by Amanda Joy
“Just how did you meet the Princess?” Katro leaned forward, sweeping back his hair. Its pale green color had always fascinated me. With his tawny brown skin, he was lovely, like a dream. It was a shame the sneer on his lips marred his beauty.
Baccha answered in a voice smooth as fresh cream turned to butter. “Ours is a recent but inextricable partnership,” he whispered conspiratorially. “We share an . . . affinity for each other’s magick. Marrow, blood, and the like.”
Isa’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“Lord Hunter, if I may ask, why are you here today? Most fey believe you shunned the Court and refused to return to it after the”—Katro’s lips thinned—“Great War. Why return now?”
“Well. Some time ago I heard word of a Rival Heir born with marrow and blood magick, born under a Blood Moon no less.” Every courtier around us fell into rapt silence. “I had the privilege of being alive during the time of another with such powerful magick. I felt it then, and I feel it now. There is nothing quite like the lure of a strong Queen.”
A pretty speech, but certainly not the truth. It shouldn’t have had the power to fill me with such bitterness.
“Well, there are two Rival Heirs, you know,” Patric said, puffing his chest out like a buffoon. “I myself prefer the winning side in such disputes.”
I gave him a look that should have, if there was any justice in the world, sheared the flesh from his bones.
Baccha chuckled dismissively. “Power is power. There’s no mistaking it.”
“I would hate to think you had made a miscalculation, Lord Baccha, but there is raw strength and then there is influence,” Isadore countered, an undercurrent of anger in her voice. The silence around us broke and whispering voices rose, like silk gliding over tulle.
“Yes, and political influence can shift like the changing tide, Your Highness. It is important to remember that power can’t be swayed. Power simply is.” Baccha’s eyes flicked in my direction, smile strained.
My body felt coiled tight as I laughed breathlessly. “Such a serious turn our conversation has taken! If you’ll excuse us, we really must go. We’ve business to attend in—”
“I’m glad you’re well, Eva.” Isa’s cool facade faltered, her brows drawn tight, her bottom lip trembling. “With the rumors, I thought . . .”
She stepped toward me, reaching out a hand. Only Baccha’s iron grip on my arm kept me from jerking away from her, from all of them.
“What? Weren’t you relieved that someone else might’ve done your job for you?”
Everything fell away but Isadore’s frozen expression. “Of course not. I was sorry to hear you were hurt,” she answered, but she sounded anything but apologetic. She sounded agitated and confused.
“Why, Isa? We’ll be attempting to kill each other in a few months. Why should you care that I was injured? You do plenty to hurt me at Court. In fact, I would think you’d be quite pleased, unless you’re sorry to have missed the pleasure of doing so yourself.”
Her eyes went wide at the use of her childhood name. Isa to my Eva. I never said it aloud anymore. We weren’t Isa and Eva to each other now, just Rival Heirs set on a murderous path. It would be best if we could both forget everything but that.
“Are you implying that I had something to do with it?”
“Did you, Isa?” I whispered.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “The law is clear.”
An acerbic laugh fell from my lips. I should have been relieved, thankful that Isadore had no hand in these attacks, but what was the difference? Even if she wasn’t behind them, she would still try to kill me when the law said she could.
“Excuse us,” Baccha said. He smiled something bright and beautiful, and tugged at my arm. Isadore and I were inches apart, glaring right at each other.
“Yes,” I muttered, leaning back. “If you’ll excuse us . . . we have a trip to plan.”
“Oh?” Isadore arched an eyebrow. “Where are you traveling?”
“To Asrodei.”
She smiled. My mouth went dry—that smile was all Mother. “Running away again, Eva?”
“No, Isa. I’ll be back.”
And when I returned, I would have the magick she’d once begged me to use. I would make her fear it as she should have then.
I let Baccha say our goodbyes.
