While the insurrections retreated into smaller factions, father fought wars on foreign planets for Tritan sovereignty. In my education with the Physician, I learned the grander role Cinder played in the Collective. We were the first warrior race. True, we weren't warriors until Umbra engaged the Tritans, but our speed, agility, and strength far surpassed any civilization in the twelve worlds.

The Tritans needed us.

You're quick. I'm sure you've already deduced the reason.

"All hail King Umbra! Extinguisher of the Ancients! Liberator of Thailea!"

You read that right.

Amolot repeated the praise even as the anorexic army trickled through the conduit from Enki. Healing slower than royalty, the warriors carried the injured and dying on stretchers. Four million casualties. Even the Valkyrie lost two soldiers. Their bodies would forever linger in the rainbow rings of Thailea.

I stood to the side as the procession filed through. Not one Icarus was left unmarred. As the Valkyrie passed, I called to Karter. She walked with a gait, favoring her left leg, and her shoulders slumped around her swollen belly. Pregnant. She gazed at me with dark hollows for eyes. Devastated. Para followed behind her unconscious, on a stretcher and covered in blood.

Umbra flew through the Conduit, high above his wounded people. To my surprise, he sustained many injuries to his back, legs, and chest. Even his upgraded nacre was slow to heal those wounds. For a brief moment, I almost thought more of him.

Then the slaves arrived. Women and children of a pacifist planet poured through the conduit in droves, shackled and bruised. My father jeered at them with pride. He swooped down and captured a young woman, cutting her chains with his blade. She shrieked against him as he carried her to the castle's viewing platform.

I chased after them. The wicked grin on my father's face left me anxious. Mother and Xelan didn't need to witness this. The woman's shrill cries reached me before I reached the Spire. Icarean citizens formed a crowd for the spectacle.

I was young still. Maybe Earth-age fourteen. I'd yet to mature into my wings. I couldn't climb the Spire fast enough to stop him before the woman's screams alerted mother--

Halfway up the stairs, I winced at my father's exaggerated completion. His sounds echoed throughout the valley. The girl fell silent. I hauled on faster until I spilled onto the platform. Father buried his face in her throat and drained the life from her. He tossed her over the edge into the crowd, used and discarded.

The captured people of Thailea watched from below.

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Umbra took the edge of the stage and bellowed, "Blood slaves! Gifts from the Tritans! Young. Fresh. We'll hold the first market in two days--"

"No."

Umbra and I turned simultaneously to the source.

I loved my brother, Rayne. You won't believe me, and I understand why. You'll never fully appreciate what it's like to love someone as altruistic as the two of you. I want to rally you at the same time I want to lock you away for your own protection. Your hearts are bigger than these worlds deserve. And Xelan learned a valuable lesson that day.

I gaped at my brother all of Earth-age nine. Tiny, fragile, and too damned smart for his own good.

"We will not host slave markets on Cinder. We will free these people and return them to their homeworld."

Mother always said he was better at policy than I. That, should I abstain, he would make a fine King. I agreed. So long as Xelan gained a quicker temper. Our enemies were not kind people of words. They were men of violence and greed.

That included our father, who seethed at Xelan from his towering height. "Who are you to say it's wrong?"

"Elden. In line thirteen of his second verse, he said, 'No man may own another nor impress his dominion over them.' You are no exception, father."

He never squirmed under father's menacing ire. Instead, he articulated his point loud enough for the audience to hear. They murmured amongst themselves. The tide was shifting, and I knew genuine terror then.

With his gray eyes wild, Umbra grit his teeth. "I cannot abide a bastard to usurp me." He wrenched Xelan up by the arm. My brave little brother winced but never cried out as father crossed the stage.

"Father, stop! Leave him!" Four guards spilled onto the stage and seized me. I fought and screamed until I was sore and hoarse. I couldn't stop what came next.

Where was mother?!

Froth and spittle fell from Umbra's gnashing teeth. "You love them so much, do you?" Xelan fought to tear himself away as they approached the edge. "See how much they care for you." The monster threw my brother off the Spire and into the crowd. A hundred stories, at least.

The men holding me down disintegrated. I charged to the edge of the stage and dove. I did any and everything I could think of to fall faster. To catch him.

I did. And then we were both falling. The crowd parted below and left us a slab of rock to land on. How considerate. Xelan clung to me, and I gripped him tight, trying to position myself beneath him for the landing. I shielded his eyes and squeezed mine shut. The world would not lose him to this. Let eternity take me, instead.

The gusts shifted, and the wind swooped us up. Cautiously, I opened one eye. We hovered mere feet above the ground. "Xelan! Xelan, we're alive!"

But he was already giggling and pointing behind me, high with relief.

I looked over my shoulder and marveled at the pair of wings buffeting us to safety. I was the youngest Icarus to mature into my wings. I grinned.

Xelan squeezed me. "I almost lost you."

Warning: Forty-seven hours and ten minutes until maximum destabilization.

More than anything, I wanted to take him flying through the mountain crags and across the desert. He often followed me to my Physician visits on foot, forcing me to lose him along the way. Now I could fly there and back without him knowing. No more hurt feelings to contend with when I returned. But now...

"Get Many Feet and find mother. I have to go."

"What?! Why, Nox? Father will execute me if you go." I set him down at the entrance to the castle.

"Leave him to me." I rushed along the outer walls with Xelan's cries in my wake. I had no intention of killing Umbra, but I'd drink my fill of his pain.