Ash opened the lid of the piano and sat down in front of it.

  He had glanced into this room periodically after discovering it — a room with white walls and large windows casting sheets of sunlight onto the smooth marble floor. A room empty except for the large, glossy black piano standing in the center.

  He hadn’t gone inside before — he’d always opened the door, then backed away.

  But he was here now, for whatever reason — maybe because the room was a few degrees warmer today, or maybe because he had nothing better to do. Maybe because, despite knowing better, he still felt vaguely crushed about the Presentation Ball.

  He set his fingers on the black and white keys, a rustic sense of melancholy rising in his throat. He pressed a note, his fingers already growing slick with sweat, sliding off the keys.

  It’s fine. Nobody’s going to hear.

  Still, his foot shook on the pedal as he dried his hands off. He played a couple scales, trying to stop the jitters and warm up his hands. Then, he began the only song he still knew.

  In truth, he’d stopped learning the instrument years ago, practicing only in sporadic sessions. The piano his father owned stood lonely in the corner until Ash swallowed the memories and went to sing with the tilting keys. The notes were slowly slipping off-tune, sliding into dissonance with each passing day.

  He didn’t know why he was here now — he hardly remembered how to read any sort of sheet music, and he only knew one song; a simple lullaby, ingrained in his skull and muscle memory.

  Slow, calm, bittersweet.

  A song about a bird pushed too soon from the nest.

  He couldn’t quite remember how she’d sung it; some of the words, lines with gaps that he tried to fill the best he could. He knew the melody, but he couldn’t remember how her voice had sounded, gliding along the notes — raspy or smooth, melodic or quiet, powerful or soft.

  He’d finished the intro and opened his mouth, about to try and tug out that note from somewhere inside — before someone stepped up to him and he abruptly hit five wrong notes at the same time.

  ". . . What are you doing?"

  "Oh — Chioni, hi," he blurted, glancing behind himself. "I'm, uh . . ." He gestured vaguely at the piano. "Practicing."

  She raised an eyebrow. "You play?"

  ". . . I used to," he answered. "I've . . . fallen out of it, though."

  "Hm. I have a similar experience with musical instruments," she responded. "They had me learn when I was younger, like you . . ."

  It wasn't them, his mind said. This had never been about them — this had been about him, when he'd had it, before it had been taken away.

  "Do you want to try?" he asked, scooting over.

  She glanced down at the keys. "I'd destroy it," she said, quietly.

  ". . . Oh," he said. "The . . . Service Stone."

  She sat down anyway. "Why did you stop playing?"

  "Oh, uh . . . it's . . . my mother used to teach me," he confessed. "And then . . . I drifted away from it."

  "Then what are you doing here?"

  "I don't know," he admitted. "Trying it again? I saw the piano, and . . . thought I'd give it another go. Maybe it's because I have nothing else to do, but think . . . Maybe I'm tired of thinking."

  "Tired of thinking," she echoed. "I know that feeling." She rubbed her temples.

  "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

  "Too many things," she muttered.

  “The ball?” he guessed. He began mentally drafting an apology.

  “Something like that.” She glanced at him, lips pressed tight in her grimacing way, and he wondered if she found it as hard as he did to find the words. Instead of elaborating, she said, haltingly, “Tell me about her.”

  "I don't know much," he admitted, turning back to the piano. "Kind, maybe . . . I think she had a nice singing voice. But it's . . . it's difficult to remember."

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  "You weren't close?" Present tense to past.

  ". . . I think I was too young to tell."

  "Hm."

  "What about you?" he asked, glancing up. He was pressing random cords, trying not to hit a note that sounded too wrong.

  “I was second only to the kingdom,” Chioni said, looking distantly at the keys. “She loved me as much as she could. She loved me as the future of her country.” She smiled, then, set a hand on the hilt of her sword. “She taught me, when she had the time.”

  “She’d be proud,” Ash told her.

  Chioni shook her head. “I thought I’d have more time.”

  He took his hands off the keys. “I’m so sorry, Chioni. I’m so sorry.”

  “It was not your doing.”

  “I just mean to say – I’m here for you.” He tugged at his sleeves. “What was she like?”

  “Invincible.” She said it almost dreamily. “Indestructible. Her mere presence signaled command. She was a woman of stone, Ash . . . the very pinnacle of Tessera’s strength.”