The next time I saw Isadore would be in the days before my nameday. I wished this last glimpse of her was less painful—so I replaced it. As Baccha and I walked away, I drew a simple memory: Isadore’s fey nursemaid, Kitsina, using glamour to conjure a ballroom within my bedchamber full of swishing skirts of heavy brocade, crystal and pearl, glittering stones, and kohl-sharp eyes. Isadore and I danced wildly through it, creating a revelry all our own.
But even in the memory, her eyes looked as cruel as they were now.
CHAPTER 14
I DIDN’T LEARN the truth about the Rival Heir law until I turned thirteen.
It started with Isadore’s anger.
We were in my bedchamber. She sat beside me with her legs folded underneath her, while I assembled my toy soldiers around a model of the Queen’s Palace. The miniature Palace was about three feet tall. It was all dazzling white, with a flat roof and intricately tiled courtyards, and a parapet lined with arrow slots. It was a nameday gift from my father, who had left Ternain two days before on a trip north.
I still hadn’t received a nameday gift from Mama and didn’t expect that to change.
Isadore had been put out all afternoon and had sneered at the Palace. Fifteen now, she’d decided she was too old for such things, but her eyes ran over the glittery mosaics inside. Isadore reached into the toy Palace and pulled out one of the portraits from outside the Throne Room. It was no bigger than her thumb.
She inspected it for a moment before returning it to the model. “Have I shown you the bracelet Mama gave me? She said it was too mature for you or . . . she would have given you one too. I’m sure of it.”
Isa couldn’t help gloating over all the gifts Mama had given her, and loved finding excuses for why I hadn’t received the same. It was her misguided way of trying to make me feel better when Mother favored her. Even in her selfishness, she had room to feel my hurt—at least that was how I imagined it. Maybe Mama had said such a thing, though try as I might, I couldn’t hear those words in any voice but Isa’s.
I didn’t blame my sister much. I shared my gifts with Isa, because the only things Mother bought were trinkets and jewels. Every gift Papa gave her, which were usually ones worth sharing, Mama sent back and replaced with something of her choosing. And since Isa’s gifts weren’t usually sharable, she told me about them instead.
Still, it wasn’t an even arrangement. At least Papa tried with Isa. I hadn’t even seen Mama on my nameday, or in the days before it—she’d been off celebrating the arrival of an important outlying fey Lord and had little time for me.
“I prefer this.” I gestured at the model. “You can’t do anything with a bracelet except wear it. Besides,” I added, knowing the real reason Isa wasn’t wearing it, “doesn’t Mama know that you don’t like bracelets anymore?”
Didn’t Mama know that Isadore hated anything that got in the way of her magick?
Isa’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the bracelets hanging around my wrist, but she didn’t dispute what I said. Instead, she called for her nursemaid, Kitsina, who’d been given charge of us this afternoon. When the nursemaid, a lithe fey woman with tawny skin, hazel eyes, and a narrow chin, entered the room, Isadore spoke without even glancing her way. “The bracelet from Mama, Eva wants to see it. Go get it.”
“Isadore,” Kitsina said slowly, “it grows late, and we are going back to your room soon anyway. We will show your sister tomorrow.”
Isadore stood up and smirked cruelly. “I’d like to see it now. You can go on your own, or I can make yo
u do it. It’s your decision, Kitsina.”
Silence stretched out between them, fiery gazes warring. Dread pooled in my stomach. I hated watching Isadore use her magick. In the throes of it, she became a different person. Finally Kitsina bowed her head and swept out of the room.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I blurted.
Isadore said slowly, “Do . . . what?”
“If Kitsina doesn’t listen to you, ask Mama for a new maid. There’s no need to force her with magick.”
“You only say that because you don’t have magick, Eva. If you did, you wouldn’t fear it so much.”
“I’m not afraid,” I protested.
Isadore waved away my words and proposed a game of story while we waited for Kitsina to return. She grinned, tucking the long blond wisps of her hair behind her ears. “Let’s play Enchantress.”
I pouted, knowing what was coming. One of Mama’s favored bards at Court always told the story “The Enchantress and Her Princess” when Isadore and I were present. In the story, the Enchantress stole the beloved Princess away from her Palace. The Enchantress then put the Princess into an enchanted slumber so she could steal the Princess’s beauty every night.
