In the Drawing Room, Mother went to the fireplace and felt around the mantel until her fingers hooked the edges of the frame. She had to lose her gloves to try a second time, whatever it was that she was after, but then something popped out of place. She moved the frame off its mark, revealing a large slat behind it. It was a door. The mantel was on hinges. From the adjacent shelf, she retrieved a tiny gold key from inside a hallowed book and put it inside. With a click, the square slid off the wall, and a whistling called us from the passage. There was no light.

"The way is cold," she warned us.

People were muttering different things. The room was so loud for how devoid it felt. I looked at the opening. It was large enough to fit a person, but only one at a time.

"Ladies and children first," she instructed.

The others listened to her. They lined up, and through little bickering, they took turns corralling their loved ones into the slot.

"When you're inside, wait for me," the Queen said. "I'll lead the way. Ser Elías will meet me at the gate, where I'll secure it," she said. "We'll be safe in there."

A child began to cry.

I waited near the back of the line that had bled into the hall, halfway to the ballroom. From where I stood, I saw Askar's shape appear. His shadow cast itself along the wall like a tall, ghoulish thing. He was speaking to Ser Willoughby's. I heard their muffled words. Ser Elías was next to me too soon; his eyes focused on their conversation, but he leaned down to listen when I spoke.

"I'm terrified," I said.

"Everything will be alright," he returned.

"You're going to leave us, aren't you?" I asked.

"When you're in the passage, yes," he said. "I'll close the mantel behind you. I'll shut this room off. Then I'm to meet your mother at the gate. But you have a sword, and so does she. I've put three knights with you as well."

I faced him, but he didn't turn. "And if I beg?"

"Please don't," he said.

"...How many are there?" I asked. "How many bandits? How many dragons? How many of us?"

He said, "We've sent word for help."

"A how fast can words arrive? What if someone intercepts the horse? The closest place is North Áire; they're a day at best. Next is the Riverlands; I'm not sure we're even friends with them. Why would Lord Beck send his banners for us? For me?"

He said, "I'd sooner die than ask Lord Beck for help."

"You didn't even ask for it?" I cried. "Everyone here will die!" I said.

He didn't answer, but he did look at me.

"It's my fault," I said. "If I hadn't–"

"Hate. That's who's fault this is. It's nothing you did. It is an adversary your mother and I have fought for many years, years before you were even born. There's nothing you could have done to change it. Nothing you did to influence it," he said. "These bandits hate your mother and everything she stands for. That's why it's so very vital that she stands."

"But I know the inventor of these creatures, these wagon things. These carts. He said they were for crops. I believed him; I was naïve! I should've known the man was evil," I said. "I should have told more people!"

"How would you have known?" he asked. "Are you a paladin?"

"A what?"

"People show you what they want you to see. Never forget that," he said. "Stay with your mother. She needs you more than you know."

I took a sharp breath as my father signaled something to his knight. Elías acknowledged it curtly.

"It's time, Princess," he said. He ushered me into the room, to the end of the waning line where I was the last of bodies to be. My mother was waiting.

"Hurry, Rosie," she said.

"W-Will you keep Askar safe?" I asked her knight.

Elías nodded.

"Are you scared?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Those who do not fear death have nothing left to fear."

Everyone listened to my mother, so devotedly, they followed her into a tomb. I watched the hard faces of my ancestors glare down at me as we passed each statue left in their name. They lined the long, dark corridors. They mocked me in my cowardice.

At the end of the last turn, a familiar motar began to rise between the bricks, introducing us to the widest cavity of the catacombs, where the stone walls were white and varnished, though decades without sun. They glittered effortlessly by torch. At the very front, my grandmother stood tall and proud in sleek marbled rock. There were fresh flowers in her hands, roses. Someone had cut them and put them there no longer than a day ago, and I wondered if it had been the Queen herself or someone else.

