Cast in Firelight

by Dana Swift

  “Interesting,” Maharaja Naupure said.

  “Have you seen this before?” Father asked. “I thought it was all myth and legend.”

  I knew it. I knew my parents were concerned, and I knew I had a reason to be too.

  “Well, according to legend, the gods are fighting over who should bless her.”

  I snatched my arms off the table and glanced around the room at the tapestries of the nine Gods: the blue God, Retaw, commanded a flood; green Goddess Htrae reigned over a field; yellow God Ria flew in a tornado; red Goddess Erif ruled a volcano; white God Dloc swirled within a blizzard; pink Goddess Laeh cured sickness; black God Wodahs concealed himself in a dark cloak; purple God Raw stood on a battlefield; and orange Goddess Renni was enveloped in muscles and strength. They looked ready to eat me before considering giving me power. Could they really be arguing over me?

  “That’s more reassuring than…the alternative.” Mother sighed.

  I pressed my mark, hard. Without magic, without all nine types of magic, I was useless. No title. No ability to lead any country, let alone mine. When I glanced up to see Maharaja Naupure still inspecting me, the weekly lectures on politeness were completely forgotten.

  “Do you need to check my molars too?” I opened my mouth.

  “Adraa,” my mother spat. I closed my mouth quickly, but continued staring at him. See the real me, Maharaja Naupure. See how unsuitable I would be as maharani of Naupure! And not because my right arm is bare.

  Maharaja Naupure again barked out a laugh, which seemed to be his only sound of amusement. “Oh my. You remind me of my Savi.”

  Before my parents could agree or Mother could shuffle out of the awkwardness of having to admit I was in fact her daughter, a boy, the boy, walked into the parlor. He had jet-black hair like my own, brown skin much lighter than mine, and shiny, glazed-over eyes. Jatin, my betro—I couldn’t even think it. Here I was, goose bumps radiating up my arms and down my legs, and he was calm. No, he looked…bored.

  Not looking bored was rule one, right before being excessively polite. Which, when you think about it, is the same rule, because this calmness was all sorts of annoying. How could he be calm?

  “Jatin, there you are. Come meet everyone. This is the Maharaja and Maharani of Belwar.”

  Jatin nodded. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” So I wasn’t the only one with regurgitated lines.

  Jatin bowed to my parents and then turned back to his father with a “what else must I do” expression.

  “And, Jatin, this is Adraa.”

  Should I stand or something? Before I could make up my mind, Jatin turned to me and gave the most awkward smile ever crafted. Both of his canines were missing.

  “Hello,” we said simultaneously.

  “Jatin, why don’t you show Adraa your room,” Maharaja Naupure suggested.

  Jatin looked up at his father with calm obedience. No help for the cause there.

  Mother nudged me with an elbow. “Go on, Adraa. We need to talk with Maharaja Naupure in private.”

  I twisted around, ready to pout my way out of this, but then I saw my father’s eyes. They weren’t crinkled in humor. They were always crinkled in humor. But not today. I had to let this boy show me his room. Jatin nodded for me to follow. Nodded! You would think this kid owned the whole country. Well, I guess he would one day.

  I trailed Jatin up more stone steps and through the labyrinth of the palace, staring at his back. Any time he even twitched to turn around and look at me, I pretended to be fascinated with the yellow and blue entanglement of colors on the archways.

  When we finally stopped, Jatin gestured to a wood door with his name etched in swirly lines. “Here it is.”

  I crossed my arms. I could play this game all day. “It’s a very nice door.”

  Jatin stared at me, waiting, and then turned the handle and waited again. Nope. No way. I was not going in first. That was how I would get locked in a room and never be heard from again. My parents might trust this calm, polite boy, but I didn’t. It was an act, for sure.

  “Ah, you can go in,” he said.

  “You first.”

  “But…you’re supposed to—”

  “Supposed to what?” Fall for your tricks? Think again, boy.

