The fire consumed Rina. It tore through her veins, roaring in her ears as it incinerated the venom. Mai continued to feed the flame with his èlan vital, somehow preventing it from burning her flesh and bone.

Her body was rigid. Mai's wrist had fallen from her mouth, and he trembled as he sent more and more of his energy into her. She knew he went beyond what he consumed in the crystal caves and now sent his lifeforce. That if he didn't stop, he would soon burn himself out.

She tried to tell him to stop, but she found herself frozen. Struck dumb by the power as it slashed through her nerves and veins and cells.

She didn't know when it stopped—if it was a sudden flare or a slow sputter—but she found herself curled against his chest, his body slumped against a pillar, panting. He was shirtless, and his skin was ice. Too thin and tight against his bones, like his muscles had withered and his lifeforce drained away.

There was no taste of metal on her tongue, no sickening feeling in her guts. The blaze of power had consumed it.

Tentatively, she wriggled her fingers, her toes, shifted her legs. She could move. She took a deep breath. Gods, he healed her, but at what cost? She scrambled upright and looked at him, blinking. His blue eyes met hers. Dull. Tired. As was the exhausted smile that dragged up his face.

Mai? The line between them was thinner than ever. She spoke aloud, wanting him to conserve his strength. "Mai, are you okay?"

He nodded. "Just overdrained."

Rina remembered the forsaking. The slumped forms in the cabin of the Crystal Queen as Fin carried her away, the tired, dragging feet of bodies forcing their way home in Amadore, people falling in the fields after long days of planting. Mai had done that to them, a part of her pointed out. Now, he experienced this for himself.

No, this was—not different, but more. His skin was like the thinnest velum, and she could see the arcs of the veins beneath, the cut of his bones threatening to poke through flesh.

"Tell me," he said, pausing to swallow. "Are you alright?"

"I... I think so," she said.

He lowered his lids, chin falling to his chest.

He needed sugar. Rina crawled to the sideboard, a wave of dizziness crashing over her at the movement, and reached for a decanter of sweet cherry wine.

"Our child?" Mai asked with an edge of fear in his voice.

Rina stilled, hands trembling, and almost dropped the wine. Her hand came to the bulge of her midsection. Please, gods, let her be safe. She nodded in answer and returned to him with a glass and decanter. He didn't stop her as she rose the glass to his lips and poured, trails of wine spilling from his mouth like blood. When he was done, his breaths came rapid, as if he'd been sprinting.

"Mai," she raised her wrist and brought it to his lips. "Take some back."

He shook his head and took her hand, bringing it to rest on his clammy cheek. "The guards will come, and they'll bring—" His words faltered, and he glanced down.

Was that shame?

"They'll bring crystals," she said in answer. "I know what you've been using them for," she added in a flat voice. Mai flinched.

Yes, it was shame he felt, but she wouldn't let him hide the truth. She needed to understand. "And I know about the mubash," she said. "That you planted the seeds in the magisters."

His head flew up. She saw how his vision swam in the way his blue eyes glazed, then intensified again. For a moment, she thought he would deny her words—gods, how she wanted him to.

He didn't.

"I had to, Rina. It was the only way. They worked against me—against you. They wanted to make the Chosen appear dangerous—like dogs that couldn't be trusted and needed to be muzzled or put down. It was the only way to show the Denese wasn't the real threat. Otherwise, Nebia, Eurora would never have accepted you, and the Carnelian Way would have been lost. I needed to bring them down a level, that you might rise."

"Anat? What Lord Cassander did..." Rina began. Not sure how to ask if Cassander did what he did to drive Anat mad?

A sad smile came to Mai's lips. He urged Rina to rest her back against him. She did and wrapped the blanket around them. She tilted her head to look up into his face, his collarbone her pillow.

"He did what he did out of greed for power," said Mai. "He wanted her child whatever the cost. Sara, however—I have reason to believe she was manipulated—urged to take any opportunity for revenge."

Ice slid through Rina's veins. Too many secrets, too many plots, and he, her husband and the father of her child, held more than others.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do it all?"

Mai sighed. His lashes lowered, and his nostrils flared. He pressed his lips together, then worried a cracked bottom lip with his teeth.

"To begin with, fear and revenge," he said. "The dread that we would be invaded, and the Carnelian Way lost—or snatched up by another land. When I found the survivors, a few were thankful, but others spat at me. They were children, but they looked down on me, as their parents and grandparents did."

His lips curled. "I was never proud when I used the consumption to take their power and keep them in check. Yet it felt good to see them, with their pure blood, below me."

