by Amanda Joy
The boy frowned, but when he looked at Falun, his gaze warmed. “Are you new to the Patch?”
Falun’s cheeks reddened, mouth hanging open as he sought an answer.
“We aren’t new,” I said, removing both of their hands.
“See you on the tiles,” the boy called as I pushed farther into the crowd. Falun followed, glancing over his shoulder as the boy disappeared behind a group of human girls.
One handed Falun two cups and ran her fingers through his hair. He smiled and the girl’s eyes went soft with wonder. She didn’t even blink as he plucked her hand away. The ouitza burned a path down my throat. Falun sipped his, wrinkled his nose, and gave the rest to me.
The gathering opened up and I caught sight of the Copper Steps, the fountain, where coins were dropped in nightly; by morning about half had been retrieved by those who desperately needed them. I explained the custom to Falun, and we kissed our coins, wishing blessings for whoever would find them.
After we tossed the coins into the fountain, Falun leaned down to my ear, yelling over the sound of the drums. “You told me there would be dancing?”
We inched around the lip of the fountain to the back, where the patch of crimson tiles began. We’d made it just in time for the next dance. The drumming was the call to the dance, a prelude of sorts. Already boys and girls were lined up across the tiles, arms held aloft, sweat coating their faces.
Musicians sat across from them. There were five young men beating on makeshift drums, a willowy man with a fiddle, and the singer, a tall, imposing bloodkin woman with a hawkish nose and beaded braids hanging down her back.
I let go of Falun’s hand and stepped onto the tiles. “Watch first, and then join me.”
There was only one dance done on these tiles at night: chatara, the dance of new lovers.
It started in your feet and you started the dance alone.
The drummers began with a simple beat, building it gradually. Our hips rocked side to side, keeping pace with the rhythm. We twirled, hips winding in figure eights until the singer began to howl.
Gooseflesh prickled my arms as I swept them down and raised them back up to the night sky. I tossed my head, watching the moon as I moved through the steps—switching my hips and kicking my feet into the air.
The singer’s magick swept through the crowd, carried by the sound of her voice. Bloodkin called it the thrall, because with it, they could ensnare the mind until they controlled every emotion and sensation a person felt. This was partly the cause for the laws mandating bloodletting knives, so that no one could be enthralled unaware, so that people could guard their minds against attack. Even among bloodkin, the singer’s was a rare gift. Most believed bloodkin projected the thrall with their eyes, but some could also use their voices.
I felt the magick heightening my emotions as I danced. The singer’s thrall turned all our emotions into a shared experience. As we danced, we became one in our wanting, and the awareness of our bodies sharpened until it was dizzying. I felt sweat slide down our spines and the scrape and glide of fabrics I wasn’t wearing.
The smell of salty blood, orange blossoms, and incense filled the air—the scent of the singer’s magick. It pulsed through the air, pushing every movement farther. Curls clung to sweat-dampened cheeks as I arched back, twining my arms above my head. Each movement carried echo and premonition, of the girl just a beat ahead of me, of the boy just behind.
And when the singer’s voice broke, the sharp edge was like nails dragged slowly across my skin. We all crowed with her as partners joined us on the tiles.
I didn’t expect Falun yet, so I jumped when warm hands circled my waist, soft and dry and hot against my skin.
It was the bloodkin boy from earlier, smiling sweetly, springy coils of hair falling into dark brown eyes. “Your friend won’t join us?” He looked to where Falun stood at the edge of the tiles. His eyes were wide but unreadable.
“Not yet.” Our limbs twined together as we moved in sync. He caught my wrist and spun me around. I fell flush against him, warm from the ouitza and his touch. “Though I think he will join sooner with your convincing.”
“You think so?” His warm breath touched my cheek.
“I know so.” I smiled, beckoning Falun forward.
He didn’t move. But there was naked wonder in his gaze—mine had been just as wide the first time I laid eyes on this place. The bloodkin boy, whose name I still hadn’t gotten and hoped never to, waved him over. Still Falun didn’t move.