  “Never mind.” And with that, Jatin ambled into his room with me right behind.

  I expected massive, like everything here, and while the furniture appeared oversized, it was because the room in fact was not enormous. It could hold a single elephant instead of an entire herd. The clutter might have also had something to do with it. A library had exploded upon the desk. Parchment dripped to the floor. Orbs and bottles glowed with tiny balls of magic on every flat surface. I stared, captivated by the glowing swirls of color. In one row sat all nine types of magic, neatly arranged and gleaming like a rainbow. A small red fire, an orange mist, a yellow glimmer of air, a bundle of green mossy material, a blue wave, a purple spike, a pink ball, a black fuming shadow, and, finally, white frost crystals. Was all this his?

  It had to be. When first learning and trying to cast spells, young witches and wizards create each individual and godly color. Only at age sixteen is one’s forte determined. Then every spell filters through your particular blessed color. Which meant with the array of hues surrounding us, Jatin could already cast all nine!

  Jatin grabbed a white orb, whipping my attention back to him. “Do you know magic yet?” he asked as he spun the translucent container. Snowflakes and frost crystals shimmered inside. His Touch swirled in an intricate design up the back of his right wrist.

  “I’ve been studying.”

  “No, I mean can you do it yet?”

  “Well…” I searched for something to distract him and found only orb after orb of colorful smoke. Is that all this boy did—study and spell?

  “You can’t!” His eyes bugged out in surprise and then shrank down into pride. They sure weren’t glazed over now. He looked at my hands. Cheeks flushing, I shifted my right arm behind my back slowly. This is why boys are the worst.

  “What? Are these really yours?” I sputtered, but I already knew the answer.

  “Yeah. Wanna see?” He jerked the container up. “This was my first freeze spell.”

  He would open it in here? I knew this boy was dangerous. When one is first learning, magic either needed to be confined in an orb or cast in an open space. His room suddenly felt even smaller.

  “Don’t! You can’t.”

  He straightened. “Yeah I can! I’m a wizard.”

  More like spoiled brat.

  “I’m a witch too. I just haven’t gotten my powers yet,” I said.

  He crossed his arms. At least the orb wasn’t about to be opened. I had saved myself by that much. “I bet you are not even a witch.”

  “Am too.” I reached for my left sleeve to show him my Touch, but his laughter stopped me. Heat flushed my cheeks, hot coals pounded in my chest. “Take that back or else!”

  “But if you can’t—”

  I didn’t let him finish. I hurled myself toward him.

  I meant to just make him lose his balance and maybe his grip on his precious orb, but in my frustration my hand slapped his cheek—with force. Jatin stumbled backward, falling to the floor with a thud. He yelped and the crystal-filled orb tumbled across the room.

  Feet thumped up the stairs. I crouched, my anger wilting and blooming into fear as the footsteps approached.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it.” My throat constricted in regret. I really didn’t mean it.

  Jatin held a hand to his cheek as he stared at me wide-eyed. At least he wasn’t crying.

  “Let me see?” I edged closer when he continued to peer at me like a lifeless statue. I peeled his hand from his face and sighed. Nothing. No mark. No nothing. Well, it had only been my open palm.
r />   “You hit me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was nowhere near crying, but I felt the hot press of emotion about to erupt in my own eyes. I had hit the future maharaja of Naupure. Even though it was an accident, I was as good as dead. And I guess a part of me deserved it.

  Jatin’s door was open, so our parents had no trouble hustling over the threshold.

  “What happened?” Father asked.

  “Is everyone okay?” Mother asked not a second after him.

  I scanned between Maharaja Naupure lumbering over us and Jatin sitting there, still shocked.

  “Adraa?”

  “I…I got mad and I didn’t mean to, but I—”

  “She didn’t do anything,” Jatin said.

  For one breathless moment, we all stared at him as he snapped out of his daze and got up off the floor.

  Like they were going to believe that. “No, I…I hit him.”

