Queen Rhea lay on silken sheets, deep in thought, as her favorite courtesan Virolan trailed soft kisses from her shoulder blade to her forearm.

"What troubles you, Your Grace?" he said softly behind her.

She turned and ran her fingers through the glossy tresses of his dark, lavender-scented hair. Rhea enjoyed Virolan's boyishly handsome face, his lithe body, his flawless, milk-bathed skin, but she would never deign to confide in him.

"Nothing that concerns your pretty little head," she said. The large diamond embedded within the golden collar at her throat, whose crystalline blue perfectly matched her eyes, pulsed warmly like a heartbeat.

"Your happiness is my sole concern, Your Grace." His well-practiced hand traced her hip in the precise way she liked.

A cool gust of wind rushed in from the marble arches of the open balcony, whose gossamer curtains briefly danced and fluttered before settling back down. Rhea shivered, but not from the cold.

Ever since the hollowness had taken root in her chest, thoughts of a distant earlier life had begun to trouble her more frequently. She'd found herself pondering if any of her birth family were still alive, or if they had long decayed into the ground along with their children or even grandchildren. The rolling tides of years and decades had begun to run together, though their passage had left her own outward youth unchanged. Just one fragment of that old life had truly remained: a vivid memory of a rank, earthy scent nowhere to be found in the Citadel, which Rhea suspected to be animal droppings.

What she did remember perfectly was the day of her Naming Ceremony. At five years old, under a steel-gray sky, she'd shivered naked in the courtyard of the Citadel, at the foot of its gleaming white steps. The capital's entire population had spilled far beyond its edges and deep into the city streets. Rhea remembered wondering how the people at the very back could possibly see anything at all.

"All hail Queen Rhea!" they'd chanted in unison, thickening the air with their exaltations as the High Advisor clasped the collar around her throat and draped a delicate silk robe over her shoulders.

That night, she'd sprawled like a discarded doll among the silk swaths of her enormous new bed. Beneath the cold, cavernous ceiling of her chambers, she'd wept until dawn.

And here, in the very same room, was where her long reign would soon end. She'd slip quietly into the void tonight, having enjoyed one last night with her favorite companion, and then be reborn.

Rhea stroked Virolan's hair.

"Enlighten me of the latest gossip," she said.

Virolan pondered his beautiful but rather hollow head, then brightened. "I've heard rumors among those who correspond with the Enforcers. Droughts, hotter days, and a… strange affliction. People losing their vision not to darkness, but to blinding light."

Indeed, there was something festering within the kingdom. This feeling had grown stronger over the years, an indefinable sense of fundamental imbalance and discomfort within her soul. But if Asha and Ayo had been weathering the same unease, they'd spoken nothing of it. They didn't even know of her coming Rebirth on this night. The only one she would have claimed as true kin had been cast away forever.

Yet no matter how Rhea regretted the state of things, this was ultimately the Goddess' will. She would accept her fate with the grace and dignity as expected of an Heir who'd reached the natural end of their incarnation.

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The double doors of her bedroom violently burst open with an echoing crash. Virolan jumped, but Rhea did not. Just one individual in the Citadel would ever make such an entrance.

"Asha, what an unexpected pleasure," Rhea said lightly. She made no effort to conceal herself.

King Asha jerked his head at Virolan, who quickly understood. The courtesan bowed, snatched his silk robe from the nearby armchair, and scuttled out of the room.

The Divine Heir of Fire stood tall at the foot of her bed, broad and powerful, clothed in fine red silks. The blood-red gem at his throat glittered hungrily as his amber eyes, which flashed scarlet in certain angles of light, blazed in barely-restrained fury.

Rhea's ambivalence did not waver. After all, this would be their last meeting together, at least in this life. Do you even have the slightest inkling, brother? she thought in amused contempt. Or are you too caught up in your own affairs, the same as always?

"He escaped," Asha said through gritted teeth.

She blinked. Somehow, she knew exactly to whom he referred. "How? When?"

"None of the surviving guards saw the intruder's face. Nitwits. But a few made mention of a notably tall woman. One of them witnessed a fellow guard assisting her. He'd arrived at his posting that very morning."

Astrid, one of Rhea's attendants, entered bearing a platter of olives, soft cheese, and fresh fruit. Asha waved her away without turning, and she retreated.

"And what has become of that guard?" Rhea asked.

"Imprisoned. I've sent the Ice Blade to interrogate him. For now, he alone will track down our brother. We may yet keep this whole disaster quiet."

"Does Ayo know of this?"

"Of course."

"Then it appears you have already set everything in motion."

Asha's mouth thinned into a cruel line. "Did I not warn you both? He should have been held here, in the capital. Yet you two insisted--"

"Indeed, brother. And now we've reaped the rewards of our foolishness. Vindication must be sweet."

He began to pace the glossy marble in long, flowing strides. "I knew this would happen. Ever since those loyalists stole his collar… they've been scheming all along. If we'd simply taken the initiative and purged them all immediately--"

"Perhaps this is the Goddess' will," Rhea said. "To correct the imbalance of our rule."

Asha laughed humorlessly. "Careful, sister. But as sure as the Cycle, our little brother will come with vengeance in his heart. Whether it's a month, a year, a decade… he will inevitably be drawn here."

She contemplated the velvet darkness outside her balcony. Her heart beat thunderously in her chest, an exhilarating sensation that hadn't graced her body in many years. "I could hardly blame him for seeking retribution," she murmured.

Asha stopped pacing, and his face softened by a single degree. "I'll allow you some sentimentality, but do not let it blind you. Our brother was a monster--"

"Don't, please."

"We were given no choice, sister. He'd gone mad. If we hadn't--"

She put up a hand, refusing to meet his eyes. "I bid you goodnight."

He opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it again and accepted the dismissal with surprising compliance.

Once the bedroom doors swung shut behind him, Rhea reached for the small jewelry box on her nightstand. Anyone else's skin would have burned with icy fire, but Rhea brought it to her naked lap with the barest flutter of chill. The box was a lovely little piece of craftsmanship, white stonewood inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli, but its contents were far more valuable, so valuable that she'd infused its home with a little power from the blue diamond.

The black diamond embedded in the center of King Rava's collar winked mischievously from inside the box. Was she imagining it, or did it now seem to pulse a little stronger than it'd had in almost seventeen years? After all, she'd been the one to take the collar from her brother's cold, lifeless throat.

Rhea held Rava's collar to her chest as she padded across the cold marble to the open balcony. She appraised the expansive view of Crystallinus that stretched out below her; the city's multitudes of closely-knit buildings and houses, which shimmered with blinding radiance under the daytime sun, took on a ghostly, ethereal glow under the light of the moon. Scattered blobs of warm orange, mere pinpricks to her from this heavenly vantage point, peppered the expanse of the capital.

A cold breeze swept across Rhea's naked, copper-toned skin, but she did not shiver as she'd once done all those years ago at the foot of the Citadel. A smoldering fire had kindled in her belly and swept aside the encroaching emptiness, the kind that had nothing to do with the pulsing gemstone at her throat or in her hands. It was an intoxicating mixture of fear and hope. Their brother was free.

In the utter privacy of her balcony, Rhea smiled.