But everyone trusted her, Svana Eisson, first of her name—the wild mare who'd married an ostler's boy. A woman, strong and brave enough to trust her knights, her husband, and her son to fight her demons, and trusted herself while she kept men and women safe in a place where spirits sought rest. I could see the pulsing vein in her neck; she was as scared as I was, but she laughed and knelt for one of the children, and she told them a joke about rabbits.

No doubt Ser Willoughby's joke, I thought.

I swallowed hard. My stomach was sick.

There were no sounds above us. Nothing behind us. Nothing ahead. I thought about Elías' words.

A person who did not fear death had nothing left to fear.

His mission was to bar the gate, he'd said. I started walking toward the stairs to meet him there. To say goodbye, to say 'I'm sorry, my last request to you was to keep someone, not your family, alive,' but when I was three steps below the door, I stopped.

No one was there. No Ser Elías, no Ser Willoughby. I could see the start of the rolling mountain and little else. The sky was black and silt, and I could hear, through the spaced-out iron bars, yelling and fighting and clashing of swords. I could smell a Crown in ash.

"Eliza?" my mother said.

I peered over my shoulder at her. She was standing on the bottom stair.

"Did you not hear me?" she asked. "Get down from there. It isn't safe."

I looked at the door, then back to her. "Eli isn't here," I said.

"He will be; patience is a virtue, dear," she said. She made the first step, then another.

I stole the last few I had left, the rest of the castle coming into sight. There were pockets of flames in various parts of it; the barracks were just a skeleton, and–

One of the horses whinnied, racing by our fence so fervently that I lost my footing, stumbling. Mom raced to me, preventing my demise, but she was gasping as she righted me.

"Don't stand so closely, Rose!" she cried.

The sword I'd carried dinged on the steps; it slid down a few more.

"Dammit," I breathed.

As I went to reach for it, Mama watched me. She shook her head.

"It's all wrong," she said. "This shouldn't have happened here. I've only eve–"

But before I'd grabbed the hilt, she choked. I looked to find that someone had snuck up on us; they wrapped around one of the bars and cinched my mother into their form, pinning her throat with the bone of their arm. She clawed at the bracer, kicking her feet into the air.

"Go!" she mouthed.

"Mama!" I cried. I raced to her, picking and prying at the man's flesh. He found my hair and snatched me, too. I was trapped. I screamed.

My mother had dropped her sword with the attack; it lay motionless beneath her skipping heels. Mine were barely on the narrow platform, but every time she resisted, I nearly kicked the weapon from all hope to reach it. Still, I tried. I reached and reached. Her efforts began to fade; her face was turning blue.

"Mother!" I called her. "Mama! Stop! Breathe!" I cried. "Let her go! You're killing her!"

Something snapped.

Literally, there was a sound.

I did not know what it was at first, but then I sobered to the reality that I had bit into the man's arm in the little exposed piece of his leather. I bit so deeply that I felt his skin break beneath my teeth; I tasted the iron of his vitality, and there was a snap.

He screamed but didn't let go, so I bit harder. My fingers found his face beyond the gate, and I raked across his eyes so harshly that finally, he freed us to shield and mask them from me. There was blood everywhere.

My mother dropped to her knees; she was gasping. I fell beside her, begging her to be alright. The bandit screamed somehow; I saw him speared through the gut as Ser Elías appeared. His boot kicked the man to the ground. He tore open the gate, and he picked up my mother like she was a little girl who'd fallen on the ice. Bronze sheltered either side of her face as he begged, "Svana, Svana, are you alright? Can you breathe?"

She stammered but offered him the meekest of nods. "E-Eliza," she panted. "Eliza, is she...?"

Elías' face was pale. He turned his attention to mine.

I said, "I'm alright. I'm fine," and that was that.

He helped my mother stand, returning the sword to her hand.

"You're late," she muttered.

He laughed, shaking his head. "There's a whole siege happening here, Your Majesty," he said. "Did I not tell you I would call when I arrived?"