  My parents glared, my father’s eyes in particular shooting green icicles.

  “You all right, Jatin?” Maharaja Naupure reached out one long arm to his son. Jatin didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he nodded at the ground.

  “Sir, I cannot begin to apologize,” Mother said, turning to the maharaja.

  “Adraa,” Father snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Why did you hit him, Adraa?” Father’s voice was firm, and filled with warning.

  “He…” I glanced at Jatin. He finally unglued his eyes from the floor. And they were anything but calm.

  I dropped to my knees in front of Maharaja Naupure like my prayer position to the gods. “I’m sorry, Maharaja Naupure. It doesn’t matter what happened. I should not have hit Jatin.”

  After a terrifying still minute, I peeked through my hair, which had curtained around my face. Maharaja Naupure was shaking, and I trembled. We were going to die. I had hit Jatin and now, as payback, my parents and I were going to be killed.

  An abrupt snort broke the tension. The maharaja was…laughing.

  Maharaja Naupure bent down and raised my chin so I met his gaze. He peered at me in a way that skewered me to the core. Then he smiled. “Strength is more than standing.” With my chin still in his hand, he looked up at my parents. “She is made to be a Naupure.”

  It is morning when I hear the news I have been dreading for nine years. I’m eating upma, my mouth and heart functioning properly, when my father trips them both with a single question.

  “Did you know Jatin is coming back home today?” He glances up from the mounds of reports that fan out in circular stacks like a topographical map of the northern rice fields. Refusing to choke, my mouth revolts, and I eject the porridge instead of breathing it in.

  My sister, Prisha, drops her spoon into her bowl and it clangs. “Ew.”

  Mother’s face tilts in disgust. “Adraa.”

  I place a hand over my mouth to create a barrier so nothing else can escape as I cough. It feels like various organs have arisen in a coup. My heart, the leader, lurches, trying to make a break for it or at least to rip off the surrounding ropes of my arteries.

  My father’s eyes seize mine as they hum with insinuation. “I’m guessing that’s a no.”

  Nine words, one for each year I had not seen him; that’s all it takes to wash away my peace. After all this time, Jatin is coming home.

  The sun has decided it’s going to play peekaboo with the clouds, so in cyclical intervals the dining room glistens with warmth and then dampens into gray hues. Of course it would be during a piercing blaze that the consistency of my life breaks apart. My mind tries to pick up each individual word my father uttered, but drops them like a clumsy toddler.

  Jatin.

  Coming.

  Back.

  Today.

  “Today? As in like a few hours from now?” I cough.

  “Yes, that is what today means.” Father sets aside a large report without looking at me.

  “Maharaja Naupure didn’t tell you last time you visited?” Mother asks, clearly satisfied I won’t ruin the finely embroidered tablecloth.

  “No,” I say. “I mean, he might have…” Since that first night years ago, Maharaja Naupure and I have developed a friendly relationship, beyond the role of future father- and daughter-in-law. It is upheld by my monthly deliveries of firelight, which we both use as an excuse to discuss everything—politics, economics, a special project I’m working on—anything besides his son. Sometimes he slips up and I then pretend my brain has slipped up. But I couldn’t have truly skimmed over this news, right? I’d be impressed with myself if anxiety wasn’t drowning out all other emotions. Ignoring the idea of Jatin and being his wife is a second job.

  “Oh, Adraa,” Mother sighs.

  “What? I haven’t been summoned or anything and I’m not scheduled to send my firelight today, so…so I’m not going.” I wrap my voice in confidence so maybe they won’t push me. An unpleasant shiver runs down my spine. Going to the palace, being part of a welcome home parade I’m sure all of Naupure will attend, seeing the boy who would one day be my husband. My heart gags, one more tremor to note it isn’t done freaking out. After nine years of me being here, in Belwar, and Jatin a hundred miles away training at a fancy prep school in Agsa, the engagement was finally…real. Now only Mount Gandhak would separate us.