  “It must’ve been a shock.”

  “I always . . . often, I thought I would die before she fell. But she finally found something she couldn't fight, and the Service Stone . . . Perhaps the Service Stone was not strong enough, either."

  He heard everything in the space between those words. Didn’t protect her. Failed her. Failed me. "The curse," he said.

  "Aconite's curse," she agreed. "Strong enough to overcome even the magic of the Founders."

  A feat that should have been impossible.

  “She warned me, before she left,” Chioni said. “She handed me the stone, with the very last of her vigor. And she told me . . .” She shut her eyes. “She reminded me of the stone’s weight. Of my own sacred duty.”

  Ash swallowed. The stone’s threat now seemed less of a safeguard and more of a ticking time bomb. But that warning had been placed there by King Statheros himself, long before King Romi’s reign, long before the visible markings were introduced. Impossible to remove. Impossible to defy.

  As a child, Ash had marveled at the ingenuity, wished he could have some sort of indicator like that; something that would zap him dead if he ever posed a societal threat. But seeing Chioni’s hand creep to her wrist, all he could think was: She doesn’t deserve this.

  He would have offered to take that for her, too, if he could — the stone. But it was a moot point. They both understood their roles well. The mere fact that she was still alive proved her dedication; she’d never relinquish it.

  Still, he found himself sympathizing with the False King’s servant — the unnamed man, identity lost to history, who’d risked his own life to bond with, handle, and hide the stone on behalf of his king. Daskalos had always described him as a filthy traitor, the worst of the world’s scum, betraying Statheros’ legacy and intentions for a little more pay. But maybe it had been something else. They’d never know his motivations. One more person, a ghost on the page. Even with his king’s infamy, his name had been forgotten.

  “. . . I often find myself asking for her advice,” Chioni murmured. “. . . I find myself, always, at the foot of her portrait. Trying to understand how to possibly fill her throne.”

  “. . . It’s daunting,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. Terrifying.”

  He glanced down at the piano, then over at her, and quietly put his hand on her arm.

  I’m sorry, he wanted to say.

  But the words wouldn’t come.

  ?????

  The queen’s condition had worsened. By the end of the year, she’d lost the ability to walk. Most of what she said was indecipherable; blabbering that nobody could piece together. Meanwhile, the investigations had been carried out. The gate had been built. More soldiers had been hired, more guards, more security. The curse had been traced back to an enchantress living in Lykos; a woman from a historically powerful bloodline, marked with violet eyes, skilled in illusion magic. Plans were being made to subdue her.

  In Empyrea, Chioni had been called to the throne room.

  The queen . . . hadn’t looked the way she’d pictured. From all the descriptions, she’d expected her to be lying on a bed, whispering strange words, eyes closed; a once great monarch, now weak and ill.

  But she had been sitting on her throne, holding her sword, as if there was nothing that could dissuade her. Her silver hair was limp, and her flesh had all receded into skin and bone. Her veins had been swollen, a dark shade of blue that almost matched her royal blue gaze. When she opened her mouth, Chioni had glimpsed that color blue coming from the inside of her throat, too, as though some magic were eating her out from the inside.

  And her eyes . . . crazed, as if the curse had stapled them wide open.

  Chioni had knelt at her feet, but the queen had instructed her to come closer, to her side. Her voice had been horrible; sharp and hoarse, like she’d swallowed shards of broken glass. Her grip had been worse; cold fingers with blue veins bulging from her hand, long nails that clamped around Chioni’s wrist. Her other hand had reached towards her, and cupped its fingers over the side of her face, as though in these last moments, she’d finally found some tenderness to spare. Chioni had felt the eerie disgust of being held by a corpse, by a dead ghoul trying to pull her into a grave.

  She remembered the queen handing her the stone, and the terror that had come with it — touching the jewel that was now her judge, jury, and executioner. She remembered how desperately she’d tried to seem confident; to seem ready, eager, even, to accept the stone, while her heart hammered in her chest and her bones felt ready to shatter.

  And she remembered how the queen’s gaze had dimmed, how her head had lolled back, how she’d watched the invincible queen die.

  Empyrea 5th.

  She’d stopped caring so much about the sky.