"Only luck saved us this time, My Queen."

Cyrene nodded grimly, in full agreement. She stood at the rail surrounding her private gardens, fingering the scorched steel bars as she gazed at the break in the shield -- or rather, what had been caused by the failure of the Gate.

A long length of the fence was melted and fused to the ground, still glowing white with heat. A wide, burned swath of grass stretched almost to the palace walls, and the ruins of two dead black gears and ten of her own littered the area behind her. The Gate's shimmer, usually constant, was gone altogether. If she leaned too hard on the railing, she knew she would fall and plummet to the ocean below.

"The Gate - can it be repaired at all? In any reasonable amount of time? If they return......" She let the sentence hang, not wanting to voice her thoughts. But Synclair shook his head, a long sigh escaping his lips.

"This was a disaster. It'll take weeks, maybe months to repair the Gate and restore it to optimum power. The damage wasn't permanent..... but it might as well be. If we leave Babel's safety field, it'll be like stepping into a pit of snakes; anything that wants to take us out, will."

Cyrene bit her lip. "Solaris."

"Almost definitely."

Solaris wouldn't be hard pressed. If push came to shove, Mordon still had his Omnigear...... and she knew they were hoarding others as well, that her agents hadn't ferreted out yet. Shevat had only Regal, Sophia's own...... and she would not dare try to pilot that one.

"Is Babel's field going to hold?" she asked, pushing thoughts of Omnigears out of her mind.

"I see no reason why it shouldn't. The tower's power comes from below, something we can't tap or harness. It isn't vulnerable."

So they hoped, in any case. She wasn't so sure she wanted to trust anything outside her own city any longer. Events had spun way beyond her control. She only hoped Mordon and the rest of Solaris was experiencing the same difficulty. After all...... Diabalos was friend to no one.

"Can you believe we're back here?" she asked suddenly, still staring down at the tower's base and the island beach far below. "Bound again."

Synclair joined her at the rail. "We should have stayed here, you know. If we hadn't left......"

**If we hadn't left, we wouldn't have lost sight of our place in the world.** Who dreamed of ruling the world when they were bound to the surface, still a part of it? Breaking ties with the land dwellers had been the biggest mistake of her life.

**Listen to me - calling them 'land dwellers' just like a Solarian.** Still...... she sighed for the millionth time, fingers tightening around the rail. Defecting had not been her choice, but if they had succeeded in taking half of the surface away from Solaris, perhaps she could have prevented the misery playing out before her eyes.

"Well, we can't change it," Cyrene finally said, pushing herself away from the dizzying view. "We made our choice, didn't we? Now we're paying for it."

"I stood with you."

"I know you did."

"But sometimes one person's power just isn't enough." Synclair lowered his voice. "I still stand with you, Cyrene. At Arron's last request. I finally see what he said about you was true."

She considered him thoughtfully, lifting one cultured eyebrow in inquiry. "What would that be?"

"A compliment," he replied, some of the old mischief returning to his dark eyes. "Something I think you'd appreciate, if he would allow me to tell you." He winked, just as he had the first time she set foot in his office to be sworn in as queen, and the heavy weight of dispair wavered and died.

"Talking to a dead man isn't normal Synclair. Are you sure you don't need that vacation I offered?"

He grinned for the first time in years. "He'd just rattle his chains at me until I got back to work."

She allowed herself a smile, feeling her heart lighten just a little. When had she last felt even this relaxed?

As if anticipating the turn of her thoughts, Synclair turned to go and paused just before she heard him set foot on the path. "Sunlight becomes you, my Queen. Encasing yourself in ice seems a waste." She blinked and turned around to ask him what he meant, but he was already halfway back to the palace, striding quickly, with purpose.

She turned back to her vigil. Dread gripped her at the thought of making her next rounds through the city. And Synclair's words disturbed her, though they hardly seemed important with the weight of the recent disaster hanging about the city like a cloud.

The prevailing wind shifted slightly, blowing from the south- east. With it, the scent of charred wood, blasted stone, and other things she didn't want to think about came crashing down on her again. Her hair, loose for the first time in ages, whipped about her face and half-blinded her to the shimmering dawn she was trying to enjoy.

She hadn't gotten more than three or four hours of sleep in the last hectic days. This morning she had been routed from her bed by a hysterical servant, and had yet to make herself presentable. Her hair was loose and tangled around her shoulders and elbows, the dress she had managed to pull on already half-soaked with water and blood and mud from marble dust. She hardly felt like a decent human being, much less a queen.

Maybe that was why Synclair had chosen to approach her today of all days. He had been one of her most ardent supporters in her early days on the throne, more like a big brother than her Minister of Defense. But as time passed and the War with Solaris came and went, he had grown so distant......

Or was it her fault? She looked down at herself, rubbing her grimy hands in disgust, and realized that this was the first time since Sophia's death she had left her rooms without her state robes and her entorauge. She didn't look like a queen; she certainly didn't feel like one.

Was that what he meant?

Was she more "Queen of Shevat" than just plain "Cyrene"?

**Is there any difference?** There used to be, she remembered. But it was so long ago that even she couldn't bring the thoughts to mind. What use would it be, in any case? Shevat needed its queen right now, not a confused little handmaiden on the throne.

