Time passes strangely for me. Drifting in and out of consciousness over a matter of… I don’t know how long, will do that to a mare. My mind is hazy, my body is in pain. So much pain. I can’t think straight. Eventually my body settles into a kind of half-asleep stupor. I do little but wait patiently as my chest knits itself back together inch by aching inch. It doesn’t matter. I wait for the end with closed eyes and a silent prayer for my sister. Perhaps she shall enough magic left to survive the apocalypse. Sombra would want to drain me fully before feasting on her. But my end is virtually assured. I await it in silence.

And I wait, and wait, and wait and wait, but the end does not come.

At length my trickle of magic finishes repairing my body. My heart, left as little more than reddish jelly, begins to beat again. As my lungs fill and fresh oxygen floods through my bloodstream, my mind begins to perk up. Naturally, the first thing that I do is start asking questions.

Why am I still alive? The logical answer is that either the army has failed in its assigned role, or else found reason not to execute it. Admittedly they don’t have any real way to be prepared for what my magic could unleash, but the latter scenario seems more plausible to me. If Sombra had routed them, he would have come back here to gloat, and then take what’s left of me. It’s been too long for that, and his machine has ground to a complete halt. I am alone in a dark room strapped to a dead device. I therefore conclude that the usurper king has most likely been driven off or, dare I get my hopes up, defeated.

The question then becomes: how, and by whom? The army is right out. Brave and well-equipped as they may be, them defeating a dark sorcerer of Sombra’s caliber supercharged with the bulk of my magic without destroying the area is totally implausible. Full bore solar magic has the power to wipe out an army, and a wielder with no scruples about collateral damage or civilian casualties would experience little difficulty in doing so. It therefore virtually certain that any victor is going to be an alicorn. Unless somepony’s broken out the Elements of Harmony without my knowledge, they would have the only realistic chance.

Who, then? Luna? Possible, but I doubt she would have retreated and left me behind. If Sombra took me, he was virtually certain to have captured her as well. She could of course have escaped, but… to be entirely objective, that’s not very likely. Cadence or Shining Armor? If they aren’t dead, they would have been captured and drained to begin with. The final, and most likely possibility is the one to bring a faint smile to my face. Twilight Sparkle has come through against all odds so many times even I have almost lost count. If Sombra underestimated her but a little, it would not surprise me in the least to see that mare swoop in and save the day yet again.

Now that I have established a theory, what do I do? For the moment, the answer is obviously: nothing. I am a spent alicorn. I feel empty, almost as much as the day Tirek returned. What magic hasn’t been forcefully ripped from me was spent on healing the otherwise-mortal injuries I sustained from the false Twilight Sparkle. I have little more than a few sparks left inside me. And I’ll need more to break these chains. Their magic seems to be holding, for the moment. So I will do what I have done so many times before: close my eyes, lay back, and settle in for the long haul. I close my eyes, clear my mind, and focus on stirring the last embers of the great bonfire that was once my magic.

Sometime later, my meditation gets interrupted by the sound of a door getting rather brutally kicked open. Light floods into the dark chamber. I turn my head and slowly open my eyes.

Princes Mi Amore Cadenza stands there, horn emitting a soft blue glow.

“Hello, niece,” I greet her in a polite tone. My voice sounds weak and raspy, even to my ears. “I am pleased to see that you are alive.”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, the pink alicorn walks slowly, carefully up towards my chained body, eyes narrowed and suspicious.

“There is no need for worry,” I tell her with a soft sigh. “I am quite harmless at the moment.”

Again, she doesn’t answer, stalking further towards me with an expression halfway divided between incredulity and hatred.

“Before you do what you are going to do, at least tell me this: is Sombra vanquished? Is the Crystal Empire safe? What of my sister and student? For old times’ sake.”

“Sombra’s dead,” Cadence spits. “He paid for what he did.”

Permanently this time, I should hope.

“Just,” she hisses softly, now all but on top of me. “As you’re about to, auntie dearest.”

“Everything I did,” I answer, looking her directly in the eye. “I did for the good of all. All of my life I have served and sacrificed for others.”

“Liar…” she says, eyes slits. “Traitor... Murderer.”

“My own integrity was one sacrifice I offered, yes. Someone had to. As the eldest of our kind, that duty was mine, and I performed it. I offer no apology.”

Her eyes actually widen a bit. “Why? You’re at my mercy.”

“You are going to kill me no matter what I say, niece. I will not spend my last few moments on this earth pointlessly begging you for mercy.”

“You’re that eager to die?”

“Merely realistic, Cadence.”

“Don’t call me that. You don’t have the right.”

