I wanted to feel bad, I really did, but the recklessness I had a few hours ago fully paid off. I won. I won my freedom, even for a while, from that vile creature hiding behind sea-glass eyes.

It was temporary. It was selfish. And above all, it didn't guarantee Theo's silence but for now it was the small happiness I allowed myself to feel. There were other concerns to worry about and he was just one of the lesser ones, but for now he was solved.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, the cold seeping into me through the air conditioning of the Med Car. Through the window I could see the stars moving as we traversed through the Alai. Tomorrow... In a few minutes, I would be in Tajikistan.

I couldn't stand the silence anymore. Even with Ly's coarse hand in mine, I felt his distance. "I said I'm sorry."

"I thought you broke your neck." Ly confessed, looking at the stars too, a distraction from his frustrated anger. I wanted him to look at me.

"Just my leg... and it's okay because the nanites-"

"We have to agree on something." He couldn't even look at me.

Look at me.

I didn't tell him about Theo earlier or what happened days before because... Because I didn't know how to. Telling someone that someone suspected me of murdering my grandfather seemed like breathing life into that lie. And so now Ly didn't understand me - a rare occurrence.

I sighed. He didn't understand how Theo reminded me too much of the man who haunted, haunts, my nightmares. I wanted to tell him, but something stopped me. What difference would it make, anyway?

He still wouldn't look at me.

"No catching us off-guard like that." His hand squeezed and turned in mine. It was a miracle he still held me what with all his resentment. I was guilty, and I wasn't even sure that the object of my guilt was worth the trouble. It was reckless. Useless.

"I didn't catch you off-guard." I retorted, trying to lighten his mood.

He conceded. I was sure most of everything I did didn't surprised him. "But you caught everyone else off-guard. Try sticking to the schedule. I know I don't have to remind you that you're not just living for yourself now." Ly's eyes met mine for a second and I understood. We were all each other had, and the prospect of losing the other... Unthinkable.

"I am the property of the nation." I had to say it out loud. What I did earlier was fit for a rebellious princess maybe but not an empress, I knew that. But aside from ruining my image, it hurt him. How could I let that happen? "I know. I'm sorry."

He ran his hand over Jazzy's forehead, the tiger's head lazily lying on my abdomen. Ly avoided my eyes again. "You can't die."

"I'll try not to." I joked, but I remembered the pyramid, I remembered running away to the peak, and the countless times I broke away from the fleet to get closer to the rebels. I was practically suicidal.

"If you die..." He shook his head. Ly sighed. It all seemed impossible, really, me dying. But I knew what went through Ly's mind. It went through mine every time he put himself in danger because of me. "Then it would all have been for nothing..." He whispered, "And nobody would know how to tame Jazzy."

"I'm sorry." I said. I stroked his cheek. "I'm still here... Look at me." I begged.

He did. He didn't have tears, but I could see the fear in his eyes, the exasperation seeping through them. He was afraid and disappointed, and I was the cause.

"So..." I said dumbly. "How's the press handling things?" I changed the subject.

He raised his eyebrows at that. "I thought we were going to pretend you didn't care what the press says?"

"You were right. I don't own myself anymore. What they say matters." Not to me but to you, and you matter to me.

He kept stroking Jazzy's forehead and shrugged, reading the articles through his lens, looking at something off in the distance, unfocused. "They first said it was insensitive of you to have fun during a crisis."

"The minister slash president of Kyrgyzstan wanted me to... if I didn't, they'd say I didn't honor the Kyrgyz." It didn't matter how I wanted to defend myself, I figured. They would just run it through their critical filter and then I'd end up the villain. I didn't know what my grandfather did to make them sing him praises but they sure hated me.

"Yes, but then when you fell, they theorized whether you did it on purpose." Ly sighed. "For attention... sympathy. They said your grandfather never played dangerous games because he was more responsible."

Upapa never raced or played basketball or threw someone off his shoulder in judo but there were much worse games to play. He played them well - so well, in fact, that no one knew he was playing or that the games existed at all.

I nodded. "Okay." I wrung my hands together. "Ask Akim what she thinks is best. I think she should address them saying I'm alive and well and that I joined the race to thank the Kyrgyz people and that I didn't think I'd win."

He nodded. "I also think you should address the Northerner's crisis. Mishaal... He's not happy about the arrangement."

Ah yes. "I needed to do it. You know that, don't you?" It was my turn to avoid his eyes.

"You didn't need to do it." He said.

But I did!

"Your people took me in without the knowledge of my value and your people were killed because of that kindness." I whispered, a heaviness wrapping itself around me. "You salvaged my body out of a wreckage and you gave me a home..." The flashbacks of seeing his face through the smoke in the air came to me like a tsunami. "You shared whatever resources you had left with a stranger." I still couldn't understand what I did to deserve him. "And they died because of me."

