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He was the first to say her name.

Her name.

But none of Mika’s shock registered in the body she inhabited.

“Good evening and welcome, Prince Theodor. I trust you journeyed well?”

“I did, princess,” he said.

“Oh no, dropping my name already?” tsked Mikanasha. “I’d prefer you dropped the title.”

He chuckled, tossed his reddish-brown curls from his face.

“I would hate to offend you by being overly familiar so early in our potential…union.”

“Well,” she said, gliding over to him and extending her hand. “I hereby give you permission to be familiar.”

He smiled, flashing brilliantly white teeth, and seized her hand in his.

Everything became blurry, and then refocused.

She strode down a long and vaulted chamber, its walls lined with pods like fleshy blue flower blossoms, petals pressed tight together. Her hands worried at one another beneath their sleeves.

At the far end of the chamber, a heavy door scraped open. Prince Talus approached, brows knit together.

“Fretting again?” He placed a gentle hand to her back. She stopped her pacing and peered up at him.

“Maybe they’re right, the Preservationists.”

Talus dragged in a deep breath.

“Mikanasha, please. We’ve—”

“No!” The word ripped out of her, tears pricking already at her eyes. “What if they are? It was the will of the Ahvar to fracture. Who are we to subvert that?”

The orc dropped to his knees before her, hands going up to cup her shoulders.

“We are the heirs of the Ahvar, all that is left of them. We are the manifestation of their will. And if we all long to piece ourselves back together…how can it possibly be wrong?”

She sniffed.

“Not everyone wants it,” she pointed out. But Talus brought up a hand, brushing away her tears with his thumb.

“We tend to our children in the Dreamcradle, every night. Their minds are well and thriving. And their bodies are healthy too. Unless you’ve felt something?”

She drew in a tremulous breath, shook her head. “No, they all seem healthy. I just…I can’t help but feel that something’s…wrong. When I leave the Cradle, I have the darkest nightmares…” her voice hitched, and she fell silent.

Talus offered her a kind smile.

“I’m certain nerves like this are common for new queens,” he soothed.

“And I’m certain that your empty stomach can’t be helping,” admonished Theodor, his footsteps echoing across the stone on his approach. “Come, the feast has begun.”

He was smiling, as he often was. But she thought she could detect an edge of concern in his gaze. A subtle furrow at his brow.

Mikanasha sniffed again. Looked from one man to the other.

“V-very well,” she acceded. With one final, lingering look at the pods, she turned to follow Talus and Theodor out of the chamber.

The world blurred and resolved once more.

She was back in the genesis chamber. As the world clarified around her, she curled downward and caught herself on her hands, her tangled hair falling forward like a wild veil, as wet with her tears as her face was. Her body convulsed with every sob.

“My children,” she cried. “My children.”

The pods were open. Some…less than a third of them…had attendants bustling around them, tending to newly awakened young. But the rest…

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“Dead,” she rasped. “So many dead. H-how?”

“This is your first time,” said a hushed and now-familiar voice from beside her. But she did not bother to look up at the human. Her eyes remained fixed on the body curled in the pod before her.

“There’s bound to be—”

“No,” said Mikanasha, finally shaking her hair from her face to glare at him. “This isn’t normal.”

When he said nothing, she snarled and turned her attention back to the graveyard of broken cradles before her.

Mikanasha’s gaze caught on one of them as an attendant helped him from his pod. And then it turned to the others.

Human. Almost all of them were visibly more human than any other facet. Yet those who lay dead in their pods were more Ulvari, elfin, orcin. An image flashed before her mind’s eye…a face hovering over her in nebulous, whirling darkness. Blindingly white teeth bared in a grin. Hands locked about her wrists. Laughter that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. A discordant Song seeping from the shadows.

A nightmare?

Again, the memories dissolved and reformed. She was back in the grand bedchamber, sitting on a cushion with her arms curled around her knees. Beside her sat Talus.

“I…I think he’s taking over,” she said. “Fighting for control of the core.”

Talus’ brows slammed downward.

“That’s not possible,” he said. “We’re connected to you, yes…but no king regent has ever had direct influence over a core,” he paused, watching her as though expecting reassurance. “Yes?”

“No king regent has ever been human before,” said Mikanasha. “Perhaps…”

“No. No.”