“Very well, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. I repeat my question from earlier. Is the empire safe? Are my sister and student alright?”

“For your information, yes to the first,” she says. “Shining has gone to free Luna. He knows where she is being held. Twilight we don’t yet know about, but we will find her.”

“I see. That is good news. Whatever you do to me here, I ask that you kindly leave my sister out of it. She knows nothing at all,” I lie to her.

“I want you, Auntie Celestia,” Cadence says. “Nopony else. I don’t target the innocent.”

“You have much to learn, my dear niece. Perhaps when you are as old as I you will understand the true measure of hard choices.”

“I understand that you’re a double-crossing, baby-stealing monster, Celestia. That’s all I need to know.”

“Such lovely idealism,” I smile faintly. “May it serve you better than it did me.”

Cadence grits her teeth and growls a little.

“So then, if this is goodbye,” I lay my head back a bit. “I simply wish to say that I wish you the best of luck, Mi Amore. May your empire prosper, may your love bloom eternal, and may your foals be many and well beloved by all. May you find peace and happiness, and may you never be called on to sacrifice as I was. Oh, and please tell my sister that I loved her until the very end.”

“You… you…” Cadence is openly snarling at me. It is clear that of all the things she expected out of me, a blessing wasn’t one of them. And it is just making her angrier.

“You may pretend that I never cared for you, Cadence, but you know as well as I that that is not true. Your magic cannot work on those whose hearts know no love. If I am to die here, I simply wish for you to know that. I only ever wanted the best for you.”

“You are a snake-tongued liar and a murderer,” she declares, face hardening. “I want nothing to do with you. When I end you here, it will be justice twenty years overdue.”

“Then I will enter the next life with my head held high,” I answer. “I did only what I thought was the best for all. I sacrificed everything I had for that. You will get no apologies out of me.”

“So be it,” Cadence hisses, her horn beginning to glow more brightly. “I thought that maybe you had a conscience. I thought perhaps you might prove willing to admit your crimes with death hanging over you. Clearly, I was wrong.”

“You hoped that I would offer you vindication for what you are about to do,” I shake my head. “You will get nothing of the sort. My blessing is all I will bestow.”

“I don’t want your blessing!”

“But you have it regardless.”

“Shut up already!” she barks. “I’m tired of this! Tired of you babbling! You know what I think? I think you’re scared! You know that you’re about to be plunged into the infernal abyss and made to pay for all your crimes! You want to make me doubt myself, to make yourself look the part of the heroic martyr and loving aunt so that I hesitate! You’re just trying to delay the inevitable for a few more seconds!”

My ears prick up a little.

“Perhaps that is true,” I tell her. “Perhaps I really am just a terrified old mare, clinging to any straw to put off death just a moment longer. I would hardly be first. Perhaps all of this was just my attempt to plead for mercy in a roundabout way, or to introduce just a speck of doubt into your head. Alternatively…”

I let the word hang in the air as I settle back against the device, closing my eyes.

“Perhaps I was just stalling for time.”

“Wha-”

I lie back against the Sombra’s machine as an overpowering aura of chill fills the room, driving my body to shivers in the space of a second. A heartbeat later I hear two sets of hooves burst into the rapidly-crowding cell.

“Tia!” cries one voice.

“Princess Celestia!” yells the other.

I can hear the two of them rush over towards me, feel their breath against my neck. Slowly, groggily, I force my eyes open in the most wearied manner I can feign. I see exactly who I expected to see. Well, save for one figure. Still, my smile I quite genuine.

“Lulu…” I breathe. “Cadence… Shining Armor… so good to see you all again.”

“Sister!” the worry is evident in Luna’s eyes as she shoves past the other two. “Are you alright?! What did that fiend do to you?!” she tears open the collar around my neck with one powerful flash of blue magic.

“I am… alright,” I say. “Just relieved to… see you all again. Please… get me down from here.”

“Of course!” Luna’s magic tears chain after chain, runic black iron no match for her fury. “I’ll help you! Lean on me!”

And with that, my dear little sister destroys the last chain binding me to Sombra’s device. My body, weak and virtually devoid of magic, falls limply. Luna catches me with her own telekinesis, helping me to stand up straight. One wing offers me further support as I take my first, limping steps off towards the exit. Shining Armor offers my support from the opposite side, like a pair of living crutches. I’ll admit to staring at the oversized windigo sharing the room with my family, but I’m sure that’s a story I’ll hear soon enough.

Just I do manage to walk throw the room’s threshold, I get a quick glimpse back at my niece. I swear I can see an eyelid twitching.

That… that… that bitch!