I stopped dancing and held out my hand, wishing I had brought him here sooner. After a long moment Falun stepped onto the tile and gave my hand a squeeze.
I left him with the bloodkin boy and found another partner. One who didn’t seem to see me at all, and only wanted to dance.
Even out here, there were things I couldn’t allow myself. Princesses bound for death couldn’t have romantic entanglements. It would be too cruel, for them and for me.
We reveled in the music, stopping only to drink, eat, and trade partners. An hour passed before Falun and I danced together; I coaxed his stiff limbs into rhythm and showed him how the deadly grace inside him was useful for more than swinging a sword. The bloodkin boy stuck fast to Falun and I tried to ignore the twinge of longing in my chest when they kissed.
They disappeared into the throng together and another’s arms wound about my waist. I turned to find a young human man, his skin a soft, warm brown. He was tall, with muscle-bound arms tattooed in white. Something about him nagged at me. I had to crane my neck to get a good look at his face. His nose was at least twice broken, the end jutting to the left, and his eyes were hazel. A dark, inviting color, and yet when they caught mine, unease swept through me.
I stepped out of his embrace. He was wearing a City Guard’s blue uniform and his eyes were warm with lust. He spoke in a ragged voice: “Pretty little thing, aren’t you?”
I bared my teeth at him, spitting out a curse as I backed away.
His gaze, once leering, sharpened. “You . . .”
I could have my knife out and pressed against his throat in the time it would take for him to draw his next breath. I would have, if not for the crowd dancing blithely around us.
Keeping the City Guard within my sight, I searched for Falun but found no sign of him, no flash of red hair, no fine-boned face. I caught a glimpse of the Guard’s cruel smile before the singer screamed out one word: “Raid!”
Bodies slammed into me on every side and I could still feel the Guard’s eyes burning a hole in my back. My stomach knotted as more City Guardsmen in dark blue uniforms spilled onto the Patch, cudgels and short swords in hand. Cries of fear and the sound of weapons striking flesh filled the air.
I pushed toward the Copper Steps, mouth dry. At least once a week, raids on the smugglers in the Night Souk spilled into the Patch. Public gatherings were against the law in Ternain after midnight. Most of the time, the Guardsmen only arrested those who couldn’t afford a bribe, and I always kept my sigil ring on me in case I was caught. It wasn’t the raid that scared me. It was the Guard.
For a moment, it had seemed like he recognized me, but then why hadn’t he told the other Guards? Either way, I had to lose him in the crowd. I would run until I found Falun or reached the Palace wall, whichever came first.
I slammed into a woman’s back and she fell to the ground. As I helped her to her feet, a hand curled around my elbow.
Heart pounding, I reached for my belt knife and the Guardsman nearly wrenched my arm out of its socket.
“Eva, it’s me,” Falun said. “We have to get back to the Palace. Now.”
His skin had lost its sheen and his usually pointed ears were rounded like a human’s. His hair shifted color as I watched, from fiery red to muddy brown—glamour. Our fingers laced together and his magick slipped over my skin like a wash of scalding water. We ran.
CHAPTER 2
THE DOORS OF the Throne Room were tall enough to admit a great many creatures—horned, winged, and the like—though only humans and fey passed through them now. Falun and I stood before them, awaiting our announcement to the Court. Their exquisite metalwork shone in the morning light, but it was the portraits lining the hall that always drew my eye. All eight of the human Queens seemed to glare down at me, eyes cold despite the smiles curving their lips.
As with every time I waited outside Court, the sight of Queen Raina made my jaw clench. The First wore a necklace of bones held together by fine golden chains, and the tattoos on her arms mirrored mine almost exactly—chains of white animal bones woven through the petals of crimson desert roses with leaves shaped like blades.
We shared the same magick—of marrow and blood.
