text: Maralah had not confined many people to prison. Prison was where a coward put you when they didn't know what to do with you. If she were in Morsaar's place, she'd have had herself killed immediately, the way she'd killed Alaar's heirs and wives and the heirs and wives of the Patron before him. The few she kept alive had to swear fealty to the new Patron within days of the ascension.
  
  But no one asked her to pay fealty. No one came to her.
  
  They locked Maralah in the south tower, with a narrow slit of a window that showed her the sky, three feet higher than she could jump. She spent most of her time sitting at the opposite wall, staring out that window, watching Para move across the sky. It was not a proper gaol – that would have been the lightless passages below. Nor was it some lushly appointed place one would put the loved one of a rival, waiting on a ransom. It appeared to have been a storage room of some sort, hurriedly emptied to accommodate her. She saw scuff marks on the floor, tattered onion skins, and shriveled hasaen tuber stalks scattered across the floor. Someone brought a heavy bear skin up for her the first night. Water and food came up once a day. She expected it would be another sanisi who would look after her, but they simply sent up a slave, a new one each day. They cut a hole in the bottom of the door so they could push it through. The entire affair felt odd, ill-prepared. She had not taken Morsaar for a usurper.
  
  The season dragged on. When she realized they weren't going to kill her immediately, she planned for a long wait. It was entirely possible, if they kept her alive a few weeks, that they'd keep her alive a few months. And that gave Taigan time to answer the fiery ward she'd used to recall him some time ago.
  
  Maralah measured time by the chill in the air, and the extended amount of daylight in the sky. Low spring came and went, became high spring. She listened to the ice melt, the water drain from the roof. She watched Para circumnavigate the sky each day. She started up a routine. Food came in the early morning. After eating, she went through her defense forms, and then basic sword craft. She napped through the afternoon, then played strategy games with onion skins and shreds of bear fur until dark.
  
  Prison left time for contemplation, which was the worst part of it. If she was not careful, her mind could wander to her fate, or Rajavaa's, or the country's. It would lead her to wonder what would happen if they just left her here, abandoned in a cell, while they retreated south to Anjoliaa after all. As the snow melted, she began to wonder if Morsaar meant to stay here and fight, if this was the last stand. But she didn't think a man who couldn't even muster up the courage to kill her had the determination to stand fast in front of the greatest and grimmest army the world had ever known. She spent too much time, perhaps, going over her mistakes. When all one had was time, it was inevitable. If she had come up the stairs just a little sooner, before Kadaan killed Alaar, things would be different. If she had sent out Taigan to find omajistas sooner, perhaps… or moved this legion here and that one there during the first assault… or if she had known the tears in the sky for what they were, maybe, she could have prepared better… but those thoughts did not change her situation. They did not free her from the present. They trapped her in the past.
  
  She was not easily lost to ennui, even now. If she was lucky, they would take her out of here eventually instead of forgetting about her and letting her starve to death. Getting taken out and killed seemed like the best possible result. It also meant that the moment she was out, the moment something changed, she would need to move, and quickly, if she wanted a chance at something other than death. She could rely on no one but herself now, and perhaps the possibility of Taigan, unless he was dead already.
  
  So instead of preparing for her eventual starvation, she prepared for the day the door opened. It was the same way she fought the war with the Tai Mora. You fought for the day it was over, but you got there by fighting one battle at a time. In this little cell, the battle she fought each day was against herself, and her own despair.
  
  It was why she was ready the day the cell door finally opened.
  
  "Hands out," the sanisi said. He was young, not far past twenty. A sanisi did not complete their training until at least twenty-two, but he looked far younger. It wouldn't surprise her if they were pushing them through training faster, here at the end. Two other sanisi stood behind him. Parajistas, all, if she had a guess. Morsaar wouldn't risk moving her with anything less, would he?
  
  "Where are we going?" Maralah asked.
  
  "Hands out," he repeated. The air grew heavy.
  
  She complied. He bound her hands in copper-threaded rope; expensive stuff. Also more difficult to burn through even for a sensitive sinajista, let alone one like her who was in far decline.
  
  The sanisi led her into the hall. She recognized Kovaas and a short, long-faced ataisa named Arakam who had come in with Rajavaa's force.
  
  That left her Kovaas. "I'm fine with dying, Kovaas," she said. "But at least have the courage to tell me so."
  
  He did not look at her.
  
  "Beheading, then?" she said.
  
  He lowered his chin.
  