Celestia tricked me! I had her alone, powerless, and at my mercy, and she still played me like a cheap violin! She knew she had nothing but words, but she still managed to hit enough buttons to keep me listening until more ponies showed up! I could hardly kill her in front of her sister and my husband!

ARGH!

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid! Why didn’t I just kill her immediately?! Nopony else was around! Sombra would have been blamed! But nooooo, I had to go listening to her babble and lie shamelessly to me until she used up all my time! Now the opportunity is gone!

It’s all I can do to contain my burning rage for the next few hours and not go on a wild rampage through what’s left of the palace. Heaven knows half of me wants to. This was the chance I had hoped for these last twenty years, and I completely blew it! At least I have the excuse of feeling unwell such that nopony asks questions when I don’t do much in the immediate aftermath.

Shining, Luna, and Celestia busy themselves with the rescue and cleanup efforts. Luna starts by restoring the sun to its proper place much further from the planet, and then slowly setting it. It turns out that my aunts brought an army, and it also moves in on their orders. With the storm dispelled the ice begins to melt on its own, but the arrival of thousands of Equestrian troops to the scene speeds the process immensely. We’re very lucky, I suppose, that wendigo ice is supernaturally preservative. Ordinary freezing would have just killed everypony in the empire, but the ice demons prefer to keep their prey alive.

Somehow, I can’t bring myself to feel lucky.

Speaking of demons, we now have one being hosted in the palace. The very same one that froze me and, as I find out very shortly, Aunt Luna. It – or he, apparently – introduces himself in his own language. Surprise, surprise, Celestia speaks fluent demonic monstrosity. His name is Hoarfrost and he, apparently, helped Shining against Sombra. I don’t trust his motives one bit, but Shiny vouches for him and won’t take no for an answer. So I don’t really have any choice but to tolerate another monster underneath my roof.

Search parties have also been dispatched towards the ocean and Twilight’s last known location. It’s presently a warzone, so finding my sister-in-law may take some time. For further bad news, the closeness of the sun started wildfires in the grasslands surrounding the Imperial City, some of which are still yet to be brought under control. Oh, and at least thirty-one ponies are confirmed dead in all of this, including the entire staff of the Equestrian embassy. All because of me and my reckless stupidity.

You can imagine that that does wonders for my mood.

Shining senses, obviously, that something is off with me, but he doesn’t really get it. He’s thinking I’m just sad and scared, whereas in reality I’m raging and guilty and wildly mournful all at the same time. Between that and his understandable distraction, his attempts to comfort me over the next few hours, while sweet, come to very little.

So, by the time that the four of us meet up in an army command tent late that night, I’m not exactly upbeat. Sullen silence is the most I can manage, along with the occasional glare over at my aunt.

“On the plus side,” Shining Armor is saying. “We’ve managed to extract another forty-seven buried or injured ponies and gotten them to treatment in time. The downside,” here he looks down a little, “Is that we can add four more names to the ranks of those confirmed dead. They were frozen inside their homes when the fire started falling. Sombra wasn’t very discriminate.”

Make that thirty-five ponies dead because of me.

“I see,” Luna nods grimly. She hasn’t left her sister’s side since she pried her off that machine. I know, I’ve been watching. “And what of the ice?”

“Almost all gone now. Less than ten percent of the city and two percent of the citizenry still encased. Your pyromancers have been a great help,” he nods to both Luna and Celestia. “Soon we’ll have it all cleared away, and then…” his wings twitch a bit, and he looks in the direction of the distant sea.

“Peace, Shining Armor,” Celestia says in that infuriatingly calm tone of hers. “Your new friend’s information has proven valuable. Our team has already narrowed in on Twilight’s probable location. She will be free very soon, you have my word.”

“Probable isn’t good enough!” he snaps. “I should be out there with them, not stuck back here managing-”

“You have duties to your land,” Celestia cuts him off, a little harshly. “As well as to your family. Your sister will be rescued without need of your intervention. Your subjects need you more, for the moment.”

My husband growls at her, to my delight.

“Please,” she says, expression softening. “Simply trust me on this. I am as eager to see Twilight Sparkle happy and free as you are. But neither of us is in any condition to be plunging into the depths for her at the moment.”

That is the one bright point of this whole debacle. I can see that Celestia’s atherial presence appears to have noticeably deteriorated. Not as though she’s simply run through her pool of magic for the moment – as though that pool has shrunk. Considerably. I never thought I’d thank King Sombra for anything, but it appears as though he took a large chunk of her magic with him when he died. Auntie Celestia is weaker than I’ve ever seen her, and she isn’t likely to recover. That will be helpful.

“I am pleased to report,” Luna steers the conversation back onto topic. “That our weather pegasi have brought the wildfire almost entirely under control. A few have burned out already. The danger to the Crystal Empire’s outlying villages has passed.”

