It is not a door in the air. It is also not [i]not[/i] a door in the air. It is a sideways movement; it is the impression of speed; it is the sheltering of vast wings. It is limned in violet.

Ember steps before the assembly, the image of a conquering hero, a daughter of Ceron who has been affirmed in her belief that she is, in this moment, in her sphere, the very best. (The Ceronians aspire to this, yearn for this feeling: this mastery not of a skill but of a way of being.) She is also comic in how she carries Mosaic-Bella in her arms, her lover overflowing that embrace in every direction, but that too is part of the legacy she claims. Behind her come the Silver Divers, comes Dyssia, and comes a very confused and frazzled ex-Alpha of the Star Kings, lips held shut around the message she has been vouchsafed with.

“Did you think that would stop me?” Ember howls her victory, howls her insistence that all acknowledge her greatness. “I am the polestar of the pack, and not even phantoms and could-have-been moments can stop me! I am Ember, Alpha of the Silver Divers, and also apparently a princess, and a child of the gods! Your dominion over the people of this planet is over!”

Behind her, Dyssia gets an excellent view of how furiously Ember’s shaggy grey tail is wagging, freed from the confines of its tight “denim” disguise at last. Of all the possible heroes, Dyssia, how surprising is it that Ember was the one?