Cast in Firelight

by Dana Swift

  “Yeah, Adraa, let us have our fun.” Prisha looks me square in the eye.

  “Fun?” This was my love life, or lack thereof. It should not be…fun, especially for our entire household, staff included.

  It takes only four minutes for a quarter of the witches who work in the palace to tumble into the dining hall. They all appear giddy to the point of combustion. I might feel the same if I believed one word of Jatin’s nonsense.

  “Okay, everyone ready? I’m only reading this once. Zara? I’m looking at you.” My maid rolls her eyes and then nods for me to proceed.

  “Dearest,” I begin. The women sigh in one heaving breath. Oh please! I give them a stern stare over the parchment and start over.

  Dearest,

  If you haven’t already heard, I am in Alps of Alconea, where a terrible avalanche nearly destroyed the village of Alkin. I was able to stop the destruction and hopefully further solidify my honor in your eyes. For one note of appreciation from you is all I’ll ever seek in this world. One day I hope we can walk side by side on these beautiful mountains. How I long to be near you again! My heart punches in anticipation.

  Wishing you my love,

  Jatin

  It is a complete farce. I have not seen the boy since that night I “punched” him in the face. Thinking back, what I did should be categorized under a shove or a slap, not a punch. I barely grazed him. But details get exaggerated with time. Or better put, Jatin likes to exaggerate. In reality, we don’t like each other. And we certainly don’t love each other.

  Glancing up, I watch the kitchen staff hanging off each other and melting into the rugs. “Really, every time, guys?”

  “He is so passionate and romantic,” our cook, Meeta, says.

  Zara croons, “Read the part again about appreciation in your eyes is all he seeks.”

  I push off the table and turn to go. Most of my audience heeds the signal and slips back to work in their designated parts of the house. Only Willona and Zara stay behind, probably to talk to Mother or Father about some chore or other.

  “Where are you off to? Aren’t you going to help me in the clinic today?” Mother asks, annoyed at my rudeness. “And you need to deliver firelight to the East Village, right?”

  I swivel back. “Um, I need another hour to get the firelight ready for the East Village.”

  Her fingers full of upma stop midair. “You didn’t finish last night?”

  “Ah yes, that is what I’m saying. Didn’t finish.”

  “Oh, Adraa.” She releases her frown, the signature one. “That’s the fourth time in the past two months you have been behind.”

  “Training first, then one hour of work, and I’ll be right on schedule.” I put on my best “it’s no problem” face.

  She sees right through me. “Training first? Adraa, no. Basu expects a thousand firelights by midday.”

  I shove at the swinging door, desiring escape. If Mother pushes about why I didn’t get the firelight done, she might start to piece together what I really do at night. I can’t let that happen.

  Willona saves me, with a joke at my own expense. “Oh, Miss Belwar gets so enthusiastic for training after getting one of Jatin’s love letters.” She grins and places one hand near her heart.

  “Probably to burn off that blush.” Zara fans herself and giggles.

  I gesture to my face. “I’m not blushing.” Although it might be hard to tell even if I were. After Mother I’m the darkest in the room, sometimes in the entire palace.

  “Oh, guess you aren’t,” Zara says, sounding way too disappointed. A blush lies over her own cheeks, however, which makes me smile. She will surely sneak out for the festivities and I could ask her later how Jatin’s parade went. Then I could ask about more than just the parade; I could ask about him. Did he look kind? Did he look nice? Did he look as powerful as he must be?

  Ah, why do I even care about the jerk? Walk side by side on the Alps of Alconea? He knows I’ve never truly traveled, didn’t join him at the academy a year after he started. I’m the oddity with a one-armed Touch and thus have been bound to this part of the world to preserve the Belwar reputation. Can’t have the heir to the throne running off to the academy, a place to showcase the next great leaders of our generation, and embarrassing herself. I push at the door again, thinking about training. Maybe I am an embarrassment. Unlike Jatin, who at nine could cast all nine types of magic, my white magic casting is bloody awful. If Alkin had had to rely on me, that village wouldn’t have survived.

  “Fine, one hour to train, one hour to make the firelight, and then you are getting down to the East Village,” Mother says.

  “Thank you. You’re the best, Mom!” I call.