We all nod in relief, especially me. No more deaths today, gods. Please.

Well… if you’re feeling generous, maybe one.

“That is good to hear,” Celestia says. “Cadence? How are our relief efforts going?”

“Fine,” I mumble, barely able to bring myself to say a word to her without spitting acid.

Shining Armor puts a hoof around my neck and pulls me a little closer. It’s nice, but it doesn’t really help.

“Good,” she nods. “We do not want anypony going hungry or without shelter tonight. And on a somewhat brighter note, I can assure you that the Imperial Palace has been stabilized. It is no longer in danger of crumbling and crushing somepony.”

“Glad to hear it,” Shining says, petting my mane a little. I won’t lie, it feels good. “Everything seems to be going…”

“About as well as could be reasonably expected,” Luna finishes for him. “Considering the circumstances, the death and destruction were quite limited. It might easily have been far worse.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Shining nods his head.

“That does bring me to another topic,” Celestia chimes in again. “While we proceed with the recovery, we must also investigate how this disaster came to be in the first place.”

“So that we may avert any potential repetitions,” Luna agrees.

“Correct. And to that end I thought it might be best to start with one of Sombra’s former co-conspirators,” my aunt looks over her shoulder.

“If you would.”

A few moments later the tent’s door opens, and immediately the temperature inside the room drops markedly. I begin to shiver, but from Hoarfrost’s cold. No, what makes me shake is the way that ice spirit is looking over at me.

He knows.

I don’t know how – scratch that, Sombra must have told him. Why, I’m not entirely certain, but I’m sure he must know that I was the one who lowered the kingdom’s defenses in spite of knowing that Sombra’s ghost was around. Perhaps the king was just gloating to a partner, or perhaps this demon was savvy enough to demand details of the plan before committing to it.

And as for Celestia… I look at her, and her expression is utterly neutral. I’m not fooled. She must have spoken with this beast already. She knows that he knows, and she wants the truth to come out in front of Shining and Luna. Or just enough of the truth for her purposes. She wants to make me look like a dangerous moron! But because the damned geas is still in place, I can’t tell the whole story!

What do I do? What do I do?! What do I do?!

“Mr. Hoarfrost,” Celestia begins. “Could you please shed some light on what exactly it was that happened here? From my perspective one moment everything was, if not perfect, relatively normal, and the next King Sombra is announcing his return backed up by an army. Such a maneuver could not have been pulled off on the spur of the moment. There had to have been plan in place and advance knowledge of the state of the Crystal Empire. As a leader among your people, you would have known more, would you not?”

He hisses something in his own language, nodding.

“Please, elaborate.”

The ice spirit begins to hiss, sputter, and screech in the incomprehensible language of his kind. Celestia “kindly” provides a translation for those of us less acquainted with it.

“Yes,” she repeats for us. “You are correct that there was a plan in place. The ghost of the one that you call Sombra approached us years ago. He offered to give us many of your cities, great masses of your people, for food in perpetuity if we would help him.”

Maybe it’s the extreme language barrier, but to me Hoarfrost doesn’t sound remorseful at all. Why is he still alive after this, much less sitting in a tent with us?

“At first we called him liar and drove him off. We thought him a competitor. But he returned, time and time again, with the same offer. Then he started coming with changelings in tow, and their queen began to vouch for him. We knew her of old, for we were once bitter rivals, forced into uneasy peace by you,” the spirit looks around. “They had spent many years sheltering on the outskirts of our continent, hiding from the other races.”

The changelings hid on the Lost Continent? No wonder nopony found them – it’s well known to be an uninhabitable death trap.

“We did not believe that you could be overcome. But they argued, and argued persuasively that it could be done. We simply needed to lure you to a place of our choosing with a bait you could not refuse.”

“The Crystal Empire was your bait,” Shining says, neutrally.

Hoarfrost nods.

“And your sister,” Celestia translates his next rumblings. “We knew that the diarchs would have to respond to that. And then we could work together to eliminate them. But the question we wondered was: how? We are not fools. We knew of your Crystal Heart. Sombra assured us he would make a way to bypass it. We were skeptical, until he told us how he would do it.”

“How?” asks Luna.

“He would wait until just the right moment, and then he would have its magic drained away.”

“That’s not possible!” Shining interjects. “He never had that power! The only pony who that kind of access to the Crystal Heart was…”

“Me,” I finish, hanging my head.

My husband looks confused. “So, what, was Sombra just hovering around the Crystal Empire and waiting until Cadence overused the magic or something?”

“No. We were informed of the date and time weeks in advance.”