She was known as the First because she was the first human Queen to sit on the Ivory Throne. In the past, the khimaer ruled Myre; their elders chose Queens from the most powerful daughters born to their noble tribes. Millennia passed under their peaceful rule, until two hundred years ago, when Raina the First led humans in a rebellion against the throne. She slaughtered thousands of khimaer to gain the throne, killing off all but a few of the tribes. When the rest rebelled a decade after the war, she forced every khimaer in the Queendom to move into two remote Enclosures, because she believed they would only rebel again if left free. In the generations since, little had changed. The only sure way for khimaer to escape the Enclosures now was to enlist in the Queen’s Army.
During the Great War, she’d killed her sister for remaining loyal to the khimaer. It was after Raina’s sororicide that the Rival Heir system was born.
Though Myre was the most powerful nation on the continent of Akhimar, there were two other nations on the continent and both were hostile. There was Dracol, the small, magick-less human Kingdom north of the A’Nir Mountains, and the Roune Lands, the lawless country more or less governed by bands of thieves with their own monarchs and courts.
Raina had led explorations of both lands, and extended Myre’s boundaries by seizing control of the Mysoado Isles, which no other mainland Queen had done before, and she grew the nation’s coffers by trading with the lands beyond Akhimar. Most humans believed that Raina was our greatest Queen. I didn’t see it that way. The ballads written to honor the slaughter she’d led in the Great War made me sick.
Inheriting her magick was a curse. It made me a source of curiosity and dread for most people I met. It struck me as the worst kind of trick, having magick of marrow and blood. The Court said it wanted the strongest Queen possible, and yet the stories of Raina’s magick were too chilling, too damning. She’d gone onto battlefields not just as a ruler, but a weapon.
They could not reconcile their next Queen having such violent power, though in truth they had nothing to fear from me. The Sorceryn had named my magick, and tattooed my skin, but they could not teach me how to wield it. The last time marrow and blood had appeared in the Killeen line was five generations ago. All records of its practices had been lost.
Falun gave my hand a squeeze, following my gaze to the portrait. Distaste flickered across his face.
Several hours had passed since the raid at the Patch, and though we’d snuck back into the Palace with little trouble, he was still ill at ease. I pitched my voice low: “You’d think we were facing a battalion of soldiers.”
“I’d prefer that. At least we would have weapons in hand.” He looped his arm through mine, not at all looking like he’d gone without sleep. He was resplendent in soldier white and a coppery braid more intricate than any I could manage hung to the middle of his back. “I’ll relax once I’m convinced we aren’t walking into another disaster.”
“No luck there,” I muttered, as more trouble surely waited beyond those doors.
When I turned thirteen, I’d journeyed to Asrodei to live with my father and to search the Queendom for someone who could instruct me in marrow and blood magick. During the three years I was away, a chasm had opened up between the Court and me. What interested my peers—rumors, wealth, and subtle political maneuvering—I found either exhausting or infuriating. If not for Falun, who’d spent those three years at Asrodei training to become a soldier in the Queen’s Army, these trips to the Throne Room would have been more loathsome than I could stand. As it was, I had to resist the urge to return to my rooms and claim my monthly bleeding had struck.
The crier—a tall, narrow-boned man who bore an uncanny resemblance to a crow despite his white-and-blue livery—eyed us, his lips flattened like a beak. I resisted the urge to tap the diadem perched on my brow to hasten this process.
I smiled a wolf’s smile, tongue sliding across my teeth. The corners of the Crow’s mouth turned down in exaggerated annoyance. Well, the feeling was mutual and a welcome distraction from the dread beginning to pool in my stomach. I hated being announced. It would’ve been better to slip into the room unseen like a ghost. Or, better yet, not to have come at all.
He motioned for the guards at the door and folded back his shirtsleeves, revealing sinuous black-and-ocher tattoos. The doors swung open with a groan just as the Crow pressed his hands to his neck. Beneath his touch the skin reddened and the smell of burnt sugar and mint filled the doorway.
Though I didn’t use my magick, I’d always been able to smell its use in others, each scent as distinct as the crier’s magick of speed and sound.