  Father looks up from his reports and raises both his arms. “I’m still here, you know.”

  “You are the best too, Dad.” And he was, for getting me out of seeing Jatin today.

  “Can I go to the parade, then?” Prisha asks. “If Adraa doesn’t want to see Jatin, I do.”

  I hold my breath. In no way was that a good idea.

  “Prisha, you have an exam,” Mother argues.

  Thank Gods. I could take Zara’s giddy reconnaissance, but Prisha would deliver me lies or half-truths and I would be left to decipher them. Or even worse, she would walk right up to Jatin and introduce herself. Then I would have to explain my absence was due to fear and annoyance, not obligation to other duties.

  I push through the door, glad to leave my sister’s protests behind. Once alone in the hallway and on my way to the training yard, I whisper and touch my fingertips to Jatin’s letter. “Gharmaerif!” A warm red glow spreads across the page and one icy clear word in Jatin’s messy script, for my eyes only, unfreezes and steams into life. “Winning.”

  Blood. It’s true.

  Up. High up, where clouds start to flirt with the sun, Kalyan and I fly. It is a freedom like no other. My skyglider, whiter than bone, glides under my control toward home. I am heading home. Huh, I thought I would get used to thinking that after the eighth hour of travel or so. But it’s not like I have ever escaped the cage of my name and title. School had been only an extended prison, reaching out hundreds of miles from the palace to confine my heart and bind me to ambition. Learn and train, you must, because one day you will rule. Messing up or giving up means not only personal failure but also your country’s demise.

  I sigh, and think of the avalanche for the hundredth time. All that training had barreled into meaning something other than future obligation. I had saved people’s lives. It felt good. It feels good. And thinking of the avalanche rears my brain into Adraa territory and I cannot help but smile. She should be getting the letter today. She should know what I accomplished in Alkin. This feat tops everything we have ever bragged about before. I’m definitely winning.

  My personal guard drifts his skyglider closer to mine. “Okay, I know you don’t like flying this much and returning to Naupure isn’t exactly going to be the best day ever, so what is it? Why do you have that ridiculous smile on your face?”

  I glance Kalyan’s way. The wind whips his black hair and carries his white magic from his skyglider sweeping behind him in gusts. White trails my skyglider as well, but mine blends with the puffy clouds; Kalyan’s saturates the sky with a straight grayish stream.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The smile, the one you have been wearing since Alkin.”

  “I’m just happy I was there. Able to save all those—”

  “You sent Adraa one of those senseless notes again, didn’t you?” Kalyan shakes his head at me. “I know I’m right.”

  Adjusting my kurta, I meet my head guard’s piercing look. “How do you figure?”

  “I told you. Because of that ridiculous grin of yours. You are so proud of yourself. You think you are beating her.”

  I unglue the
smile so my face discloses only seriousness. “I have a lot to be proud of. Look at this beautiful land.” I gesture in a vague downward motion and then take a gander myself so I can keep my smirking in check.

  A couple of miles to my left, the ocean sits, washes, and flows in an unbelievable mass. I can only comprehend it because I’m high enough to understand just how far into the forever it stretches. For some reason, miles of ocean seem more daunting than the endless snowcaps and greenery of mountains that rise to my right. Maybe I’m too used to the mountains: I was born within them, so their rise to meet my flight is like the peaks are trying to tickle my feet or clasp my shoulders, a warm familiar greeting. In the last six hours of flight the ocean has stayed constant, but the mountains grew and I know I am almost home.

  “Proud of? We aren’t in Naupure yet. Or are you insinuating this will be yours because we are nearing Belwar?” Kalyan asks.

  “No, I do not plan to conquer.”

  “Of course, it will be practically yours anyway once you marry.”

  I don’t feel like responding. If it weren’t Kalyan, if I didn’t know he was joking, those would be dueling words. Kalyan leans back on his skyglider, the wind catching the kited tail at a different angle. “Do you think she will be at the palace?” His tone is curious, interested. If I had voiced the question, the words would have drowned in anxiety.

  I shrug.