“Talus, please. Look at me. Listen to me. Remember the first ones…our children. This is real. Fewer and fewer of the less-human iterations make it through with each brood. He’s waiting for me in my nightmares, every time I leave the Dreamcadle…I think it’s him, truly him, pushing his way into my consciousness itself. I—I—I’ve begun to feel his presence even when I’m awake.”

Talus drew in a long breath through his nostrils, extended a hand to her shoulder.

“Then…we will speak with the others, learn the truth, and deal with him. Find a way forward.”

Mikanasha’s hands twisted together.

“Very…very well,” she choked out.

The scenery washed together and clarified.

She stood in a vast cavern, swirling with gently luminous mists. She stood at the edge of a broad lake, a great beast looming over her.

A beast with algae-filled jelly spilling in thick strands from its throat. A beast she—the modern Mikanasha—knew already. This time, though…peering straight at and through the thing’s ribcage…she noticed something embedded within the layers of translucent flesh which she had not before.

A storm crystal, pulsing with light. Right about where its heart should be.

“It’s beautiful, my queen,” said someone from beside her. One of her Ulvari regents. “But then…so are all of your creations.”

“It’s a wonder, what the magics of human, elf, Ulvari and orc can do, when brought together by the power of the core.”

Mika—and apparently former Mikanasha as well—could feel Theodor smiling down at her from her other side as he spoke. Her hands curled into fists, hidden in her overlong sleeves. She said nothing.

“And to think,” added the human. “There was a time your kind could only grow children and constructs.”

“Stone and flesh, storm and root,” said her elf regent, standing at her back with one elegant hand draped at the nape of her neck. He squeezed, gently. Reassuringly. But it was not enough. “Truly, a sacred amalgamation. Speaking of which…” he squeezed again. “Let us return, ‘Nasha dearest. It is our night together, is it not?”

Night. Sleep. Mika could feel host-Mikanasha’s dread at the thought.

“No,” she said. “I…I have more work to do. There’s another of the greater pods about to open, and I must be there for it.”

“My darling, you are always there. You’re everywhere in this place.” replied the elf. “This body need not be here.”

“I’m afraid it requires my full attention,” she said, dismissing them all with a gesture. The Ulvari and the elf glanced at one another before departing. But Theodor, briefly and almost imperceptibly, narrowed his eyes at her.

The memories transitioned. Mikanasha stood before a mirror. The face she saw was her face, mostly. The figure, her figure. Only she wore clothes she’d never seen before, clothes of fine silks. Her brow markings were different than Mika’s own, and glowing vividly fuchsia. Her eyes were dark circled, hair much longer and a wild mess, albeit braided and beaded in places.

“Theodor has sprung his trap,” she said, apparently to her own reflection. “All of our awakened children, from the most to the least human…the part of them that is him has taken control. They’re attacking Ulvari, orcs, elves…anyone they can who isn’t human or partly so. All of my other bodies but this one have been mutilated. I cannot stop them, I’ve tried…everything. My shardbeasts, too, have been corrupted. Horribly. Unforgivably. It is only a matter of time before they—my children—and the humans on the outside breach all remaining defenses. Before thousands upon thousands of humans descend on this place and rip it away from us. Before this body, too, is destroyed…and all that is left of me is an essence imprisoned in its own core.”

She paused, took a long and trembling breath.

“I have given my people…my Ulvari people, all who are able…the order to flee. Despite all of our talk of trust and unification, we have kept the deep tunnels secret. I would send whatever orcs and elves would go, too, but their trust for me is shattered. As far as they are concerned, we are all the enemy now.”

Her hands balled into fists, nails biting painfully at her palms.

“As for the next iteration of myself, the one and only surviving princess…she is undeveloped. If she has yet inherited any of her ancestral memories, they will be but faint echoes…shadows of what they should be. An occasional voice at the back of her head. And that is all she will ever pass on.” She gnawed her lip for a few heartbeats, hands fidgeting restlessly beneath her sleeves.

“But there is no other option. She will be broken from her pod early and smuggled away with the others. I can only pray she survives. And I can only pray that, generations and iterations from now, her instincts will draw her back here to recover the memories I have crystallized for her. For you. If you’re experiencing this for the first time, then my prayers have come true, my plans to fruition. The memories I will share with you next, I share only because I must. Please know, my precious self, that I loathe this necessity with all of my heart. But you are the one who’ll restore our queendom, should you choose to stay the course. You are the one who will carry out our revenge…if you see fit. And you need to know everything that earned it.”