"Amma loved you the moment she saw you." He shook his head with a smile as the memory of a dark-haired woman creeped out of the suppressed recesses of his grieving thoughts.

"I loved you the moment I saw you." I said. It was the truth. I thought he was an angel and I thought I was dead.

"The Eurasian people don't feel the same as we do."

"No, but I am their empress. If that stands for anything..."

He shook his head. "You're risking your reign for a favor I lent you years ago."

A favor? That's what he calls it?

"It's a blood debt, Ilyaas." I fixed my eyes on him. "I owe you my life."

"You already paid that when you saved me from the bombs."

"By 'you' I mean everyone else who loved me... Everyone else I couldn't save."

Ly had a small smile. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was gratitude, my heart told my mind to hope it was love.

Stupid.

"For someone who is unwilling to take the crown, it fits you so well."

A knock.

Both our heads snapped at the door. Ly raised a finger to me to shush me as if I would talk. He stood up and walked to the door, taking a look through the peephole. He clicked his tongue at what he saw, and I knew for certain it was not Tino.

"It's the Islander." He said, his eyes still on the peephole.

As far as I knew, the room didn't have any microphones. If there was any place good enough for us to talk, it would be here. He probably brought a blocker anyway.

I wanted to thank him for sparking the horseshoes. "Let him in."

For the first time in a while, I shocked Ly. "Don't you want to be alone right now?" He said. "We didn't let eight of them come in before."

He was right.

"We didn't even let the Spanish pretty boy in." Most of the others left when they saw Jazzy. Tino left because I pretended to be asleep.

"I don't want him to see me like this." I looked at my cast. I didn't want to worry him. "He's going to panic."

"He already did. You should have seen him at the races when Theo complained about his horse's shoes and said the results were wrong even when he could barely walk." Ilyaas shook his head. "That man is messed up."

"Tino got a punch in, you know." He chuckled.

That made me proud.

"Don't worry about his standing, Ly." I said. "I have a few more months. Don't corner me. Just let the Islander in."

"What I'm saying is, you don't want him to see you when you're powerful, and now you don't want him to see you when you're weak. But when he becomes your king, he'll have to see every version of you so give him practice."

"Please also try to trust my judgment on this." I hated being preached to. "Let the fascist in, I'll be fine." I assured him.

"Do you want me to stay?" Ly turned to see my face, worried because I wasn't.

"I'll be safe."

"I don't think this is advisable, Lesya. He isn't what you need right now." Ly said. "I saw how you looked at him. I saw the elevator-"

"It's not like that." And it wasn't. "I'd like to talk to him about the stuff from Monaco."

Ly opened his mouth and shut it. I saw apprehension in his eyes as well as understanding. "How would he know about your-"

"Because he was there."

Ly understood, if not begrudgingly.

He opened the door and blocked it.

"I brought refreshments!" I heard Zabdi say from behind Ly. His hands raised a paper bag above his head, shaking it in the air. "Fresh from the islands, your highness!"

I was 'imperial majesty' now but what could I expect from him?

Ly looked at me with a look that asked "Really?"

I smiled reassuringly. "Go check on Theo. He's two doors down." Make sure the mole sends him nothing.

Ilyaas was uneasy, but he left to go the opposite direction of Theo's room.

"Hey." He said, plopping down on the bed like he owned the place, Jazzy squinting at his touch. For once I wanted her to bite someone's hand off just to see if it would grow back. "How's the leg?"

"It was fine." I replied. "Until you broke it again." He did. I fell off the horse when Theo's hit mine and I felt the crack of my right leg as it folded in a way legs shouldn't.

I managed to straighten it and it was healing until Zabdi appeared in my vision, hovering over me, with his hands rebreaking the bone. I knew why he did it, but it hurt to hear the sound of my bones cracking even as I felt none of it.

"How were we supposed to explain how you survived a fall like that unscathed?"

"Then why am I not healing again?" My leg was in a plastic cast with holes around it. Every so often, Natasha would attach electromagnetic stickers on the skin peeping through to hasten the healing process and guide the nanites. But as far as my calculations went, by Onus standards, I would have healed by now.

"Oh, it's this." He pointed at my anklet, as shiny as the day I got it. "I broke it right under the silver."

"So?"

"Silver's bad for us." Zabdi said matter-of-factly, as if that was a universal truth known by every person with a brain.

"How bad?" I furrowed my brows. Maybe it really was a universal truth I, again, failed to know.

