Myra wasn't happy about missing the April Festival, the celebration of the Alliance's founding. But given it had only been five days since her poisoning, Jasper and Kestra had point-blank refused to let her go, threatening to restraint her (when Myra had dryly enquired how they hoped to best her in combat, they called on Lysandra). They were still arguing on the morning of the festival.

"How does it look if I don't show up? Like the valkyries are disdainful of the Alliance, or that worse, we're about to renege on it?"

"Kestra will be there to represent the valkyries," Jasper soothed. Nala rolled her eyes.

"So they'll think that the High General is about to breath her oaths to the Council and bring the armies against them?"

"Scarlet will be there to represent the army," Jasper replied.

"She's there as War Heir, not as a General of the Alliance."

"Then we'll get an elf to make an illusion of you," he promised desperately.

"Then how will it look if it's revealed?" Myra argued. Kestra sighed and muttered something about 'bickering lovers'. Nala was inclined to agree.

"It'll look a summer of a lot better than if you collapse during the dancing and go back to the emergency unit!" Jasper yelled.

"Don't swear," she admonished.

"Oh, like you don't say 'goddesses above' or 'in Sarai's name' all the time!"

"Not as much as you," Myra argued. After a brief pause, she relented:

"Fine. But I want the best illusionists on it, okay? Tell Layla that if she doesn't make my illusion a work of art, I very well will renege on my oaths and send my army to her door." And in a flash of light, she shifted into a snow leopard.

Finally, Nala thought with relief. She never shuts up unless she's in her

animal form.

———

Once the (extraordinarily dull)'speeches were at last over, Nala stepped down to join the revelry. Oh yes, Myra was missing out.

The Spring Festival took place in Triad Square. To the north of the square stood the High Council building, bedecked in banners bearing the Alliance's crest : fire, shadow, ocean and sky circling a golden A.

To the east, the Crimson War Memorial, a vast museum containing various artefacts from the battles in both wars (Kestra was responsible for Myra's first War Queen cloak mysteriously disappearing and landing there).

To the south stood the statues of the Five Founders: Myra and Kestra Isidore, Layla Elenith, Nala Merson and Lysandra Crimson. Jasper had a smaller, honorary one nearby; indeed, with all the contributions he'd made in the relations between elves, valkyries and humans, he was just as much of a founder of the Alliance as they were. At the statues' feet, the founding treaty of the Alliance was engraved in stone.

On the final, western side, a wall stood tall and strong, with more engravings. On the back, front and sides tiny letters spelled out the name of every known person to have died in the Crimson Wars. The names surrounded the huge block words in the centre of monument:

Alone, all shall fall

Those words sent a shiver down her spine every time she read them, bringing forth memories of over thirty years under Medea's blood-soaked reign. Of the death and suffering the Crimson Wars had brought forth. Rose's limp, impaled body flashed in her mind. Would any of it happened if the elves and valkyries had come to their aid when Medea swept through the Deserted Lands, as the Chancellor had implored them to do? Would it have happened if they had helped them from the very beginning, in the Ancient Times, and the scattering of human nations had been stronger when Medea came?

It served no purpose to think over so things, but she thought about them

often. They couldn't do anything about the past, except stop it repeating. Nala told herself that, and yet...it made her wonder if this different path of history included her sister's survival. When she really wanted to torment herself, she even wondered if...if Peter would have lived, in this alternate timeline. The thought was always followed with an increased determination to protect the Alliance. More death was unacceptable. She would not allow the Crimson Party or Humanity First to destroy

everything she had worked for.

"Oh, stop with your miserable thoughts!" Jasper laughed, clearly reading her mind. "Come on! Speeches are over and dancing can't begin with two Founders missing!"

"Very well then," Nala smiled and stepped into the throng.

Whilst she wasn't one for dancing, the revelry threatened to sweep her up. Unlike Anniversary, there was no sombre tone to this festival. It was pure celebration. It was joy, and it was revelry, and it was laughter.

Triad, Allia and Sirius' celebrations were always the best. Everyone in the Isthmus cities was there because they had chosen to be, because they were willing to forget old grudges and accept the new world of the Alliance.

Elves, valkyries and humans danced until the distinctions faded. They wore elaborate masks to hide their faces, so no one could tell who was who. Nala donned her own and stepped into the fray and for a moment she forgot about her age-old fear of the God-Born.

