I didn't know what caused the cracking sound. My first thought was my pelvis, which hit the ground first several feet from where I was standing a mere half second ago. Writers always wrote that 'the breath was knocked out of me' and I never understood that until that moment.

Chinese fields.

Ilyaas's arms wrapped around my shoulders before the blast blew us off our feet, but they were not there to break my fall. I felt the vibration of the thud he made when he landed right next to me, but I couldn't hear a thing. A firestorm was blowing over my eyelids, wondering just what the actual fuck happened.

Looking up, flat on my back, the sky was moving...

In seconds he was hovering over me, his mouth forming words in screams I couldn't hear. With one touch, my hand came off my ear slick with blood. Ringing. Everything was ringing.

My hands found the grass in the wide field, my forearms prepping me up. I needed to stand. I needed to know what was happening.

The world spun as hundreds of people ran the opposite way. The fire was bellowing in front of me, clouds of black smoke rising to meet the stars. Fireworks were still flying into the sky and every other direction like meteorites hitting the ground.

The people didn't know where they were headed, but they kept running knowing they were getting far from here. I felt another vibration in the air, maybe the collective screams or thundering footsteps of hundreds of people seeking safety. But then I looked up and saw in horror the reason for the prickling sounds. The sky was... falling.

I found my balance and stood, the grass seeming uneven underneath my feet. The field was littered with shrapnel, pieces of the pyramid's side which already came lose. I felt a hand, then a whole arm tugging me away. Ilyaas was trying his hardest to pull me to run, but my eyes were fixed somewhere distant.

A little girl.

Amidst the smoke and the stench of powder, I saw a little girl. Her dress was smoldering at the edges, her strawberry blonde hair breaking out of her pigtails. She was crying, standing over a limp body of what seemed to be her brother.

Before I knew what I was doing I ran to her. I was the only person running to the direction of the fire instead of away, a move that metaphorized the story of my life more than anything else I've done in it.

And so, I was running to her... How could I have not run to her?

"Mano! Diesperta! Diesperta!" I could hear her panicked shrilling voice now, as she shook him again and again, willing for him to wake up. One look at his body and he seemed lifeless.

My hand immediately checked his pulse. With a breath I felt it, it was weak, but he was alive. A sigh of relief escaped me, just as another wave of fireworks landed on the pyramid's glass-like petal above our heads, cracking it more, raining down sharp snowflakes that could cut arteries.

The girl looked at me and pulled my skewed hood off my face. "Princesa Liza?" She whispered. I heard her. I could hear again. With that, the sound of the world came barreling into me. Screams, shouts, feet... and as I looked at the inferno closer now, I never realized fire could make a sound.

"No, pero me parezco a ella, ¿no?" I nodded at her, letting her see my face, convincing her I was just a look-alike. Spanish... she came a long way to die like this. "Tenemos que movernos, niña. Vamos, déjame abrazarte, si?" I pulled her up into my arms and signaled Ly to carry her brother as he skidded to a halt right next to me, his face a combination of anger and disbelief. He obliged. With a crack that sounded like lightning the pyramid's petal hovering over us buckled, and we ran.

The girl was crying into my hoodie, and I hid her eyes from the sky's openings and crevices. I needed to keep her safe. "Tenga cuidado, princesa..." I heard her sniffle into my neck. My feet pumped against the grass, against the stone, against the wet fountains we passed, trying our hardest to escape the falling triangle.

"Estoy siendo cuidadosa." I whispered back just as I cleared the petal, telling her I was careful. And yet I kept running. We cleared the glass, but we did not clear the fireworks now falling onto every surface possible, setting aflame the flags, the clothes, the plants.

"Lesya, there! We can take cover there!" Ly was referring to the pagoda a few paces away. People were already huddling inside it, trying to escape the inferno. The whole thing was made of stone, and luckily would never catch fire in these temperatures.

After crossing a bridge, we made it, wet and smoking.

I settled the little girl down. "Dónde están tus padres?" I looked around for her parents. She was alone, and no one in the pagoda came near us either.

She was crying again. "Fueron al centro comercial. Vuelven por nosotros, princesa." They weren't here, they were at a mall.