But oh, how she wished she were that handmaiden now......

Esari and her group were just visible a few feet away, slightly obscured by the now ever-present fog of smoke and dust that coated Aphel. Synclair stopped, stepping aside behind a column to listen.

"...... can't be persuaded, maybe we can offer something different."

"Like what? We have no resources --"

"She can't deny it forever. Even Solaris would be preferable to this wholesale destruction." Esari jerked her shoulders irritably.

"I recall what happened LAST time we listened to Solaris. You weren't there, but --"

"They have too much to lose by killing all of us......" There was silence at her last sentence. Were they actually considering the absurd idea?

"What if the queen won't cooperate with this ?"

Another lordling picked up the thread. "She'll throw us out to Aquavy! I can't stand land dwellers......"

Shallow. So shallow. And traitorous to boot.

Synclair picked his way over a fallen column and let himself slide down the other side, landing gracefully before the small group of dignitaries and the raggedly dressed city council. They all stopped talking at once and turned toward him expectantly.

He grimaced. Traitors - that's what they were. Dependednt on him to risk his hide with the queen when they couldn't scrape up enough nerve to face her themselves. "She refused Kislev's offer, but accepts the timetable you put together for the Gate's repair." He said it simply and bluntly, as was his style. If they thought he would play at their politics, he would see them all in the Abyss.

He only just kept himself from mentioning what he had heard; it would serve no purpose at the moment, and knowledge like that was power when they weren't aware he had it. Cyrene would be recieving another unexpected visit today, it seemed.

"She refused?!" Esari exploded. "Why in hell did she do a thing like that? We can barely feed our own people and she brushed them off like...... like......!"

Synclair turned and glared at her, letting his hostility toward her show through. Her mouth snapped shut. "Our resources aren't as bad as you'd like to think, Esari. You would know that if you bothered to use that mind of yours -- such as it is."

Her eyes narrowed, but he continued. "Solaris has infilterated every country - including Kislev. Would you have us welcoming one of Gebler's spies into our city, with free access to what's left of our Gate?" They were silent, though the members of the council were nodding in agreement with him. "It is not your place to question the Queen's judgement." He hardened his expression as his eyes rested on Esari again. "You yourselves often say we should distrust land dwellers, do you not?"

Her expression was rigid. "We do, of course, support the Queen's decisions. I was simply concerned for the people."

He stared hard at the others, trying to discourage another outburst like Esari's. Most of them misinterpreted his close relationship with the Queen, but the fact she trusted him and listened to his advice was enough to give him higher standing in this group of the 'nobility'- such as it was. They knew the rank didn't mean anything. Cyrene herself had been a handmaiden when she was chosen to ascend the throne -- not a drop of 'noble' blood ran in her veins.

"You've been assigned to deathwatch, Esari. I suggest you report to the Medical Center soon. The rest of you will remain with the council and start sorting out the lists of supplies and citizens in need."

"Her command or yours?" the young lordling he had heard before asked, scowling. Esari's eyes could have been daggers.

"Does it really make a difference, now?"

"You're sure you heard this?" Cyrene asked, voice betraying no emotion. She had none left to give -- only shock at what she was hearing.

"As sure as I am of anything, my Queen."

Synclair placed a sheaf of papers on her desk, and she glanced at them from her place by the window. A formal report, no doubt, detailing the official tasks of the day. "All of them? Even the city council?" Solarian sympathizers, in her own court......

"I cannot say much about the council. They're weak, compared to the others, and may have been involved soley by accident. Still...... I wouldn't trust them, if I were you. They might go either way, I sense......"

She turned her eyes back to the window, twisting strands of her hair around her fingers. His expression, projected in the reflection of the glass, was unreadable to her. "And your standing on this?"

"I told you. I stand with you." Not a hint of hesitation.

An almost painful surge of relief flooded through her. If he had hesitated even slightly...... She pushed that thought away. It had no place now. Still, once more...... "Blind loyalty is well and good, but that can have it's own liabilities."

She saw him smile in the glass. "I think you know better than anyone that I have no qualms with opposing you, if I feel the need."

Yes, she certainly knew *that* fron experience. He wasn't one to let an argument go lightly, nor curry favor by agreeing with her every decision, to her occasional regret. And as far as advisors went, he was the best. She wouldn't have him any other way.

"I could do without the bluntness, Synclair, but....." Cyrene sighed, shrugging easily without the cumbersome weight of her robes clinging to her shoulders. "You're the only one I trust."

He bowed somewhat formally. The gesture seemed hopelessly old-fashioned; something from another time, another world. And it reminded her that he was one of the last......

"Is everything ready, otherwise?" she asked, swiftly changing the subject.

"Everything is going according to plan. Work on the Gate will start tomorrow, and I've received reports from the agents we sent into Bledavik. The plan is still on schedule."

"Good. I hope you were right about what you saw, Synclair. I hope it wasn't just wishful thinking."

"I'd never mistake that face, Cyrene. None of us would."

Her hand closed about the pendant around her neck, vice-like in its grip. He was right. She just wished he wasn't so sure of what he saw.

The last thing she -- or any of them -- needed now was the past, come back to haunt them.

Not even...... that.