GAV:

"Sanders," Illia said, soft but bladed.

"It was a collective effort," Ander put in, but Gav could see there was something here. The stranger claimed to know Illia from six years ago, when Illia had disappeared for almost a year. She'd come back different. Gav had never known what happened, and since she'd clearly moved on-and he'd been young and halfway up the Bane's ranks, just beginning to notice the crease that formed between Saskia's brows when she was angry-

This man was a ghost. Walking out of a buried past.

"Yes," he said, demeanor undeterred, the rough music of his strange accent harsh against Gav's ears. "These two arrived and rescued my army."

"We strengthened the defensive line," Ander amended.

Sanders said drily, "You were the defensive line."

Gav blinked.

He'd grown up knowing all about Illia's power. He'd heard all the nervous whispers about it, witnessed the accidents that occurred when she lost her control, had sensed it every time she entered the room-hell, every time she entered the city. Illia was a hurricane given form.

But he had never seen that power-the kind of power everyone was so afraid of.

Gav glanced briefly to Saskia. Her curiosity was utterly unmasked. Fine, so it wasn't just him. That was the easiest read he'd gotten out of her all week.

Ander said, "You had a fantastic foundation for us to aid."

Sanders pointed to Illia and said, "I had approximately nothing but a fools' hope until that cataclysm showed up. Speaking of which," and he planted a kiss on each of Illia's cheeks. "Eternal gratitude."

A smile flickered on Illia's face. "Eternal gratitude," she replied.

Gav wondered if he imagined the way her fingers flickered to her wrists.

"I'm feeling so ignored," sighed Ander. Sanders kissed him, too. "Do anything for ye?" he asked.

Ander made to reply to this with a truly absurd kissing response. Fletcher cleared his throat, and the men straightened up.

Gav was starting to like this stranger. Probably shouldn't, but did.

"Sanders," Illia said. "What are you doing here?"

Shadows flickered in the strangers' eyes. They settled on Illia's. The hybrid eyes-Ashryver gold. Whitethorn pine. Marking Illia as Different from the moment she opened them.

Sanders said, quietly, "The clans are rising."

Gav had never seeyn Illia go so still, or Ander move so quickly.

Ander was standing before Illia in an instant, his hands solid on her shoulders. Gav's spine prickled. The room smelled like lightning, and all the wielders within it shifted as Illia's magic lifted its head. Run, screamed Gav's senses.

"Illia," Ander said, every syllable crystal clear. Gavriel's sister was looking at nothing. She blinked, and light came into her irises. "Illia," Ander said again, as Gav's skin began to crawl. Oh, gods. What was she remembering? What had happened to her?

Illia inhaled sharply. The glow died. The flicker stuttered.

"I'm fine," she said, a total Aelin snap of the words. Her gaze was still inhuman as she turned it to Sanders. "Why." Flat. Otherworldly.

Ander stepped back. His gaze was on the floor. He looked like a man struck.

Sanders shook his head. "It is as you wrote. Inexplicable."

Illia said, "I turned them to dust."

Gav's heartbeat stuttered.

Sanders whispered, "I'm sorry."

"For what."

"We… we left one of the clans alive. For mercy's sake."

Illia blinked at the stranger for a very long moment.

Thunder pealed, so shockingly close and incredibly loud that it sounded as if the very sky was cracking open. Gavriel almost jumped out of his skin.

Sanders didn't.

Sanders had seen this: this, and far worse.

Illia's breathing had grown faster, her eyes casting a strange glow again, and Ander turned to Gavriel and said, low and even, "They're going to wake."

Their parents. Everyone. And if Illia was ever going to keep this part of her life secret, and separate-

Mary was already moving, Brig and Lena with her. None of them had ever questioned how deep Illia's need for separation went. In the past six years, it had seemed to be what held her together. "Come on," Mary said, grabbing Sanders by the arm. "The two of you can have it out when she's more herself."

Illia was staring at nothing again. Ander had one hand on her arm, his eyes fixed furtively on Gav's. Gav just half nodded. Mary and Brig were already ushering Sanders out. Sanders said, "Who are you, exactly?"

Mary said, "Believe me when I tell you this is not how you want to meet who we came from."

Mila led them, the golden girl lighting the way, the others flickering quickly after her, but Gav did not move. He had never seen Illia quite like this. Fletch hadn't left, either, standing carefully away-not going to leave his little sister, but-

The sky split open again.

"Illia," Ander said.

Illia shook her head. Her eyes were glowing, breaths uneven. "I have to go," she said, the words-half formed.

"Birdie-"

Illia broke away. Gav reached for her, instinct. His fingertips brushed her skin.

The shock blasted him backwards six feet.

He lost several seconds. He opened his eyes and Illia was gone, Ander frozen in her wake. Fletch was kneeling next to him. Illia had vanished through the doorway. The rain beyond was coming down in sheets.

"Are you all right?" Fletch demanded.

Gav waved a hand. He was fine. Illia had shocked him before. Never so severely, but… he was fine.

She was not.

ILLIA:

There were no names no face and nothing but storm.

Illia ran.

Vaguely she was aware of the castle limits falling behind her. The grounds spilled out into fields and forest.

Illia ran.

Get away from people.

