched. "And here I thought you Blessed Ones, you Divine Heirs, had the slightest notion of what you were doing. Millennia wasted in your gleaming white tower, pampered and swaddled, removed from your own people… even you, Rhea, murdered one of your own subjects as easily as swatting an insect!"

Rhea stared up at him, speechless.

He briefly considered not telling her at all, but then forged ahead. "The Madness was merely the final blow. The Heirs have been slowly destroying Her for centuries."

She found her voice again. "What… what do you mean?"

"I hear the Astyrian mines are depleted. Is this true of others across the kingdom?"

"Yes, the last significant contribution to the Vault was many years ago. Even our other stores of lesser stones…"

Cedric nodded, his suspicions confirmed. "We plundered Her body until almost nothing remained, then sent our own subjects to pick Her bones clean. Diamonds and other gemstones, the greatest sources of Her power, incessantly torn from Her flesh. We are the cause of this, Rhea."

"No… how could we--? We're divinely chosen to rule. Eris decreed that--"

"If you didn't silence the practitioners of the old ways, you'd know otherwise!" Cedric snapped. "The droughts, the Blight, the heat… Eris is dying, and so will Iridesca, whether Ayo succeeds in her endeavors or not." He threw up his hands. "You came all this way for nothing."

Rhea stood as well. "What can we do? Surely there's some way to--"

"No. We're already too late." Speaking the words aloud somehow solidified the bleakness of their circumstances. The fall of the world seemed an overwhelming affair to discuss in some tiny cave in the mere company of three.

Tears fell from Rhea's crystalline eyes, and she slumped back against the cave wall. "I'm sorry," she said in a small, broken voice. "I--I didn't know… oh, Eris, forgive me..."

Cedric didn't tell the Blue Queen that She already had; he simply watched her in stony silence.

Then, seized by an impulse, he bent down to pick up the black diamond collar from the ground. He gripped it in both hands and, with only a mild exertion, snapped it down the middle.

The ringing crack echoed eerily in the hollow confines of the cave. Rhea jumped, startled, as the liberated black diamond fell into Cedric's palm while the sundered gold struck the ground with harsh clinks.

Cool, dark energy infused his hand and rushed up along his arm, far purer and stronger than that of Jana's last gift. The power pooled in his chest and spread through the rest of his body as it had done before. But this time, Cedric deliberately resisted the tantalizing pull to submit; he clenched his hand around the diamond, which had gone ice-cold, and simply allowed its energy to roil restlessly in his veins.

No further. It will not be like before.

And slowly, gradually, the dark power retreated from his limbs and returned to the black diamond.

Cedric let out the breath he'd been holding. "What now, Rhea?"

What now, knowing that Ayo's machinations would ultimately amount to nothing? What now, knowing that the world was doomed regardless?

Rhea gulped and dabbed at her eyes. "Perhaps just this… I am deeply ashamed of what my siblings and I have inflicted upon you. We stole your childhood, locked you in darkness and suffering for another's crime, all to appease our subjects and ourselves."

Cedric scowled. "Go grovel to Jana and Alvir, who lie dead at the hands of your Blade. Then Thomas, Goran, Bree, Freya, Grace, Dulse, Oleanna, Lord Caelum, and every other casualty of your reign!"

"If I had such time left," she said faintly.

Cedric paused. "What do you mean?"

She bent down, picked up her collar, and fastened it around her neck. "When your time comes to depart this world, a hollow coldness begins to take root in your chest. The news of your liberation had kept it at bay, if only for a few more weeks." The Heir of Waters smiled sadly. "Ayo will act at dawn, on the Day of Ascension. Do with that what you will."

Rhea stepped to the mouth of the cave and raised her head toward the dark evening sky. She breathed deeply, then turned back to Cedric. Her face was a haunting fusion of apprehension, sorrow, and even a little relief.

"And you were wrong on one count, Cedric. I didn't come all this way for nothing… I met you."

*

In a remote mountain cabin on the outskirts of Qurtarus, a young woman awoke from a hard, clenching pain in her swollen belly and roused her husband with an urgent word.

As her ragged cries tore through the cabin and the sun forged its inexorable path toward dawn, the prospect of the new life they would soon raise and nurture together was the sole faith to which they clung. But all relief and joy at the end of the long ordeal crumbled to dust upon their first look at the bloody, squalling newborn in her arms.

"Oh, dear Mother," the young woman wept, and collapsed weakly against her husband. Trembling with anguish, they cursed the fates, the Mother, and all the forces of destiny both named and unnamed.

For as long as their son possessed a pair of unmistakable blue eyes, he would never truly be theirs.