Finally, a scream came out of her mouth.

  It was loud and strong, powerful like a sandstorm sweeping away everything and everyone in its path, regardless of the costliness of the object or the status of the creature.

  "You."

  It was her voice. A voice that sounded as if it belonged to death itself.

  "This is all your fault.”

  The guards said something, but she heard nothing. They held her tightly, twisting her arms and pinning her face to the floor.

  Suddenly, golden threads burst from the men's bodies, wrapping around them just as they had around the people in the bazaar: tight, with no way to escape without killing themselves.

  No longer held by anyone, she fell to the floor, her body and face slamming against it, making an unpleasant clatter of bones against the tiles.

  The Prince, watching in horror, ran up—but not to the guards, but to Ife—then, leaning over her dead—as he thought—body, said:

  "Airena... are... are you... are you alive?"

  He held out his hand to her — weakly, as if fearing that the answer to his question would be silence, which meant an affirmative answer.

  But she suddenly raised her head and looked at Arenor with eyes of liquid gold and said a single word:

  "Die."

  In an instant, Ife pounced on Arenor.

  "You must die."

  Her arms wrapped around his neck, squeezing weakly — strength was not enough.

  The gold of her eyes, as if melting on the fire of savage hatred, flowed from her eyes, falling onto Arenor's face, leaving such beautiful divots on his such beautiful face, distorted with a mixture of shock and horror.

  Coming to his senses, the Prince gently but forcefully removed her hands from his throat. Holding her wrists firmly, he said:

  "Airena—"

  "Where is it?"

  Her wild gaze was focused only on him — as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist for her; there was only Prince Arenor and her — a girl no longer sure of her name and driven only by a fierce desire for revenge.

  "What? Airena, I—"

  She looked around him, but not seeing what she wanted, she shouted again:

  "Where is your thread?"

  Her arms twitched frantically, as did her entire body; Ife wriggled with such force that it felt as if one more moment and her bones would crack, her muscles would burst, her nerve endings would tear, and she herself would break, just as her own life had last night.

  "A thread? You mean—"

  Throwing a quick glance at his guards, still wrapped in golden threads, Arenor finally realized what Ife meant; his eyes widened and he opened his mouth again to say something, but not in time; another inhuman scream escaped her mouth:

  "Why aren't it coming out?"

  Her body was weakening: the force of her wriggling was diminishing, the stream of blood flowing from her nose was getting bigger and faster, and her eyes were rolling back harder and harder with each passing moment.

  "Why? Why? Why?"

  Her voice was getting weaker too: Ife wasn't screaming anymore; she was mumbling muffled.

  "Why?"

  Suddenly, the golden threads entangling the guards unraveled, and, straightening, burst into their bodies as sharply and painfully as they had burst out of there. The men rushed forward, grabbing her and roughly pinning her to the floor, they began to say something, but Ife still couldn't hear them; her eyes were still focused on Arenor.

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  "Why?" her voice turned into an unintelligible whisper.

  Even so, the Prince still understood what she said.

  Blood spilled under her face in a puddle of scarlet: the exact same shade as the dawn he'd greeted with Irai the last time they'd been together.

  "She's too dangerous," the second guard said, pinning her to the floor. "We need to eliminate her. Now."

  Silently pulling a dagger from its sheath, the second crouched down and pressing his knee on Ife's back—so that her bones crunched under his weight and a painful moan escaped her mouth—hovered over her and brought the point to her throat, about to sever her carotid artery, when suddenly he heard the Prince's order:

  "Drop the dagger."

  Turning his head in his direction, the guard saw Arenor's eyes widen with shock, staring in horror at the dagger blade so close to Ife's neck. His chest was heaving rapidly, his limbs shaking convulsively, and his heart was beating frantically — so hard that it felt as if it would stop in another second, unable to cope with the fear he was feeling.

  "But—"

  "Immediately."

  The man reluctantly complied and dropped the dagger, which, as it hit the floor, made a loud sound that almost painfully stripped at their nerves stretched like threads. He realized that in any other situation he would never have done this, but now, seeing the Prince so frightened for the first time in his life—and not because of a threat to his life, but because of a threat to the life of some girl he'd never seen before—he couldn't disobey his orders.

  "Get up off her."

  This time, the guard obeyed without objection, but nevertheless, like the other, he continued to pin her to the floor, so that in case of anything, he would be able to protect the Prince and prevent the calamity that, given her divine power, could descend upon them at any moment.

  Without getting up from the floor, Arenor crawled over to Ife's body lying on top of him; blood had finally stopped flowing from her nose, but tears still streamed down her cheeks and trickled down, mixing the golden and scarlet colors together.

  "Airena—"

  "I'm not—... not her. I'm Ife—... Yes, my name is Ife..."

  Sighing tiredly, Arenor gently lifted her head so he could see her eyes, but they, still drenched in gold, looked through him. He ran the pad of his finger caressingly, almost weightlessly, over her cheek, and asked:

  "Who did this to you?"

  Surprisingly, Ife didn't pull away; she didn't react in any way at all, as if her presence was merely physical, and morally she was somewhere very far away.

  "Those guys... there were three of them... three guys..." then, she recounted in an unnecessarily long and not very coherent way everything that happened that night when her life was irrevocably changed.

  Even so, Arenor listened to her intently: not interrupting or distracting her from the story. When she finally finished, he asked:

  "You repeated the name Irai so often... who is he? Who is Irai?"

  "Irai? He's everything... he's everything that was, everything that was meant to be, and everything that will never be again... he's..." she hesitated for a second, "he's my brother..."