"Yes," Mother told him. Her voice was agitated. "But Rosie here doesn't follow directions, Ser."

"I didn't know," I said. "I didn't know you were waiting for a call."

"It's alright," he said. "I'm here no–"

"Watch out!" I cried.

Another mercenary had found us; he came for Ser Elías, thrusting his greatsword well over his head in a near-perfect arc. It rained down; Elías barely evaded it. He spun to face him.

Mom raised her blade, stepping in front of me.

"Get back inside," Elías told her. "I've got it covered."

She growled, rushing the man; her blade threatened him, so much, that he had to leap from her path. She ran at him another time.

"Leave him alone!" she spat. "Leave us all alone!"

Elías laughed, but he hooked his hand into her dress and moved her back to me. "I've got it, Svana," he said.

"A wild ma–" the man started.

"Say it!" my mother screamed. "I want you to say it. I want it to be your final word! What am I?!"

He sort of paused. "What?"

Elías took the opportunity to puncture him, the space between his arm and torso. The man jerked; his body clambered into the dirt, one clatter at a time—his knees, then his face.

He sighed. He met my mother with an irritated look. "You'll get me killed one day with that temper of yours," he joked.

"One day, but not–"

A shadow swooped over us; there was the draw of something ringing in the air then...? An arrow shot out of the space between Ser Elías' neck and shoulder. He gasped. He clamped his hand over the wound, and he stumbled forward.

"Elías!" Mama yelled. I'd never heard her so loud.

Her knight fell into her arms; her face twisted; it shaped into many things, awful things. She spoke so fast.

"No!" she begged. "No, no, no," she cried.

I could not move. "Elías?" I barely said.

"No!" Mama cried. "Help!" she called into the yard. "Help us!"

"Mama..."

Elías did not move his glove, but rivers of ruby poured out from under it. Such a little wound for so much blood. The rider flew over us a second time; he was turning around.

"Elías, you old dog," my mother muttered. "Don't you give up on me, you hear?"

He was staring into the stars. He said something to her.

"What?" she asked.

"I see her," he said. "She's there. She waited."

"No," Mama insisted. "No."

"My Eliza," he breathed.

"I'm here," I told him. "I'm right here." I ran to his side, collecting his hand, but I was watching the sky. I said to Mother, "We have to move."

"I won't leave him," she hissed.

"We can drag him," I said. I wrapped his arm around my shoulder before she could protest; she did the same with her side. "There's a dragon out there," I said. "He's coming back for us."

She didn't even look. We carried Elías toward the gate. At it, we had to struggle to work the door.

"It's okay," I said. "It's okay. We'll get you inside. You'll be alright."

Elías chuckled, I think. He coughed blood with it. My lip quivered; I saw my mother dim a more few shades.

"Get in inside, Eliza," she said.

"Mama, no," I said. "No, he wants you to hide; you know it's true. You cannot die with him."

"He's not going to die!" she yelled.

I flinched.

"Eliza," Elías said. "My Eliza. I love you."

"I'm right here," I said again.

"My Eliza," he said again. "To see your face...."

"What?" I shook my head. "Elías? I'm right here!" I worked to shove him into the door.

With a clud, Ser Elías, my mother, and I made it in. I shut the gate, and then together, we dragged him as far from the opening as we could, hiding in what little shadows there were.

"Shh," Mother sang to him. His hand drooped and she bundled her sleeve into his wound. It soaked the ivory satin within moments. "Shh. Shh. We're safe. We're safe now, thanks to you."

"My Eliza," he breathed.

Her face knotted. She tried to fight it, but then she screeched into the Crypt or the abyss, or I didn't know.

"You can't have him!" she yelled. Her voice echoed in the halls.

Outside, the dragon passed.

Elías swept her tears from her eyes.

"Please don't leave me," she begged. "You promised you wouldn't leave. I can't do this without you."

He closed his eyes and then he was dead.