Kingdom of Ash

For three months, she had sung to the
darkness and the flame, and they had sung
back.
For three months, she had burrowed so
deep inside her power that she had plundered
undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn
had worked on her, she had delved. Never
letting them know what she mined, what she
gathered to her, day by day by day.
A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen
from the earth forever.
She’d kept that power coiled in herself
even after she’d been freed from the irons.
Had struggled to keep it down these weeks,
the strain enormous. Some days, it had been
easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering
arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.
Yet when she had seen that wave, when she
had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death