  The mention of the last word caused another wave of golden tears to stream from her reddened eyes.

  "Shh," the Prince stroked her cheeks again, but more tangibly this time, as if trying to bring her to her senses. "You said they said that according to him, you've had incredibly good looks since childhood... they didn't tell you who this 'he' was?"

  Seeing his compressed lips and frowning eyebrows and blue eyes literally digging into Ife with their gaze, they realized: the Prince clearly had ideas of who this he might be.

  "He... I don't know who he is... no, they don't..."

  Her muttering brought a spark of hope to Arenor's despair-clouded eyes.

  "What if I help you find him, huh, Airena?"

  "I'm not—"

  "What if I help you find the person responsible for your brother's death and take revenge on him?" the Prince interrupted her, instantly correcting himself and removing the name 'Airena' from the sentence.

  "I've already... already killed... them all..."

  Her last hope was threatening to vanish when she suddenly said:

  "But... bury..."

  "What?" interjected Aranor.

  "Bury Irai... bury my brother... I want to..."

  "Bury? All right, Airena, all right," agreed Arenor immediately. "We'll have a burning ceremony—"

  "No!"

  She jumped up sharply, and the guards, reacting instantly, pinned her to the floor again.

  Ife seemed to regain consciousness: the cloudy veil fell and she stopped looking through the Prince, and golden tears flowed from her eyes with even more force than before. Loud sobs escaped from her mouth; only her uncontrollable sobs and his wildly beating heart broke the silence of the hall.

  "A sarcophagus... Irai deserved a sarcophagus... the dearest... the best... one just like he himself was..."

  "But we don't—" began one of the guards, but Arenor interrupted him.

  "All right. All right, Airena. We'll bury him in a sarcophagus, we won't burn him—"

  "And mummify... his body must be mummified..."

  "Of course, Airena," the Prince acquiesced to her every word; acquiesced to her every request. "Of course we will mummify—"

  "But his body—" began the same guard again, but Arenor interrupted him again.

  "We will mummify your brother's body, Airena. By all means mummify him and bury him in the finest and most expensive sarcophagus," he threw a look unreadable to Ife, but understandable to the guards. "But first, you must promise me something..."

  "What do you—"

  "Become my assassin," he blurted out in a flash, throwing everyone in the throne room—including himself—into complete shock.

  "I—"

  "My father already has an assassin. I want one for myself too..."

  He pouted childishly, and his tone became like a cranky little boy wanting the same toy as another child. But despite this outward facade, the guards could see the tense twitch of his lips and hear the desperate notes in his voice; so they asked no questions.

  "But I'm a... divine power—"

  "You needn't worry about that, Airena. Apharia though it may seem on the surface to be a completely intolerant country towards gods and divine power wielders, it really isn't. No matter how much the Councilors pretend that they aren't hypocrites, it's obvious that they are the most enormous of them all. The kingdom only forbids such things when it doesn't benefit them, but here's when it's exactly the opposite..."

  Arenor was silent about what usually happened next, for there was nothing good he could say, unfortunately; it would simply be a lie.

  The Kingdom did kill those who were unlucky enough to possess divine powers that were not favorable to the Council, but those who possessed divine powers that were favorable to the Council were even less fortunate: instead of a quick death, they became slaves of the Kingdom for the rest of their lives and were obliged to obey any orders, no matter how terrible. Otherwise, they could lose everything they held dear; including their own lives.

  "So, do you agree?" he smiled, giving her a smile to make her believe him; believe he was telling the truth; believe he wasn't lying; believe and trust him with the only thing she had left: her life. "I give you the opportunity to honor your brother and give him a chance at a happy afterlife, as well as the title of assassin for the Crown Prince of Apharia himself and—"

  "I agree..." whispered Ife, not even waiting for Arenor to finish his sentence. "I agree..."

  Arenor's eyes lit up with a sudden rush of relief mixed with happiness and hope that he could still manage to turn his lies into truth for her sake.

  For Airena's sake.

  "Good, good, all right. Well done, Airena," he began to mutter nonstop, as if he had gone into himself for joy. "I promise to give you the best—"

  "Your Highness," the guards interrupted him at the same time, casting him a meaningful look. "She has fainted."

  The smile vanished from his face in a flash, but the sparks in his eyes still shone with a joyful fire that the guards had never before seen in the Prince's eyes.

  "Take her to the healer. Immediately," Arenor ordered. "And see to it that she survives. Otherwise—" he stammered, and without finishing his sentence, rose to his feet and walked over to the dais where the thrones stood.

  One of the guards—the first—silently lifted Ife's body in his arms—neither her own weight nor the weight of her shackles made him uncomfortable—and also silently walked out of the throne room.

  The other opened his mouth to say something, but the Prince interrupted him:

  "You go too, and see to her."

  "But—"

  "What 'but'?" asked Arenor, not even turning to look at him.

  "...I understand you," immediately correcting his mistake, the man walked out, leaving the Prince to himself.

  No one saw how Arenor, Crown Prince of Apharia, walk over to his father's throne—where until a few minutes ago he had been sitting and listening disinterestedly to the words of his guards—and pick up the scorpion-shaped ring that had fallen beside it, brought to him this morning by the night guards.

  And no one else heard how Arenor, standing in the middle of the throne room and wiping the traces of Ife's tears from his face, leaving such sweet outwardly but so bitter inwardly golden imprints on his fingertips, said:

  "I won't let you leave me, Airena. Not anymore.”