Here was proof that what they were doing could work. That it wasn't just some foolish hope. So for once, Nala released the holds she kept on herself. She gave herself in to the music and the laughing, to the dance and the revelry. Her hair flew behind her like a banner and she clapped her hands to the rhythm.

The festival brought back memories of others—the ones she had attended in her birthplace, a small Midlands town. They might have been poor and starving, and their 'festivals' might have been little more than a few lit braziers and terrible singing, but she would never forget what it felt like to dance until her feet bled, to feel the heat of fire on her cheeks.

For once, Nala felt like the child she had been so many years ago, who did not know what it was like to look men in the eyes and kill them. Who had not hardened herself to the world around her, had not pulled walls around herself for protection against a cruel and harsh reality.

For the first time in a long, long while, she let down her guard and her walls—just for a moment.

A moment was all it took for everything to go wrong.

Shrieks of laughter filled the air. She felt a warm splatter on her neck, then inhaled a coppery scent. Fingers trembling, she reached out to the back of her neck, her fingers coming back wet. Although she already knew what was on them, she looked anyway. Her hand was red with blood that was not her own. The shrieks hadn't been shrieks at all, but screams.

Nala whirled around, hands already on her hidden daggers. A few metres away from her, a couple lay dead on the ground, their masks askew. One was a valkyrie, a warrior by the looks of her. The other an elf with an arrow protruding from his neck. For a while, none of it seemed real. Nothing sunk in. Then panic gripped her like a cold fist.

More arrows were flying. One singed her ear as she ran. Whenever she dared, she glanced around her, searching for the attackers. All she found were more corpses littering the ground.

The square was red with blood, the air shredded by screams. She gripped her daggers tighter and ran blindly for the statues, arrows pursuing her as she went.

She'd barely made it to the Five Founders statues when yet another arrow whizzed towards her. Darting behind Lysandra's grandiose obsidian replica, she wondered what had become of her friend. In her panic, she questioned why Myra wasn't fighting. Then she remembered the general was in hospital, weak from poisoning when they needed her most.

Nala carefully calmed her breathing and mind, forcing herself to access the situation logically.

The plaza had been so crowded that the attackers didn't even need to be skilled to hit their targets; they just needed to be able to shot. The celebrators were fish in a barrel.

But it was her that they had gone after. They knew who she was. And they wanted her dead.

Only then did she realise that she'd lost her mask in the chaos and cursed herself for it. If she'd remained unidentified then she'd have been no more of a target than anyone else. With renewed panic, she began to wonder if any of her friends had been killed. Myra had been in hospital, but what if the attackers had struck there as well? How could they defend themselves without their War Queen?

Her mind turned to Jasper and Lysandra with fresh fear. She refused to lose either. Desperate, she risked a glance at the square. Bodies littered the ground, and screaming spectators clambered across them, desperate to escape volley after volley of arrows from above.

She could not see her friends or nephew against either the dead or the fleeing. Another arrow whizzed by her, and she cursed herself for her foolishness in taking the risk of looking. Whether or not she could see them wouldn't change their fates.

I have to get out of here, Nala thought to herself. I can't hide behind a statue forever. As though the archers could read her mind, another arrow embedded itself in the stone. Lysandra would be so mad when she found out that her statue was being desecrated.

As though summoned by Nala's thoughts, a great shadow filled the air, plunging the square and surrounding streets into night. Undoubtedly the work of her friend. She could no longer see, but she doubted the attackers would be able to either. Their momentary confusion would buy Nala and the others the time they needed to escape.

Not giving herself a second to hesitate, she broke from her place by Lysandra's statue and bolted, barely able to see enough to avoid crashing into the various stone depictions of herself and her friends. It was only by memory that she knew that she would now be past the open square and amongst the endless twisting streets. Her legs burned with each step. She refused to stop. Who knew how far the attackers would go to kill her?

Light flooded the streets and Nala panicked, only to have shadow envelop her again. The world flashed between light and darkness, as though Lysandra's grip on the spell was weakening. She prayed that her friend would hold on just a little

longer.

Nala used one of the periods of light to throw herself into an empty

building. Someone must have been careless and forgotten to lock it and she thanked them desperately for their forgetfulness.