The Enchantress was some old khimaer woman cursed with hideous features. She had horns, bloody claws, and fangs as long as a child’s hand. Her eyes were bright like fire, the bard said, and he always looked at me when he said it, for my eyes were similarly unfashionable. Isadore made me play the Enchantress for that reason. Also because she’d never consent to playing a khimaer and I did anything Isadore asked me to do, no matter how unhappy it made me, just to keep her from using her magick. Since learning how to wield it with the Sorceryn, she was constantly looking for a reason to summon it.
“Kitsina will be back soon,” I hedged. Isa’s room was just a short walk away. “I thought you wanted to see the bracelet.”
“I’ll let you play the Princess,” Isadore said, and then she took off her necklace, a long emerald pendant, and hung it around my hair, like a diadem. I watched her eyes. They had calmed some, but there was still a dangerous stillness in her expression, though none of the magickal light. I kept quiet so I wouldn’t do something to make her change her mind.
I sat back, closing my eyes while Isadore rambled a long spell. Playing the Princess was easier, but it wasn’t as fun as Isa made it out to be—all you did was lie there. I tried to think of what Isadore did when I was the one to cast the spell. Her lips were always smiling slightly, the long feathers of her eyelashes fluttering as she snuck glances at me. Isadore leaned against me on the couch. I didn’t peek, though; I concentrated on the cool weight of the jewel on my forehead, another one of Isadore’s gifts from Mama. My fingers longed to touch it and have it glitter in my hands the way it did when it hung around Isa’s neck.
Finally my eyes flickered open to look at Isadore. By now I should have been the Princess without her beauty, the jewel hanging from Isadore’s head instead of mine.
“Isa?” I whispered. She leaned over me, staring down at my face.
Her eyes were storm clouds again, containing the same quiet anger as when Kitsina challenged her orders. I glanced around, thinking her nursemaid had returned, but when I tried to sit up, Isadore put her hands around my throat. I didn’t struggle at first, because I didn’t understand. But it was painful; I couldn’t breathe as her nails gouged my neck.
I tried to pry her fingers off, but panic made me slow and confused.
I struggled and tears flooded my eyes. I bucked off the settee as Isadore pushed me down.
“Eva,” Isa said. “Try to use magick. The Princess uses a spell to break free from the Enchantress!”
She let up a bit. I gasped in air and shoved her off. “Why would you want me to do that?”
Isa grunted as she slid across the floor, but when she looked up, she was grinning. “Because. You need your magick, don’t you? I learned some of mine on my own, maybe you can too.”
“You know my magick is dangerous.” I’d told her a hundred times before. She knew firsthand the damage it had wrought.
“All magick is dangerous,” she scoffed, crawling back over. “You are such a child. You’re afraid of everything.”
I tried to withdraw, but she grabbed my ankle. Magick rolled off her skin and anger ripped through me.
I should use my magick. Isadore used hers. It was what she deserved. I should show her—no, I would show her.
But no magick rose up in response to the anger she was making me feel. I kicked wildly and my slippered foot connected with Isadore’s chin. Blood dripped down her dress.
The door banged open, the swish of skirts telling me Kitsina had returned.
“What have you done?” She gasped. I thought she was talking to Isadore at first, but then she strode up to me and yanked me to my feet.
She dragged me to my mother’s bedchamber, where I was left to wait for hours. When Mother came into the room, well after nightfall, I lay curled up at the foot of her bed, all my tears dried in messy streaks.
We sat on a cushioned bench in front of her bed. “What a mess you’ve made,” she crooned at the sight of me. I tried to speak, but she hushed me. “I already know what you did. Your sister told me about your magick. How you’ve been asking her to practice. You should have told me you had learned to use it, Eva.”
“But I didn’t, Mama. Isadore is the one who—”
“That’s enough, dear. I should have done this years ago. From now on, you and your sister will only see each other at Court events.”