  She continued marching forward. Beheading wasn't so bad. There were worse ways to die. It surprised her that Morsaar wanted this to be so public. If she were in charge, she'd have killed someone like her with a squeeze of parajista-controlled air and burned whatever was left. A public killing meant he wanted to make a show of his strength. It was fitting, that after all this she'd be killed by her own army. She'd outlived most sanisi. Many died in battle, or during some power shift like this one. Living to forty-three, outlasting her brother, her child, every relative she'd ever known – that was something. Clutching a win from the jaws of disaster. She smiled grimly.
  
  The younger sanisi led, and Kovaas took up the rear. They descended the long spiral of stairs to the massive courtyard below. It was as they entered the yard, the younger sanisi over the threshold, leaving Maralah and Kovaas, briefly, inside, that Kovaas leaned over and said, "Rajavaa is still alive."
  
  Maralah stumbled into the light. The days were brilliant now, still cold, but much longer. The double suns were high in the sky, piercing white. Para rode the western sky, a flaming blue brand. The slap of fresh air filled her lungs. She stared out at a great cutting stone in the yard, and a basket of fresh, bloody heads. A cart of bodies. She did not recognize the man at the stone. From the look of his clothes, he was an infantryman, probably one of Morsaar's.
  
  There were eight more sanisi in the courtyard, two at each door. Maralah thought it a poor use of sanisi, with a Tai Mora army marching for Harajan. At least twenty more regular soldiers lined the parapet overlooking the courtyard. It made her wonder just how many people – how many powerful people – Morsaar planned to kill today, or had already killed. But all she had was Kovaas's whisper about her brother being alive. It was precious little to go on to understand what was happening, or whether or not Kovaas would back her if she bolted.
  
  Maralah considered herself a fair tactician. Her odds, even with Kovaas, a parajista, were poor. Not unless he'd manufactured some grand escape for her, and she could see no reason for that. She glanced back at him. He avoided her look.
  
  "You going to give me a reason?" she said. "Why now?"
  
  "The Tai Mora are outside," Kovaas said. "They asked for blood."
  
  Maralah's skin prickled. "You all know they're liars," she said. "They'll have us kill ourselves, and then come in to finish the rest. You know these Tai Mora. You know what they are."
  
  The young sanisi jerked at her bonds. Maralah headbutted him. He reeled back.
  
  The air grew heavy.
  
  She called for Sina, Lord of the Underworld. Sina's breath came immediately, too easily for a descendant star, then disappeared. She held it under her skin and set her bonds aflame. She twisted at the copper wire while the rope blazed.
  
  Arrows buzzed past her. She ducked and ran back toward the tower. Tripped. Kovaas threw himself in front of her. Took two arrows to the chest. Then a third.
  
  Maralah hunkered behind his body. Shouted, "You know me! You know what they are! They will turn on you."
  
  The words felt foolish, even to her desperate ears. More arrows thudded into Kovaas. She needed to move to cover. The air around her grew thick. She flattened herself against the ground, her only defense against a parajista attack.
  
  As sanisi at the doors opposite advanced, she realized what a stupid way this was to die. Beheading was neat and elegant. Dignified. Now she was just a bear cub flushed into a kill hole. Maralah grabbed Kovaas by the back of his trousers and heaved him with her to the door back to her cell. A tangle of air ripped the coat from his body.
  
  She lost her breath. Heaved again. She tumbled back into the tower with Kovaas, and kicked the door shut.
  
  He was still breathing. Blood smeared his mouth. His eyes were wild. A whump of air thundered at the door.
  
  "Poor thing to die for," she said. "They'll kill me either way."
  
  He gaped something at her. Pointed at the ceiling.
  
  She glanced up, saw nothing. "What's really happening, Kovaas?"
  
  He gulped air, wheezed, "Stargazers. Sina."
  
  Outside the door, someone cried out.
  
  The air became thick as soup. She gasped and grabbed at Kovaas's infused blade. She crawled to the door, like swimming.
  
  Outside, the sky was violet-crimson, as if the sea was on fire. Para still hung in the sky, but it had been joined by a second body, eclipsing it: the mangled, irregularly shaped violet body of Sina. Everyone in the courtyard gaped at it; a miraculous happening, even by the standards of their irregular sky. As Maralah watched, Para flickered in the sky, flashed like a coin, and then simply... disappeared, as if blinking out of existence. In its place, Sina blazed a powerful, eerie purple.
  
  Maralah raised her infused blade to the sky and opened herself to Sina. Blue fire crawled around the Para-infused blade. It spat and hissed at her as she forced Sina's power to subsume that of Para. The blue flames surged, and were overcome with violet mist. Purple heat emanated from the blade.
  
  Maralah laughed, and sang the Song of Unmaking out loud.