  “That’s fine,” Father says.

  Mother frowns. “Don’t you think she should at least make an appearance? After all, he’s coming through Belwar to show his support. Half the city will be there.”

  Father looks up from his reports at last and shrugs. “If Maharaja Naupure did not summon her, I’ll leave this one up to Adraa.”

  Mother grabs a piece of naan and rips it in half, her crooked nose flaring. When Father makes sense and advocates for freedom of choice, Mother really can’t argue. Victory soars through me.

  “I think Adraa should go!” Prisha exclaims, head buried in her spell book. But I can spot the smirk nestled in her tone. The little…

  “We’ll leave this one up to Adraa,” Father reiterates, and a thick silence slides around us, indicating the matter has been concluded. I look at my breakfast, able to breathe again. I won’t have to face him today. And tonight I’ll craft better excuses. Though I’ve been running through all the good ones lately.

  Father shuffles some more paperwork. “Did you also know he stopped an avalanche on his way home?”

  This fact, unfortunately, I do know. “Yeah, a small avalanche. Whoop-de-do.” I spin my spoon into the upma, pushing the vegetables around, appetite officially lost. Prisha grins at her spell book. There is nothing amusing about the logistics of witchcraft, especially in fifteenth year. She just loves this, loves when I can be proved wrong, when I can be outdone in magic. And Jatin is always there to prove that.

  “Stopping an avalanche of any size is impressive, Adraa. It saved half a village,” Mother interjects.

  “I’m glad people are safe.” I relent. It’s just…did it have to be Mr. Arrogant, Jatin Naupure, who did it?

  “That boy is very proficient at snow spells—exceptionally so, in fact. I heard during his royal ceremony Dloc threw a blizzard at him and he took it down in seconds.”

  White magic is his forte, Dad. Is he supposed to be bad at them? That’s like being impressed that, as a red forte, I can start fires. I almost remind my parents of the stable inferno I stopped last year, or even, dear Gods, what I do when I sneak out at night, but I hold my tongue. Because that needs to remain secret. And who am I to talk, really? I have never saved so many people. And I have yet to battle through my own royal ceremony and prove myself capable in all nine types of magic.

  The next moment, Willona bursts into the dining room holding a bowl of mangoes and sets it on the table. Our oldest and dearest servant runs her hands over her apron and I just know she is conte
mplating something. Why does she look so…

  Oh no! Wide-eyed, I pivot fully in her direction and wave my hands, but it’s too late, the words are already spewing out of her. “What did his letter say, Lady Belwar? I know everyone in the kitchen has been dying to hear.”

  I cover my face. That is—I mean was—supposed to be our secret. Do I need to start bribing the palace staff? But even that might not work. I cannot trust anyone when it comes to Jatin. Our engagement is common knowledge, too public in the palace to try to rein in the rumors.

  Mother sits up straighter. She is such a sucker for romance. Except, she has no clue what lies between Jatin and me is not romance. It’s fierce competition. And it can only end in disaster.

  “He sent you something again?”

  “Um, no,” I lie.

  “Adraa?”

  Prisha smiles from across the table, daring me to lie again. How can someone who looks so young and innocent in all other features have such a mischievous mouth?

  The note burns hot in my pocket. I had just gotten it this morning and had not felt like opening it. I know about the avalanche. He is going to rub it in my face.

  I sigh. “What? Should I read it aloud?”

  “That would be lovely.”

  Willona brims with excitement and then claps. “I’ll get the kitchen staff.”

  “No, Willona, don’t!” The door swishes into place behind her retreating form as I’m completely ignored. I tear the letter out from its useless hiding spot. The sun sinks behind a cloud once again, casting the room into dusky light. How fitting. I peel apart the seal and scan the contents to make sure nothing is too disturbing to say in front of everyone. The letter is short, but still gag-worthy, as always. “Really? You guys are going to let this happen…again?”

  “Let them have their fun,” Father says while signing something important.