Bella Powerforce had ruled the enchanted realms for seven hundred years, and today she meant to give the job away. She sat on the crystal throne outside the palace gates, the crown of jagged crystal heavy on her head. Below her, the courtyard filled with candidates: mages, generals, quiet farmers with steady eyes. She was a Gianna. She looked twenty. She was tired in a way that had nothing to do with her body. If she chose wrong, the realms would fall in a season, and time itself would slip from its track. Heather came up the steps first, pink hair loose, hands empty. She did not bow. She never did. "Cyndi put her book on the west lawn," Heather said. "Open. On a stand. Where every candidate has to walk past it." Bella looked past her sister. She could see it from the throne: a purple grimoire spread on a pedestal at the edge of the crowd, gold light bleeding off its pages. Cyndi stood beside it in a dark robe, arms folded, watching the line of hopefuls thin around her book like water around a stone. It was a claim. It was a threat dressed as a display. Bella lifted the small crystal shard from the arm of her throne. It was the test. Whoever held it long enough to feel the weight of every living thing in the realms could try for the crown. She had held it for seven centuries. Most people dropped it inside a minute. She called Cyndi forward first, because putting it off would be worse. Cyndi climbed the steps without hurry. Bella held out the shard. "Take it. If you can carry what I carry, the throne is yours." Cyndi took the shard. Her hand did not shake. Her eyes did not change. She held it for a full minute, then two, and Bella watched her face and saw no strain, only appetite. That was the answer. The shard measured burden. Cyndi felt none. She wanted the seat, not the weight. Bella took the shard back. "No," she said. "Not you." Cyndi's mouth tightened once. She said, "You'll regret that," and walked back down the steps to her book. Bella dismissed the rest of the candidates before she tested any of them. Heather stayed on the steps, watching Cyndi cross the lawn and lift the grimoire off its stand. "She won't stop now," Heather said. "She'll come at the throne directly." Bella set the shard back into the arm of the throne. Her hand was steady. Her chest was not. She had refused her sister in front of the realms, and she had no successor, and the one person who wanted the crown most was the one person who could not have it. The crown on her head felt heavier than it had that morning.

A week after the failed test, Bella rode the west border at dawn. The grass there had gone black. A mound of scorched dirt rose in the field, veined with red light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Cracks ran through it. Heat came off it in slow waves. Bella dismounted and walked close enough to see her own reflection warped in the glassy stone. Her sister had left a marker. Cyndi was watching, and the land was already answering her. Bella went back to the palace grounds and ordered a tent raised on the south lawn. It went up in a day, faceted panels of pale crystal that threw color across the grass. She sent word to every branch of the family, near cousins and far, anyone with Gianna blood. Come forward. Be seen. She would not test strangers again while her sister salted the fields. They came in slow. Most were nervous, some were greedy, a few were kind and plainly unfit. Bella spoke with each one and let them go. On the fourth day, her eldest daughter walked in without being called. Silver stopped in the middle of the tent and folded her hands. "You skipped me," Silver said. "I skipped all of you." "Test me." Bella took the shard from her sleeve. Silver held it. Her jaw set. Her shoulders dropped by degrees, then held. She did not smile. She did not drop it. After three minutes Bella took it back, and her hand shook when she did. Silver felt the weight. Silver could carry it. Before Bella could speak, the tent flap moved and a girl with gold hair stepped inside. Bella knew the face before she placed it. Cyndi's daughter. Goldie stood at the entrance and did not come closer. "I want the shard too," Goldie said. "Not the crown. The other one. Time." Bella went still. She had not offered the Time Keeper's seat separately. She had held both so long she had stopped thinking of them as two things. Goldie held out her hand. Bella gave her the shard. The girl closed her fingers around it and stood there with her mouth flat, and the light in the tent slowed, then caught, then moved again. Two full minutes. Bella took the shard back. Goldie's palm was red. "You stopped it," Bella said. "I can do that." Bella looked at her daughter, then at her sister's daughter. Two candidates in one afternoon, both blood, one from each side of the war she was trying not to fight. She sat down on the crystal bench and set the shard on her knee. She had told the realms no siblings. She had not said no nieces. The rule she had made to keep Cyndi out had just let Cyndi's daughter in. Outside, past the tent wall, the black patch in the west field pulsed once, brighter, as if it had heard.

Two candidates stood in the crystal tent, and Bella could not choose between them. Silver had the weight for the crown. Goldie had the touch for time. But the shard measured burden, not intent. It could not tell Bella whether Goldie served her mother in secret, or served only the hours she loved. Choose blind, and she might hand the realms to Cyndi through her daughter. Bella needed to see inside them both. So she called them back to the tent at dusk. Silver came first and folded her hands. Goldie followed, jaw set, gold hair loose. The panels threw colored light across their faces. Bella held up a plain crystal cup. "Drink," Bella said. "It binds truth for the span of one question. You cannot lie while it holds." Goldie looked at the cup like it might bite. "You think I'm hers." "I think I don't know yet." Both drank. Silver first, then Goldie. Bella set the cup down and faced her niece. "Do you take orders from Cyndi?" The light in the tent held still. Goldie's throat worked. "No," she said. "She left me. I raised myself. I want the hours. Not her war." The cup did not crack. Truth. Bella breathed out. Then Goldie's face changed. Her hand went to her chest, and she staggered against a crystal panel. "Something's wrong," Goldie said. "The bind pulls. Not from me. From my mother's magic." Her eyes went far away. "She's using a thread. A trust spell. It runs from her to—" She stopped. "Heather." Silver stepped forward. "Your sister?" Bella's stomach dropped. Heather had warned her of Cyndi's plot. Heather had broken a spell to do it. Now the thread showed Bella where it ended. "Cyndi has her," Goldie said. Her voice went flat and final. "Bound at Blackspire. The fortress. I can feel the walls through the spell." Bella had spent the season hunting Cyndi's stronghold and found nothing. Her sister had hidden it well. Heather could not name it, bound as she was. But the truth cup had reached down the same thread and dragged the answer up. "You're certain," Bella said. "I bend time. I know a lock when I feel one." Goldie pressed her palm flat to the panel. "She's alive. Scared. The children aren't with her." Bella looked at the two girls in the colored light. She had come for insight into their hearts, and she had it. Goldie was not Cyndi's weapon. Goldie had just handed Bella her enemy's door. But the same drink that cleared Goldie had shown Bella a worse thing. Her youngest sister was a prisoner. Retaliation, exactly as feared. And the moment Bella moved to free Heather, Cyndi would know the fortress was found. "Silver," Bella said. "Ready the court. We ride for Blackspire tonight." Silver nodded once. Goldie straightened, gold eyes hard. "I'm coming," Goldie said. "She took my aunt. I'll open the hours myself."