I should have stayed longer to make sure she found them, but the Ilyaas got to me. "He's breathing." Ly told me, his hand on my arm. "WE. NEED. TO. LEAVE."

I let him pull me away this time as the petal's screeching crash vibrated through the garden. I could only stand and watch as a plume of dust erupted into the air. Screams of disbelief echoed as the pyramid's side fell into the ground, returning to its limestone color, the only part of it intact was the golden capstone.

Ly's paces were faster now, angrier. Ilyaas was angry. Angry for what?

"Empress Lizaveta!" I heard a man yell.

I kept my head down, my hand in Ly's, running and running away from the eyes that followed me instead of the fire raging in my wake. At least there were no comms here, no cameras too. What would have happened if they knew?

We both went out of the glass gate, and I took my hoodie off. What remained was a white shirt and vest soaking in sweat. Ly took his overcoat off as well, dropping it on the ground without another glance. Pity. I liked the coat.

Before we escaped the garden altogether, I took his scarf and fashioned it into a shayla, hoping my pants were long enough to pass for conservative, hiding the hair that would have identified me from a mile away.

We left the coats there, on the ground, stampeded by the panicked screaming people pouring out. We were gone seconds later.

×+×

I forgot my comm at the garden with all the panic, and so did Ilyaas, but after hailing a cab with Ilyaas's identification as Imperial Guard, we didn't even have to pay. "I'm commandeering your comm." I heard Ilyaas tell the driver. He was too terrified to object. He probably has never met an Imperial Guard all his life, much less someone from the Pentagon League.

He looked at me, telling me to lower my head and keep silent. "I need that woman from the privy council at the front door, Akim Ogamras. Add a direct line to defense and prime minister. Make it happen."

At the gate, we walked out of the cab, and as the guards saw Ilyaas and saluted, the cab driver realized who I was too. What an eventful night for him.

When the guards saw me, their eyes widened. With a snap from Ilyaas, they realized they were all in trouble. And with one step into the silvery dome that protected us, Ilyaas finally lost it. "What were you thinking?!"

I flinched at his voice. The rage in him carried a venom I never thought he could produce.

"What are you talking about?" There was no use pretending I didn't know why he was angry, but there I was, wondering how much his worries held weight. Pulling off his scarf from my head, I paced faster to keep a distance between us. I had no time for this.

"The girl!" He yelled at me.

My feet stopped, and I turned. Distance be damned, he really needed a kick in the groin. Didn't he know what he was saying? I couldn't believe my injured ears. "What? You would have let the pyramid fall on her?!"

That took him aback only for a second before he said. "If it meant saving you, yes!"

I turned away, there was no use to arguing with him about this, I realized. Ilyaas would find anyone, kill anyone, and die a thousand times for me. I knew that because I would do the same for him, but not at the expense of that girl, not a girl crying over her brother.

Tonight, was not the night to remind me how many times I looked past the value of the human life for my own sanity. Tonight, was not the night to think like the killer I knew I was.

The girl from the Council was at the door, as requested, and she tried to hide the horror in her eyes as she saw me. I probably looked like crap.

Her name was Akim Ogamras. She was the minor advisor and protégé of my grandfather's wisest. Akim probably wanted to be regarded as the same, but I honestly was not in the mood for flattering anyone after being yelled at by a handsome imbecile.

"Do you know anything about the explosion at the East Garden celebration?" I asked her, my hands clutching her shoulders. "Was it for me? Who else was a target? Was it intentional?"

"We have yet to-" She gasped; her eyes wide open. She looked like one of those squeezy toys that had the eyes popped out every time you choked them.

I had to stifle the laugh coming from me. I was unstable at that point. "Okay, you may leave now. Send all your reports to me before you send them to Parliament. Mobilize emergency workers, make sure everyone is accounted for, and if there's anyone who died... invite their families, and prepare compensation."

"Your imperial-" She curtsied.

I left her and went directly to my elevator, not waiting for Ly.

The elevator ride was quick, and when the doors opened, Natasha from the Pentagon League was there, wearing scrubs, ready to take me to the infirmary. "I was asked by Malak to give you a CT sca-"

"I'm fine." I quipped. I didn't want my anger misplaced on anyone. With what just happened, I was half sure I was unhinged.

"Your imperial majes-" She continued.