“Weeks?!” his eyes widen. “How is that possible?! How could Sombra possibly have known when the heart’s magic would be down?”

The next screeches Hoarfrost makes are short, sweet, and to the point.

“Ask your wife.”

“Cadence,” he looks over at me, all trust and confusion. “What does he mean?”

“Uh… “I shrink back. “I… uh…”

I’m flailing about for something right now. I can’t just dismiss what’s been said, but for the life of me I can’t think of a plausible untruth either. Simply saying that Sombra was spying on me wouldn’t explain a timetable laid out that long in advance. And as I look into Shining’s eyes… after all that this put him through, doesn’t he at least deserve to know?

“I knew.”

Shining freezes on the spot, staring at me. “What?”

“I knew that Sombra’s spirit was around. I… I…” I can’t bring myself to look into his eyes. “I listened to it.”

“You knew?!” his eyes are wide. “And you… and you…”

“I didn’t know what he was up to, I swear!” tears begin to roll down my cheeks. “I thought he had changed! He swore he had changed!”

“And you believed him?!”

“I… was desperate!” I hang my head miserably. “He told me things, Shining! He told me what to do, the proper rites to be enacted. He knew, somehow he knew how!”

His eyes begin to narrow. “Knew how to what?”

“To… to induce the Crystal Heart to give up its power,” I sniff a little. “To use that power and… other magic to… to…”

Shining’s eyes go wider than I’ve seen them in a long time. He says nothing, not even taking a breath. Luna looks as though she wants to say something, but Celestia restrains her with a single glance. Hoarfrost is silent and totally inscrutable.

“I’m sorry!” I wail. “I didn’t know! I swear that I didn’t know what he was doing! He acted like he wanted to make amends, sounded so sincere… I was desperate for answers! And he had everything I’d wanted, the solution to all our problem!” tears are pouring unreservedly down the side of my face. “I had no inkling this is was his plan! Please believe me! I just thought that we could finally be together again! I just thought… I just thought…”

“You didn’t tell me any of this,” Shining says, voice unnaturally quiet.

“I was scared, Shiny! I was terrified that if you knew you’d never agree! That you’d want nothing more to do with me!”

“So you opted to conceal what you had done and trust to blind luck rather than making proper preparations for such a feat,” Celestia interrupts. “Did it ever occur to you that you might have kept the knowledge in your back pocket until you had bolstered the empire’s defenses? Called on your family for help? If you had told us of Sombra’s presence we would have been more than happy to assist in protecting the empire during its moment of weakness. Did you just blindly dive in the moment he related the knowledge to you?”

My sobs are half-choked by a thwarted shriek of rage. How dare you, Celestia?! How dare you?! You drove me to this! It was your threats and your power that kept me awake every night for twenty damned years! You were the one who drove me to take a chance on Sombra in the first place! And it’s your thrice-damned geas that’s preventing me from coming out and telling the whole story right now! How dare you lecture me like I was some foal!

“There are thirty-five ponies presently on the list of those perished in this crisis,” Celestia continues. “Shall I read them off to you? Would you like to know the names and faces of everypony who now lies dead because of their princess’ reckless abandon?

Shut up shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP you horrible bitch! How can you do this?! Haven’t you taken enough from me already?! Do you just want to torment my conscience even more?

“You knew…” Shining Armor’s flat voice draws my eyes back towards him. “And you did nothing.”

I can barely bring myself to look up at my husband. Through tear-blurred eyes I find myself looking at one of the hardest expressions I have ever witnessed. Shining’s face looks as though it might have carved from granite. Stoney. Unflinching. Judging. I cower meekly before it.

“Please, I-”

Something harder than diamond hits the side of my face with all the force of an avalanche. Or at least that’s what it feels like as I topple over onto the ground. My cheek stings a bit, but all I can think about is the alicorn stallion looming over me, face a mask of tightly-controlled fury and hoof right where my cheek just was.

Slowly but surely, Shining lowers his hoof back to the grand, utterly silent. Nopony is making a sound, not even to breathe. The moment seems to last an eternity.

And then, without warning, Shining Armor turns and walks past me without a word, heading toward the tent’s entrance.

“I’m going to go and get my sister,” he says, slowly. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Shiny, wait!” I get easily back to my hooves, the small stinging completely gone. “I… I…”

He pushes at the door. I pull my last card.

“I’m pregnant.”

Shining Armor’s head turns, inch by agonizing inch, back towards me. One blue eye regards me with an unreadable expression. Finally his head turns away again.

“Like I said, I’m going to go and get Twilight.”

“Do what you must,” Celestia says. “We will deal with situation here.”

And then he’s gone.