Rina didn't interrupt him, though his words churned up something inside of her. Yes, she appreciated that self-righteousness. Of having someone who thought you were below them beneath your heel and knowing you could grind them to dust if you wanted. Knowing they would need to beg you to rise again, and that if you granted this right, they would remain below you. All the while, not knowing if you'd prefer them to stay in the dust or reach on bended knee.

"I had to drain them, or risk them rising against me," Mai continued, his breathless voice breaking her stream of thought. "They were young, but they were highly gifted, their powers present even before their bodies began to bloom. Some of them had begun their training. Others were like wildfire. The spark of their power risked burning out of control and blazing everything around them. There were ways of containing the power, so that—" A racking cough overcame him, and Rina clenched his forearms.

"It's okay," he said. "I... I set them to work, funnelling their gifts into healing and creation, and much of their élan vital was spent this way. Unconsciously, just as it is for your people in the outposts.

"And then," he said. "To let the remaining power go seemed a waste—and dangerous. There was so much to rebuild. So much to create. Denea had hamstrung this land. Why not use what I could not let them keep?

"I didn't treat them cruel. Those who appreciated what I had done lived like princes. As my council and I studied the ancient texts from the Temple of Elia and rebuilt, we waited for them to mature."

Rina's throat twisted at the realisation of what was to come. She said, "Eurora always wanted to mix the bloodlines..."

His arms wrapped about her. His body had begun to thaw. She poured more wine and drank, refilled it and made him drink, waiting for him to finish before she said, "Did you force them to—"

"No." His voice was firm. "History, the texts, are unambiguous. Not only is it exceptionally hard to create a gifted child without consent, but such a child is more prone to bitterness and resentment—or a mental defection. Think, if they could wield the Carnelian Way—if this power were consciously, or even unintentionally, used the wrong way—the harm they might do. The law of consent extends beyond the magisters and Denese, beyond those known to have the Carnelian Way, for a reason. No child should be conceived that way."

Rina thought of Anat's screams in the common room—how they'd shattered glass, and how she thought her bones would splinter.

"But Anat's child—how will it be when it grows up?"

Mai adjusted his position behind her, grunting at the movement. Rina made to move away, but he held her in place, his grip surprisingly strong. "Anat has Sara to raise the child with her. She and the child have all the love it will need to brace any emotional injury. Not all are so blessed."

Rina had seen the way Sara's gaze followed Anat. Sara would never bear a child of her own, but she would offer everything a father should have.

"How many agreed—to the unions?"

"Not all, but enough," Mai said.

"Did you... participate."

Mai stilled.

Rina had a sense of falling. Of course, he had.

"With Ia?" she prodded, something tight in her chest.

Mai began to laugh, which turned into a wheezing cough. "What do you think I am? She was my first cousin!" he finally choked out.

Rina stiffened. They shared a common ancestor, and she told Mai this.

Mai laughed a ragged laugh. "So do we all—if you go back far enough." He sighed. "King Samium was born close to 700 turns ago. Your parents were more closely related than we are."

Her parents. How did he know that? Had he followed her bloodlines?

"Of course, my love," he answered when she asked him this. He took a lock of her hair in his fingers. "I trailed each of your ancestors and their descendants, especially Ia's."

"Why Ia's?"

He cleared his throat and looked up to the remaining stars. The sky was still dark, but one by one, they ran from the approaching dawn. "Call it nostalgia for the last of my family. Or self-preservation. Ia eventually rebelled. All but decimated the top two levels of Nebia, including the palace, and almost escaped on a ship to the Bani Islands. With her were Denese, I had trusted, and their mixed-blood children. Generation after generation, Ia's descendants rebelled in some shape or form, but I couldn't bring myself to take the final step and wipe them all out. Nor could I let myself trust your people."

So that was why she and her aunt and uncle lived when other families would have been executed for the same actions. Rina remembered the whispers that dogged her through the streets after her parents' deaths. This was why Pietro's rebellion had stung all the more—she'd always suspected they lived on granted time.

A bird sang and a horn called from far down below as the dockyards opened, announcing the coming dawn. The air was fresh and damp, and Rina felt Mai's body wilting beneath her. Still, he continued his story, even after she tried to convince him to rest.

"I hoped one-day Denea's descendants would work with me—especially one of Ia's. I never hoped for this." He pulled her tighter, kissing her temple. "I was never proud of what I did, Rina. For a long, long time, it has eaten me from within. I am ashamed. I am full of guilt. I want to undo everything, rebuild Denea, and start afresh. Please forgive me."

Rina lay against him, the slow beat of his heart against her ear.