"You're supposed to follow my orders, yes? Would you have talked back if I were Solomon?" I gave her my best angry face- the face I should have given Ilyaas. The self-hate that coursed through me as I shut her down was immense, but I wanted to be alone before I imploded.

She looked down and went to her own elevator. Somehow, despite the events of the night, I still managed to pull it off; the face of my grandfather was something I found I could easily command.

I realized I was still not in the right mind to think properly. I was just in an explosion... I just saw a pyramid fall. The tremors running through my body were strong. Was that explosion meant for me? Did anyone die for an explosion meant to kill me?

Above all that, although I knew I would do anything for Ilyaas, I couldn't understand how he could value my life over a child. It would be hypocritical of me, a lie really, to say I valued all lives equally. If I did, I wouldn't have been able to kill. But something was changing now. With whom I newly was, I could not allow myself to think like that anymore.

Once I entered my room, I grabbed my bath robe to cover my clothes and went to the bathroom to wash the pale face caked with soot. Jazzy was in the tub, looking like she was thinking of something before she jumped out and nuzzled my hip. "I'm okay, Jaz."

She was not convinced and followed me out. I heard her growl. "I'm going to be fine, Jaz."

I then went to the lobby of my suit, where my screens were. If Ilyaas's orders were followed, they'd be here.

To the eye it looked like a mirror, built into a graying wood frame, but with a wave of my hand, two people emerged as if they were in the room with me, reflected in the mirror. I always hated this effect, but it was an aged technology I had no will to change any time soon. Maybe I should have bought holograms instead or the VR contacts the guards wore, but this thing worked for now.

"Your imperial highness." They both said.

"Your excellency, Prime Minister Crawford, Honorable Wong." I nodded, standing in front of a mirror, flanked by two people in suits. "What happened at the garden?" With my best doe eyes, I asked.

"We are currently investigating, your imperial highness, but it seems to have been a malfunction in the firework system." Said honorable Wong. "Still, we are keeping tabs on the Ravens and other groups in case they claim responsibility."

God. Ravens. "Do... malfunctions even happen in Eurasia? In the City of Lesya?" I've never heard of such thing.

"No, your imperial highness. This would be the first." Definitely Ravens.

I directed my attention to Crawford. "Stats?"

"Seventy-two injured, six of them under intensive care."

Did I hear that right? It seemed to be worse. "No dead?"

"None."

I sighed, relief washing over me. "Which hospitals? Are they covered?"

"Yes, all of them are Eurasian citizens. St. Lorenzo's and Chaves Center."

"I'll be visiting tomorrow." I said firmly. They were going to try to object, but I was not hearing any of it. "Please cut off all entry and exit to the city, except for the ones invited to the coronation, and utilities and necessities, until tomorrow noon. If someone caused this, she or he is not leaving without a day in court."

"Your imperial highness... visiting the hospitals? The princes will be here tomorrow at lunch." Crawford asked.

"Yes. I can still meet them for lunch. Make sure I'm safe. I trust you." I trusted no one. I still hated the fact that they blatantly cared so much more for princes than for the people who just witnessed a life-altering event, or the fact that I could be attacked tomorrow. "Please do whatever else you think would be beneficial for security and health. Thank you. Dismissed."

Just when they bleeped out of existence in my mirror, another reflection emerged on my left. Ilyaas was standing right behind me, holding an IV bag above his head, and another one on his punctured hand.

We just made up and he ruined it with his godforsaken devotion.

"Why are you here?" I asked in the coldest voice I could manage. Ilyaas looked defeated. His clothes were covered in soot, his face an ashen gray and he smelled like gunpowder. "Why are you here?" I almost deflated. He looked so tired. My heart went out to him, but I still didn't want to understand his logic and what it entailed.

"Nanites... for your ear..." He nodded at the armchair closest to him, willing me to sit. "You kicked Natasha out. I'll do it."

I already felt bad about that.

I swallowed and dragged my feet over to where he wanted me to sit and sank into the navy chair. The living room of the suite was much posher than my bedroom, since it was the only place my guests were ever invited in. It was still the same wooden floors, but the furniture was plush, and some were gilded.