He shrugged, his dark curls coming over his eyes. "I still have some of the acid to take it off-"

"How bad is it for us, Zabdi?" I asked again, my pulse quickening, the truth forming in my mind.

"If it gets into our hearts, we're done. Lethal as a butiti." He said, touching it with his index tentatively, then recoiling as if it were hot. Zabdi even went into theatrically wiping his hand over his white silk pajamas. "Like vampires and werewolves, you know?"

"Why?" Was he messing with me?

"Papa bought the info from some Eurasian who discovered it was lethal after some questionable experiments and... Well, he uses it as a torture device for captured Ravens." He shrugged, fidgeting, touching his hips as if looking for something through pockets that weren't there - as if he was just reciting a grocery-list and not confessing his knowledge of human rights violations. "Not a lot of people know it, luckily, or we'd have a silver shortage... Actually, I wasn't sure you were like me because of the silver you like wearing and all that. "Zabdi laughed at his unfunny joke.

But it dawned on me then.

Who knew it was lethal... To Onus?

"My grandfather is an asshole."

"Well that's been established, but-" He rolled his eyes.

"He knew!" I exclaimed, making him jump. I touched my necklace. All my life I just thought I was mildly allergic. The reactions went away about a year after I was locked in them. But now I knew why I was locked in the first place.

"You're losing me, Diwata..." Zabdi's face fell, his eyes looking at the door and the window, waiting for someone to burst in. "Keep it down."

"Why'd he give me this then?" I tugged on my necklace. "He fucking knew! Just like when he gave me Jazzy!"

"Calm down. Everyone with an Onus relative wants that relative dead." He shrugged, standing up and shushing me in a harsher way than Ly. "Doesn't matter now. We need to take those things off. That's been poisoning you for years."

"He knew." I whispered to myself. He knew I was Onus and he wanted me dead. Upapa knew. That's why he never wanted me. It had to be the reason. All this time...

"Let's start with the brace-" He looked at my wrists. "You took them off? Did the acid hurt? I've personally never tried-"

"He gave me the key after he died." I said. The cold needle-like key was lying in place of my brother's corpse. "Fucking asshole."

"Well, isn't that nice?" He said sweetly, sarcastically.

"We only have two main reasons for a first ascendant to be disqualified from inheriting the crown." I explained, my eyes fixed at a distant point across the room, my teeth clenching. He knew. "If the first in line killed the monarch before him... or if he's Onus."

"Well... You're a she so we can get legal on that, and we'll make sure no one finds out. I'm here to protect you, remember?" He said. I saw his hand come up to pat me on the leg, but it recoiled at the last minute, probably remembering the look Ilyaas gave him. "I can train you to control it. I've been living undetected by the world all my life."

"He made sure I had these... Until he died."

Upapa wanted me to expose myself. He made sure I'd get exposed by freeing myself of the shackles he designed for me. If I didn't kill him, I still wouldn't be able to ascend. "He still wanted me gone..."

"Well then..." He smirked. "Those are two thing we have in common: horrid father figures, and the fact that they couldn't get rid of us."

I wanted to spit on his grave. My mind couldn't comprehend how much he hated me. For some grandfathers, I was sure there was love. Mine only had hatred and disgust.

I closed my eyes. "He's horrible."

I heard Zabdi sigh. His hand tried patting me again, but he redirected last-minute, and patted Jazzy's head instead.

"You can't do anything about it now. If you can't change it then don't worry about it." He said, the first words of true wisdom I heard from him. "What I'm saying is... Anything from the hands of someone that horrible..." He pierced me with his flaming eyes "Shouldn't be on you."

"Zabdi..." I shook my head as the apprehension set in, anxiety rising in my throat, threatening to lock my jaw in place. "Who else knew? The northern albino could have been just a rumor some people believed but if silver had scientific research, then... Who else knew?

He took out a small vial from his paper bag, finally remembering that he didn't put it in his pockets since his pajamas didn't have any. "Probably no one. He wouldn't want to expose himself too."

I remembered what he said at the crypts. It let's all Onus in. It only lets Onus in. "Being Onus is genetic... I thought it was my mother."

"Islander research says it's a recessive trait." He clarified, opening the vial and getting a drop onto the cap. "Remind me to give you some dissertations as part of your training-"

"So, for me and Kaz to have it..." I whispered. "Abbu also had it."

He nodded.

"And every king before me-"

"Was..." He said as he poured the first drop into my anklet, the silver sizzling, breaking, melting on my skin. It stung.

"Onus."

It was an illegitimate throne.

"Just like all thrones." He replied - replied to a thought I didn't even whisper. I looked at him just in time as a smirk formed in his features.

"How-" He touched my ankle, the spot the silver left bare.

And then I was in flames.