Someone was cutting her. She smelled the blood, felt the pain. His stinking breath was in her ear, and she saw her legs all exposed and smeared red. She felt the fear, sheer panic, the certain horrible knowledge that she was going to die, the animal need to tear away and run and the impossibility of doing so. She couldn't even think. She couldn't scream. She could only watch as the knife peeled her white skin.

Fight! she tried to scream. Stop him!

When the echo came back, she suddenly understood that this wasn't happening to her. The body being tortured was Austra's.

Fight, Austra, for the love of the saints! I can't lose you!

Something turned then, and Anne was yanked back out into the currents. For the first time she saw Austra's face, her empty, horrified gaze, and then she was dwindling away, gone.

Anne went frantically back, racing up and down, back and forth, but there was no longer any trace of her friend, and now she couldn't locate Cazio again. But she didn't give up; she had to find them. She had the power to find them, to bring them back from the dead if need be, and by all the saints, she would do so.

She woke shivering and shaking, wondering who she was, where she was, the sense of losing herself as bad as ever. She was weeping helplessly, and although she eventually understood that it was Emily who had awakened her, she wasn't able to respond. Only after Nerenai brought some of her tea was she able to muster the coherence to listen.

"Again, Emily," she murmured.

"Majesty," Emily said. "The army of Hansa."

She opened her eyes and saw the girl kneeling next to her.

"What about them?"

"You've been…gone for two days. We could not rouse you."

"What's happened?"

"Fifteen thousand more of the enemy arrived two nights ago. They attacked yesterday morning. They've just breached the canal and are surrounding the keep."

The keep surrounded. Austra and Cazio dead. The Church, the fleet from the north…

Too much. Too much.

"Where's Artwair?"

"Outside."

"Get my dressing gown."

She heard a lot of clattering in the hall. When she emerged to meet Artwair, she saw that it was filled with her Craftsmen and Sefry.

"What's all this?" she asked.

"Just a precaution, Majesty," he said. "There is a chance the keep will fall. We'll want to get you out of it."

She nodded. Let Artwair take over. Get Faster, ride away, and never look back. Find Cazio; he may still live…

She felt everything in her buckling. She didn't want this. She thought of Austra, of the horror of her torture, of how someone could do that to her friend, and was sickened. Was Austra dead? Probably. And now death was coming for her.

But where would she ride? Where would she be safe?

"No," she said. "Wait."

"There isn't much time, Majesty. They're already in the city."

"I said wait."

"Majesty," he replied stiffly.

She fought down the claustrophobia seeking to swallow her. "Take me where I can see what's going on and explain it as we go."

"Majesty-"

But he saw her glance and cut himself off.

So they made their way to the now-familiar tower.

The sun was just a hemisphere in the east, and mist lay heavy on the earth. The air had the cool scent of autumn that brought feelings of nostalgia even when one was ten years old.

The keep was indeed surrounded except for the area around the southern gates, where a wall of pikes kept the Hansans back. It looked like an island in a stormy sea.

"That's where I'm supposed to make my great escape?" she asked.

"It's your best chance," Artwair replied.

"So the keep will fall."

"If we can hold out for two days, reinforcements will arrive."

"Two days. Can we do it?"

"I don't think so."

It seemed to Anne there was a bit of a reproof in his tone.

I was trying to find my friends, she wanted to protest. But she knew what his answer to that would be, whether he had the nerve to say it out loud or not.

"I can't see everything in advance, you know," she told him. "There is so much to keep my eye on."

But her negligence was all around her now, and she knew that if Hansa won, she would never live to claim the sedos throne. She could never set things right, free Crotheny from terror, avenge Austra, extinguish the Hansan threat for all time.

Her hubris had doomed her.

No.

"Step away from me," she said. "Get below, all of you but Nerenai."

When they were all gone but the Sefry, Anne closed her eyes.

"You can do it, Majesty," Nerenai said.

"If I don't, we'll all die."

"That's not how to think, Majesty. Fear and worry will only hinder you. You must be confident. You must be strong for strength's sake, not to achieve an end."

"I'll try," Anne replied, swallowing. Her mouth was bone dry.

She felt at the moment very much the girl. Why was this her burden? Why had the saints laid this on her when all she wanted was to ride her horse, drink wine, gossip with Austra, maybe fall in love? Why was she denied all of that?

I miss you, Austra. I'm so sorry.

Thinking that brought the anger she needed, and Anne slipped into otherwhere.

Arilac.

At first no answer came, but then a shadow lifted from the green and wavered like smoke before her, grudgingly forming into the pale image of a woman.

"I need your help," Anne said.

"I'm nearly consumed," the arilac replied in dissipated tones. "I may not be of much help."

"What's consuming you?"

"You are," the arilac replied. "This is how it is."

"Who are you?" Anne demanded.

"You've asked that before."

"Yes, and you've never answered. Who are you?"

"What was. What will be. I was never merely a living person. I was born here, created here."

"Who created you?"

The arilac smiled wanly. "You did."

And with those two words, Anne suddenly understood, and everything fell into place, and she was ready.

"Good-bye," she said.

And the arilac was gone, and her limbs pulsed with power, and the power remembered itself in her.

She stepped halfway so that otherwhere shimmered around her, but so did Newland and Andemuer, the keep and the host of Hansa.

She looked over the teeming thousands bent on her destruction, the enemies who had ripped her out of the life she wanted and made her this, and felt a cold, determined hatred rise up in her that she never had known before.

She liked it, and the power in her had felt that hatred before many times, and it knew what to do.

Artwair was still pale bells later when he came to see her.

"You're not going to vomit again, are you?" she asked.

"No, Majesty," he replied. "I've nothing left in my stomach."

"I'm surprised at you," she replied. "With all you've seen."

He closed his eyes and nodded. She saw the apple in his throat bob a few times.

"There were a few survivors," he said. "What will Your Majesty have done with them?"

She thought about it for a moment. "How many?"

"About a thousand."

"So many," she said.

"There were fifty thousand this morning, Majesty."

"Well, kill them, I suppose. I want Hansa to understand that if they attack us, they can expect no quarter."

"May I remind you that your mother is their hostage?"

"Yes, and Marcomir has given the order for her execution. What more can I do but show him the price he pays for affronting us? How else can I save her?"

"May I make a suggestion, Majesty?"

"Of course."

"Show mercy. Let them return to Hansa and tell what they saw here. What army will attack us when they know what could happen to them?"

There was something in his tone that it took her a moment to understand.

"You feel sorry for them," she accused.