"Is it true—there is no Taint?" she said.

"No Taint." He coughed. "Just human behaviour—good, or ill, or in between."

The truth didn't surprise Rina, and she realised a part of her had guessed at it, even in Amadore.

She breathed a deep breath and said,"So how will we explain the forsaking?"

"So, you're with me?" he said, surprise in his voice.

"Do I have a choice?" She faced him directly. She understood why the forsaking needed to continue, knew her people would willingly give to return to their homeland, but when they learned the truth..."How do we make this, right?"

He cupped her cheeks, bringing his forehead to rest on hers. His breath smelled of sugar and fermented cherries. "First, the technology, and after... we'll find a way."

There was an urgency behind the kiss that followed. Almost savage—as if Mai wanted to scald her with his mark before the sun rose. More birds sang. The world turned silver with the pre-light of dawn.

A sudden crippling pain stabbed through Rina's womb. She shrieked with the intensity of it and then whimpered as something warm trickled between her legs. Frantically, she grappled with her robe, shoving the material aside, her fingers coming back red.

"No! No, no, no, no!"

Mai grabbed her, holding her face. "Look at me. Breathe. It will be well."

The pain ripped through Rina. No, it would not. The child, their baby girl, hadn't stirred since Mai had saved her. Fin's poisoned claw had stabbed straight into her stomach, and it struck her with a sickening clarity Mai that had been unable to reach their child.

She gripped him, clawing, her nails slicing his skin. "Make the guards hurry," she said through clenched teeth. If they came with the crystals, perhaps he could save the child.

Mai shook his head, eyes sparkling. "They won't come soon enough."

"Please!" Rina's fingers fumbled as agony ripped through her. "Take it from here." Her eyes indicated the cirque around them, full of life as the new day arrived. Arkis and Elia had consumed the very rocks of Denea, surely Mai was able to take the life of the plants and animals around him.

"I can't," he said. "I'm too weak. The consumption will always try to use the readiest energy—I can't fight that right now. I'd kill you."

"Then tell me how!" she begged, voice hitching.

Again, that slow shake of his head. A tear slipped from his eye. You don't have enough training, and even if you did, the venom is still within you." He lifted his arm and rolled up the sleeve of his robe. "It has to be me you take it from."

"No!" Rina shook her head, curling in upon herself as another slash of agony overwhelmed her.

Mai reached into a pocket of his trousers and drew out a tiny crystal set in a silver disk. "When the time comes, give this to Pilo. He will show you how to find what you need." He put the disc in her hand and squeezed her fist tight. "If you don't want this all to come undone, for both our people, you'll give it to him."

The next spasm took the breath from Rina's lungs. She sensed the tiniest flutter within her when the spasm petered out. She wasn't dead—their child lived and wanted her to know.

Rina's eyes lifted to Mai's.

One last time, Mai spoke down the line. This child is more than me or you, my dear. She must live. And I'll live through her.

He bent down and kissed the curve of her pregnancy. Another flutter, as if to say farewell. Mai raised his wrist and, with his nail, sliced through the vein.

Hunger, stronger than ever before, overcame Rina. The child moved again like it were ravenous too. Like it knew its survival lay in that blood. Mai's eyes never left hers as she brought his wrist to her mouth, his other hand pressed over the crystal in chest.

She drank. Liquid fire once more streaking through her, rushing down, down, down to that deepest part of her to flush out the last of the venom. As it did, images flashed through her mind. Mai as a child, as an adolescent, as a young man. Flashes of his thoughts and dreams. His lost lovers. The children he loved in secret, most dead and buried now. She experienced his hopes, his dreams, his failures. The first time he saw her.

It hurt, the physical and mental burn, so bad she thought she would lose consciousness. But she held on, gripping his gaze like a lifeline as those blue, blue eyes dimmed to grey, then ash. Never looking away as his skin cracked and flaked, nor as he drew his last breath or a gust of wind swept through the cirque and the dust and bones that had once been a god-like emperor crumbled beneath her.

She curled over, trying to grasp the dust, to hold on to Mai, coughing as she breathed him into her lungs. The ash clung to her cheeks where the tears streamed.

They found her like that, the guards led by Olav, and a handful of magisters, Pilo included. Pilo's hand came to her stomach, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

Rina could have told him there was nothing to worry about, that their child would survive. She couldn't talk. All she could do was unfurl her hand to show the silver disc with the crystal. 

★☾●☽★

A/N: Hey, guys. I hope you're not to sad that Mai is dead—I mean, he was an autocratic megalomaniac. But I guess he really did love Rina in the end. Just two more chapters to go.