“Mama, please,” I whispered, tears clogging my throat. “Isadore asked me to use magick but I didn’t. I swear.”
“I’m sorry, dove. We were fools to have waited this long. It’s inevitable.”
“Waited . . . for what?”
My mother canted her head, pity softening her expression. “Waited to separate you. There always comes a time when Princesses can no longer be sisters in the true sense.” She frowned, tapping her chin as if suddenly reminded of something. “Oh, I’d forgotten you didn’t know. Your father wanted to tell you himself but . . . only one of you can survive. That’s what it means to be a Rival Heir. One of you must kill the other.”
I trembled as I tried to make sense of her words, but they were incomprehensible. “Me and Isa? What?”
“You and your sister. The law demands this sacrifice. I would save you two from this if I could, but I can’t.” She patted my cheek with a cool hand. “You understand, don’t you, Eva? The older you get, the more you’ll want to use magick. You know it isn’t safe.”
I knew that, but it was Isadore who’d hurt me this time. It was Mother who would believe whatever lie Isadore told her, without attempting to hear my side. They were the true danger, not me.
My mother told me to wash my face and called for a servant to take me back to my rooms, where I was to stay from then on, unless I had Court or lessons with my tutors.
The next night I left a note on my bed for Mirabel, and walked through the passages alone, carrying a small pack with the meager scraps from my dinner and a few precious items, hoping to never return.
– II –
MARROW MAGICK
Bone bright, clean and white—
Teeth to shred your flesh—
Horns used to bore you through—
Power true as true.
—Child’s rhyme, of khimaer origin
CHAPTER 15
WE LEFT TERNAIN two days later, exactly six weeks before my nameday. The moon sat low on the horizon, and the distant glow of a coming sunrise diffused waves of amber and lilac across the sky.
Captain Anali, Prince Aketo, and the three other soldiers beside me in the boat were all obscure smudges watching the river for crocodiles. The rest of the guard, and my mother’s soldiers, had gone ahead last night, bringing horses and the rest of
our supplies on the ferry. We would go straight north once we crossed the river, first passing through the Slender Forest and then riding along the edge of the Arym Plain, until we reached the highlands where Asrodei was located.
From our flat-hulled boat, the Palace rose like a pale mountain, casting the rest of the city in shadow. Without the sun lighting its mosaic facade, it seemed more fortress than Palace—its crenellated walls standing stark against gilt domes and crystal towers. At this distance the seams of Ternain were laid plain, whitewashed stone resting against colorful clay flats and the Palaces of noble houses made from carved marble and glass. Ternain was both ancient and ever new, a garden yearly growing more vibrant, more true.
By the time we crossed—gifting the riverman with a heavy bag of gold, and gratitude for his discretion—the sun had risen higher, filling the world with hazy pink-gold light. The only signs of life were water birds: scarlet ibis to match the river, and blue herons, their feathers unfurled like crepe skirts upon the water.
Already, there was peace here, before the city churned into motion.
The riverman docked at a wharf dipping precariously into the water and we walked through the Slender Forest, named so for its thin blue-green trees and the forest’s shape, only forty miles deep as it stretched along the river. We met in a clearing just a mile or so beyond the river.
Already there was an obvious divide in the camp. My mother’s fifteen guards stood together by the horse lines, packing their saddlebags. They were older than my guard, near middle age, and mostly men. My guards were still breaking down their tents from the previous night.
While Captain Anali set off to double-check supplies, I was left standing with Prince Aketo.
His dark curls hung loose about his shoulders, and his horns shined like obsidian beneath the sun. He’d dressed simply, in cotton breeches, a dark green tunic, and supple, well-worn boots. The trees around us suited him more than the Palace, and his presence held a weight I hadn’t seen when we first met. He seemed to carry who he was on his shoulders—a khimaer Prince in a world that didn’t want him—but instead of bending his spine, it bolstered him. I couldn’t help but envy his comfort, especially as buzzy sparks of anxiety stirred beneath my skin.