She kept looking at me. She had all this magic. The two of us were bathed in it and I knew that if she could have, she would’ve helped me.

I sat on the floor next to my aunt’s remains. It was over. I was done. I’d tried my best and failed.

I’d failed Curran. I’d failed my unborn son. I’d failed the Pack, the Witch Oracle, the city, everyone in it. She was my last hope. Only two options were left now: become my father’s tool like Erra did before me, or die fighting.

I would go back to Atlanta and I would fight. I would fight till my last breath, but I had already failed.

I looked at the specter of my grandmother, bent as if to cradle what was left of her daughter’s body. How terrible must it have been for her? At some point my grandmother must’ve been young and Erra must’ve been a toddler. I could almost picture them walking together through the gardens my father was trying to resurrect. Idyllic and peaceful, just a young woman and her daughter in a place full of water and bright fishes and beautiful water flowers, before the war. Before my aunt turned into a monster. Before she watched all of her children grow up and die, killed by the curse of power and magic that was our blood. I had seen my son through the curtain of time. I didn’t even know him and already I mourned him.

How in the world did it end like this, in an empty stone shell? This couldn’t be what either of them had hoped for. They must’ve wanted love and family. They must’ve wanted happiness. Instead my grandmother died after seeing her daughter become a living plague, and my aunt was never happy. She destroyed and killed in impotent fury, and a part of her must’ve realized that she was trapped by her past and her blood, and so she raged harder and harder, but she could never break free. Even in this age, she awoke and hated being herself so much, she looked for a way to die again.

Tears wet my cheeks. I pulled Sarrat out of its sheath, hugged it the way I used to do with Slayer when I was a child, and cried. I cried for my grandmother, shackled in this concrete tomb so far from home. I cried for my aunt, because I finally understood her. I cried for myself, because I hated feeling helpless and I was so fucking tired of not being able to breathe, and now all my anger was leaking out of my eyes in tears. I cried and cried, my tears falling into the blood. I had nothing left.

Nobody would see it. Nobody would care. I could cry all I wanted and nobody could call me on it.

Finally, I had run out of energy. I wiped my eyes. Time to pick myself up and move on.

My aunt’s bones glowed with ruby light.

I froze on my knees.

The loose bones of Erra’s body shifted, twisting into a round pile. Blades burst from it, stretching straight up and curving, pressed together into a bulb. The red glow flashed and turned bright. The bone blades curved and opened like the petals of a flower.

My aunt stood within the glow, clad in her blood armor. Sadness shadowed her translucent face, her dark hair falling down to her waist.

Oh dear God. It worked.

Her eyes snapped open. The Eater of Cities saw me. “You!”

She charged me and tore right through me. It was like being passed through a fine sieve made of pain and cold. She whipped around, her face shocked. The red fire around her shot out and gripped my body. My feet left the ground. I flew backward and smashed into the stone wall of the chamber. My head swam. Someone set fire to my lungs. The invisible magic hand ground me into the stone. My bones groaned under the pressure.

“You!” Erra snarled. “I should’ve killed you. I will now.”

Red circles swam before my eyes. There wasn’t enough air. I was going to die.

“I wanted to die. You couldn’t even do that right. You’ve raised me with your wailing. How dare you mourn me? Now I’ll take you with me.”

The tempest behind Erra shifted.

Her eyes widened. “Mother?”

The magic pressure vanished. I crashed to the floor, desperately sucking in air. My lungs burned and refused to expand.

The magic storm coalesced into Semiramis, standing before Erra’s translucent form. My aunt stood still, her mouth open, her expression soft.

“Ama,” Erra whispered. “Oh gods, Ama.”

The magic of Semiramis embraced her. Erra hugged her back, their power mixing. The walls around us trembled from the pressure.

Tears wet my aunt’s eyes. She looked past her mother at the bare walls. “Gods, what has he done to you . . .” she whispered. “What did he do . . .”

I finally rolled over onto my back and managed to take a breath. Everything felt bruised. Someone had turned my diaphragm into barbed wire when I wasn’t looking.

Erra loomed over me. “Talk.”

Great. I had to say the most important thing first, before she squeezed the life out of me.

“He’ll kill my son.”

“You have a son?”

“No, but I will.”

Her magic jerked me upright. If she bounced me off the wall again, I swore I would set her damn bones on fire.

“How certain are you?”

“It’s been foretold by several oracles. I have seen it in a vision. There’s a battle. He runs my baby through with a spear and hoists it up like a standard.”

She’d had sons. She’d loved them, even though they were violent and mad. She had to understand.

“And so you brought me here, into this tomb, and called me back into existence with your tears, weeping by my corpse like some weakling?”

That was my aunt for you.

“To do what?” Erra stalked in front of me, back and forth. “To kill my brother?”