“Her Highness Evalina Grace Killeen,” his voice boomed, racing ahead of us into Court. “Attended by Lieutenant Falun Aramis of House Malfar.”
Despite my earlier confidence, it was Falun who pulled me forward, slippered feet dragging across the marble tiles.
The Throne Room was a circular courtyard surrounded by a garden of stone pillars, each carved with a different legend from Myre’s past, like that of Sikama, the prince who ate the sun, and that of Meya, the ebon horse who rode shadows. Mosaics on the walls depicted Myre’s varied regions—glittering gold for the Kremir Sands, slate and white for the A’Nir Mountains, emerald for the jungles and ocher for the grasslands. High summer sunlight filled the courtyard. Already I’d begun to sweat, though I wasn’t sure whether to attribute that to my nerves or the heat. Soon it would grow too warm and Mother would have one of the Court magick-workers cool the air.
The Ivory Throne was in the center of the room. Rising behind it was another, even larger portrait of Raina, so that the Court could always weigh the current Queen’s legacy against hers.
The throne looked to be carved from the trunk of a massive tree, with vines curling over the arms and delicate rosettes curled up at the base. Atop it, my mother looked as if she was sitting in a lush, albeit frozen, garden. It suited her, icy and remote in a diaphanous white dress with piles of pale blond curls tumbling over her shoulders. Her hands rested on the arms of the throne, tattoos of crashing waves ending right below her elbows.
Queen Lilith, her magick of air and sea, maintained a cool expression. Back straight, shoulders rolled back, her delicate chin pointed up, she gave no reaction at my arrival.
Well, when I arrived late in a dress that didn’t match House Killeen’s sigil—the cobalt dagger—being ignored was not the worst reaction. Since she’d demanded my return to Ternain last year, our relationship had not progressed beyond our old dynamic of constant disappointment and long, thorny silences. I’d tried to numb myself to it, but pain still lanced through my chest when she ignored me for all the Court to see and whisper about later.
I clenched my fists at the sight of Lord Cassis at her side, whose traces of fey blood made him tall, lean, and unaccountably beautiful. His skin was dark brown, and his eyes and hair were the same shade of dark violet. One hand rested upon Mother’s shoulder as he whispered into her ear, far too familiar. My parents had been estranged since I was nine, but the presence of her lover at Court still came as shock. It wasn’t his existence that infuriated me; it was Mother
flaunting him like a consort, when Papa was just a week’s ride north.
Courtiers lounged about the room on low sapphire sofas; servants hovered near them with pitchers of chilled wine. Taking advantage of the heat, most of the women wore light kaftans or kinsah, gowns with detached bodices and long, silk skirts. The men fared worse, sweating in their helbis, knee-length coats embroidered with patterns in the colors of their House. Most turned to watch our entrance, their whispering voices choking the air. The sound of my teeth grinding soon joined the chorus.
“I know you’d rather be anywhere else right now,” Falun murmured, “but at least try not to look pained.”
I plastered on a fake smile and wiped sweating palms on the crimson silk of my kaftan. “Happy?” He nodded, displaying a far courtlier curve of the lips. “You should go find Jessypha.”
“Are you quite sure you’d like to face them alone?” Falun said. “I can avoid my mother for one day.”
I cut a look at him. Since Lady Malfar had been named to the Queen’s Council, she never missed a day in Court, and if I had to see my mother, he had to see his.
“Oh, all right, if I must. You’ll be fine?”
“I always am,” I murmured softly.
He frowned at the lie, but before he could reply, I squared my shoulders and set off for the throne. We would find each other afterward, once our duties were met. In truth I didn’t want anyone around when I spoke to my mother. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner we could escape this place.
I had taken ten steps at most before I heard her: laughter like a shower of broken glass and the smoky, knowing tone of her voice. My sister.
I walked toward the nearest pillar as I scanned the room. Most of the Court was gathered around the ring of columns closest to the throne, but a large group of young courtiers remained at a distance. They all stood gathered around one young woman, holding her own court.