The periods of brightness were becoming more and more common, the world sputtering between night and day. How long could Lysandra keep the city in shadow?

Every instinct roared at her to keep going, but she forced herself to stay put. She was safest here. Who would be able to look in every building on every street?

The guards would find the attackers soon. All she had to do was wait them out. She felt a sudden burst of shame; she was armed and deadly. She should have stayed to fight. Yet the panic had taken over.

There was nothing I could have done, she reassured herself, putting together the suspicion that had lingered in the backs of her mind. Those arrows...when the attackers had been shooting into the crowd they hadn't needed to be accurate, and yet they had been. Most bodies had an arrow through their necks or buried in their heart. Not a single shot wasted. And the ones that went after her had been perfectly precise. Whoever had done this...they were valkyries.

The thought sent a jolt of helpless fear through her. Skilled as she was, there was nothing she could do against a valkyrie warrior, with their sharp reflexes, impossible speed and powerful animal forms. Nothing any human could do, save the Crimsons. There was a reason that the Kallians would have lost the First Crimson War without Medea to defend them. No one but the witches and those they blessed could stand against the God-Born.

After what seemed like hours, Nala emerged from the abandoned home. If they were still under attack, then she would face it, but she couldn't bear to hide any longer. Knives in hand, she walked onto the street.

Bodies lay strewn across the cobblestones; six or seven at least. The attackers must have pursued her through the streets and when they couldn't find her, decided to kill whoever else they could. But they seemed to be gone, for now at least. Emboldened and enraged, Nala sprinted across the cobblestones, in search of her friends or the attackers—deadly as the latter were, she found that she didn't really mind which.

"I've found her!" The shouts sounded through the street. Nala had her knives ready to throw in an instant. She barely restrained herself from throwing. She didn't know who the voice belonged to—they could be foe or friend. She wouldn't aid the monsters who did this further by killing one of her own.

"Nala, you're okay!" Lysandra squealed as she emerged from the darkness. Layla approached behind her.

"Good job with the shadows," Nala congratulated her, relieved.

"What happened to your leg?" Lysandra enquired worriedly. Nala looked down to find herself bleeding. It wasn't an arrow wound, so it must be from skidding on the cobblestones. She hadn't even noticed until now.

"That's the least of our concerns. Have you seen the others?" Lysandra shook her head.

"You and Layla are the only ones I've found. No Kestra or Jasper." Her stomach tightened.

"It's the Elfin Queen!" Someone shouted from behind them. Nala knew immeadietly that it wasn't another friend.

"That's insulting," Lysandra muttered. "What about me? Why aren't they scared of me? Aren't I important?" Nala didn't share her blasé attitude.

Layla started to Sing. The haunting tune sent shivers up her spine. Especially as she felt cobblestones shift beneath her feet. One of the smarter attackers fled.

The others pressed on, firing rapidly. Nala barely avoided their arrows. Darkness gathered in Lysandra's hands, spreading down to her feet and gathering in a collossal wave. The writhing mass lunged for the valkyries. They fled through the streets, but were too late. Shadow consumed them one by one, their screams cut off.

None emerged when the cloud dissipated.

She allowed herself a moment of relief, only to feel a stab of pain. Whirling, she found her hidden attacker with a knife in her thigh. Lysandra let out a roar of fury and sent a silver straight for their head. Panicking, the valkyrie dodged, and Nala took the opportunity to slid a knife between her ribs. Letting out a cry of pain, her would-be assassin collasped to the ground.

Nala clutched her own wound and Layla rushed towards her. Her violent, terrible Song shifted into a soothing lullaby and she felt the pain recede and the skin stitch together. Within seconds, the wound closed up but the Elfin Queen fell to her knees, energy drained.

"Congratulations Nala," Lysandra said wryly as she helped Layla to her feet. "You've killed a valkyrie."

"Only with your help," Nala said. She meant it to come off lightly, but it ended up bitter. "So they are valkyries, then?" She asked, changing the subject.

"Yes," Lysandra confirmed. "Check their eyes if you don't believe me." It was too dim to see them properly, though, so she trusted in her friend's word.

"Come on," Lysandra told her. "We need to find a place to hide. There's no way Layla can keep up with us if we run." She added, gesturing to the elf, who was still struggling to stay upright.

Nala nodded weakly and followed her through the twisting streets.