She was seven, drowning in rainfalls, she was nine, surrounded by thunder, she was eleven, Rowan's eyes fierce on hers, his hands on her face, calling her name-a name she was starting to lose-get away from people, he was always saying. When she couldn't control it. When the storm grew too vast and too dangerous-run.

Illia ran.

The anchor chain was shifting, roiling in the storm, pulling and tugging and undulating in the fierce current.

I-am-

The beast roared.

The sky tore open. Lightning struck. Spots danced before her eyes.

How could it all fall apart so quickly?

In the next second, she remembered. The rain had pelted down so furiously into her skin that the water seemed to penetrate it, sinking deeper and deeper until she was soaked down to her soul. She drowned in the memories.

Illia stopped running and vomited into the grass.

The acrid taste burned her tongue. Distantly she knew she didn't want the people here to know. She knew he hung on, the anchor chain holding as it rolled and tumbled, but she could not remember his name.

Anyone's name.

She stumbled forwards. The beast roared. She struggled for breath. She sat down, her head in her hands, and tried to remember her name.

I had a name.

She wanted to fly. Soar into the shrieking, raging, wild storm, the frenzy of lightning and clouds until all the wildness tore her apart-fly-she was a bird.

I had a name.

Bird-Birdie. That was it. Birdie, someone had called her.

The sky cleaved apart.

The lightning struck only an arms' length or two away. Illia blinked. The hair on her neck had stood fully up. She was deafened, vaguely, but she hadn't been hearing anything but her own screaming in a long time.

She had escaped. At some point.

She couldn't remember how or when.

Birdie.

Illia shivered.

There was no end to the storm. She would never run out of it. She would die before the storm did-die of old age, here in this field, never to be touched again.

Birdie.

A scream-her own-echoed in her ears.

The storm was cataclysmic. She was cataclysmic. She was falling through herself. Tumbling, tumbling, never to reach the ground: tumbling deeper into the pit of nightmares within herself.

What was her name?

She'd had another one.

"Birdie," someone who was not there said.

Then someone said, "Illia."

Illia blinked. There was someone in the storm. Soaked. Glowing nevertheless. Magic kissed hers, golden and bright, undeterred, unquestioned, familiar and honey-sweet to the touch.

"Illia."

Illia blinked up at the stranger in the rain. The beast began whimpering.

What was her name?

The figure knelt by her side. Took her hands.

"Illia."

My name is Illia.

"My name," Illia said. The words escaped from some cracked, untouchable, inescapable part of herself she did not recognize. What was her name?

"Illia," said the stranger. Illia blinked. Gold. Anchors pulling taut. Memories-laugh like wild song. Face like her own.

"My name is Illia," Illia said slowly.

The queen nodded, glowing in the rain.

Illia looked at her mother and said, "My name is Illia Evalin Galathynius, and I will not be afraid."

The storm stopped.

Her mother-Aelin-Aelin knelt before her, Illia's hands bound tightly in her own, familiar Ashryver eyes intent on hers. Illia's heartbeat rumbled in her ears. The silence was so ringing and profound that nausea rose in her chest again.

"I will not be afraid," Aelin repeated.

Illia nodded.

Aelin exhaled. It was a long, slow exhale, making visible all the lines of tension curved in her mother's body. Aelin was in her own nightclothes, her braid plastered down her back with water as she anchored her daughter to the world. Fire flickered again, warming Illia's skin, drying her mother's hair and clothes.

"I've got you," her mother told her, resting her hand against Illia's face. "You're here."

Illia could say nothing. Her eyes must have said something because Aelin took her daughter's face in her hands and said, fiercely, "You are my daughter, Illia Galathynius. I claim you as my own. You cannot be taken from me. Have I made myself clear?"

Illia closed her eyes. Her head ached.

"Understood," she whispered.

"Good," Aelin said, then pulled Illia into her arms. Illia's head rested against her mother's chest, Aelin's warmth surrounding her completely. She closed her eyes and listened to the music of Aelin's heartbeat.

She slipped into unconsciousness right there, as dreamless a sleep as any she had with Ander by her side.

ROWAN:

Rowan found them like that, Aelin with Illia's head in her lap, gently pulling the escaped strands of Illia's mangled braid from her face.

She looked up at him, his Fireheart, with that same look she'd had the night Illia had been born, and torn the sky apart. Illia's birth had been terrible and frightening. The joy she'd brought had been untouchable. In all the years since, Rowan had felt it all when he looked at her-the terror, how great and terrible she was, and the unspeakable, unimaginable love that came with being with her. Watching her. Raising her. Marveling, every second of every day, that this otherworldly creature was somehow his. Somehow Aelin's.

Exactly as he had dreamed her, on a night when the very possibility of this future-of any future-seemed like it would slip away forever.

That sensation had never changed. From the moment Aelin became pregnant to now, Rowan had never quite lost the sense that his Firebird would slip away: that they would lose her to the sheer vastness of her power, or the wildness of her soul.

Aelin whispered, "I can't let go."

Rowan knelt, pulling them both into his arms. He pressed his lips to Aelin's temple and closed his eyes, resting his hand on Illia's head.

"I won't let go," he vowed.

Aelin whispered, "I don't know how to save her."

Rowan's stomach lurched. He had no answers.

"We will not let go," he said, because it was all he had.

Aelin swallowed. Then she said, "To whatever end."

"To whatever end," he vowed.