I sighed. Silence was what I could give him. Silence didn't mean I was still mad, but silence didn't mean forgiveness either. I understood him and didn't at the same time. Shrugging off the robe and exposing my arm, I readied myself for the feel of the needle.

Ilyaas left his bag on a high table and was immediately on his knees, tying the tourniquet with gloved hands, getting the needle out of the packaging and into my skin. Despite the running and the adrenaline earlier, his hand was steady, and I could barely feel it, but I felt the small sting. "A twenty-two?"

"Eighteen." He said. I should have flinched, eighteens were more painful, if I remembered correctly. He left the catheter there and I didn't like how it didn't hurt. He adjusted the tubing and taped it to me. I massaged my forearm as I felt the cool nanites unleashed in my blood stream. He adjusted the rate of the drips and handed the bag to me. "I'll get a maid to give you a stand. Natasha said one bag was enough."

Ilyaas stood up, and despite not wanting another argument I blurted "That's it?"

Was he just going to walk away now? Seeing him so weak made me feel unnervingly powerful over him and I didn't like it. If making up needed us to shout at each other for another hour, then so be it. I wasn't going to sleep without making sure we were okay despite hating him at the moment.

His jaw clenched and unclenched. "I'm sorry." Ly whispered, he looked awkward with his other hand in the air with his bag.

"So, you agree with me?" I blinked. We rarely fixed an argument in an hour; it usually took an hour and a half.

"No, I'm saying I see why we disagreed." Of course, he did.

By this time, I knew I had to stand up, also with my bag in the air. Yes, he still towered over me, but I had to stand my ground. "So, you mean you would have left those children to be crushed?"

"If it meant your survival, yes." He didn't pause now. Ilyaas just repeated what was probably running again and again in his head the past few minutes he was riding the elevator.

I couldn't look at him seriously with what he was saying. My heart had a sinking feeling I now equated with heartbreak. "How can you even think like that?! How-" I turned away, helping myself resist the urge to hit his face.

His footsteps approached me, as he tried to get into my line of sight again. "Aside from being the only person I care about, you're the empress of Eurasia, you have no heir-"

"And what? That makes me more important?!" I snapped at him and his amber eyes. Everyone was getting on my nerves about the heir business. Every parliamentary meeting talked of genes and men already, I didn't need my best friend bringing it up in an argument as a point of defense. "I'm more important?!"

"Yes!"

"How dare you think you have the right to choose which lives matter more?" I knew what I said was wrong the moment I said it. I should have taken it back.

He fell silent for a second there. Like a cold wind, the chill in his response almost froze me. "Don't even use that line on me."

I rolled my eyes to roll it off, but the carpet was warm, the lights were dim, and I messed up.

"Six years ago, you chose silence over going home and you got everyone ki-"

"I saved you!" Another wrong line. I felt the tears coming already. My tears or his? It didn't matter now, did it?

"Yes. Only me."

I felt the heartbreak again. Who knew it could happen consecutively in a matter of minutes "I didn't know! I would have saved everyone!" That's what I always told myself every time I couldn't sleep because of the lives lost that day - the ghosts still haunting me. "I would have-"

"But you didn't. You chose me." He paced, choosing his words. "Why can't you do that now? What's so wrong if I choose you now?"

I turned to go to the door that led to my bedroom, where Jazzy was currently sitting, confused as to the ruckus. "Go away. I can't reason with you." Go away, I don't want to hurt you.

I did think differently before, but I had the privilege of changing my mind. Why was it being used against me?

"It doesn't matter. Nobody died tonight. But remember that every time I need to choose... be it a thousand lives or yours, I'd choose you." His footsteps started receding.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, anger dissipating. "I know it's your job to choose me. I was reckless... but they're my people now. And it was her brothe- "I choked.

In seconds I felt him behind me, wrapping his arms over my shoulders, I smelled the gunpowder, I felt the tears. "Even if I wasn't a Guard, I'd choose you over this whole damn country." Ilyaas settled his head at the crook oh my neck and raised his arm again for his IV bag.

I wasn't going to change his mind.

"When you started running, I wished you were Onus. At least then you'd survive." He snorted.

I swallowed before responding "I'm sorry-" He thought it was for the argument, but I said it because I knew I wasn't worth saving. No Onus was.