  It is so easy to think of Adraa as someone to tease, to challenge, but that is where our affection for each other ends. Truthfully, I don’t know her that well. There are only a few variables I can nail down. One: she’s competitive, almost to the point of vicious. Two: she’s easily annoyed with a temper I have experienced firsthand. Everything else dwells in the land of supposedly. Like supposedly she’s beautiful, supposedly she’s brilliant, supposedly she’s kind. All my father’s words. But I guess he has a right to those opinions. She has practically grown up with the man, while I on the other hand had been sent away. I’m the foreigner in this situation. But now, I will finally figure her out myself instead of reading about her in palace reports. I turned eighteen months ago. If we are going to get married, it will be soon. My mouth goes dry. Do I want her to be at the palace? The “no” staggers before me. I don’t want her there yet, don’t want to face my future the moment I step through the ice door.

  Kalyan glides close, too close really, but we are skilled enough to do it. He slaps my shoulder, obviously aware of my sudden unease. “Hey, we’ve been over this. She can’t be too bad.”

  I sigh and pull a hand through my hair. “Yeah, Father just loves her.” Which in truth makes it worse, so much worse. How can I escape this arrangement when the man whose respect I crave more than anyone’s in the world admires a temperamental hothead who is all wrong for me?

  Kalyan doesn’t respond. He likes to find his words, make sure they convey something of importance or at least set up a joke. Mere talk for talking’s sake is senseless garble to him. School was a real quiet time having him as my closest friend, but in the air, facing home, I cherish that silence. Wordlessly, he extends his forearm. I quickly knock mine against his before he whooshes out a few meters for safety. It’s enough.

  Ahead of us, three of my older guards fly, a small procession considering when I left for school at age nine I had twelve guardsmen. Not that we expect any danger, but it’s a long journey. Someone could burnout. Accidents do happen. Only four flying stations, yellow-magic-fueled platforms for rest and recuperation, hover along our current route.

  Mostly, though, it all comes back to me being the only heir, not just my father’s only son but his only child. I was supposed to have a sister. I was also supposed to have a mother. By now I’ve almost stopped noticing the cage of precaution. Almost.

  From here I can only see the whip of cloaks and the guards’ magic. Orange, yellow, and blue jet streams spout from the end of their skygliders and disperse before reaching Kalyan and me, thus prohibiting the potential cross of magic that could send us all barreling toward the mountain’s feet.

  Suddenly, yellow drops and my body tightens. “Vardrenni.” I rush into a spell to make sure Samik hasn’t been hit or fallen asleep, to make sure I can still save him. White smoke blurs my eyes for a second and my vision zooms in, magnifying Samik, who is descending and falling back on purpose. I sigh. Just a report then, but I stay alert regardless. I should be paying more attention, not thinking of Adraa or my father.

  It takes Samik only a minute of hard flying to swoop under and then rise to fall in line beside me, the skill of a yellow forte. “Raja Jatin.” He lays his index and middle finger to his throat in salute. I mirror the action.

  “Yes?”

  “We are approaching the East Village of Belwar, where we will meet the carriage.”

  Great. Just great. Not just paraded around for my father but for the Belwars too. One in particular, I’m sure.

  “Thank you, Samik.” I press my fingers against my pulse point again and he copies me, adding a deeper bow. Then he waits a moment to catch the wind and drop. So much honor and tradition; so much respect. But who is Samik beyond that salute? Something seems to whisper I’ll never get to know. Partly, it’s the Naupure way. We are formal by nature. But it’s more than that. We don’t discriminate based on one’s forte, unlike my uncle’s country, Moolek, but propriety is still ruled by how many types of magic one can cast. In a land in which the majority can handle four types at the most, I’m a novelty. A nine. I’m also the heir to the throne. To a few people, I’m the embodiment of a god. That last bit has always been overwhelming. But it doesn’t stop everyone from bestowing his or her ultimate respect and that means I get guards, I get loyalty, I get reverence. Never friendship.

  Kalyan veers closer instead of shouting. “Think we should switch when we land? After all, we are doing the whole carriage thing to parade through the village.”

  I touch my simple blue kurta and look at Kalyan’s fine embroidered jacket with my family’s emblem, a mountain constricted by wind stitched into the fabric. We look so similar, like brothers: black hair, dark eyes, a light-brown complexion, even matching square chins. He is my guard for that reason, impersonating me whenever we travel or for laughs back at school. The real difference lies in the fact I’m a head shorter than my friend, but that disguises me even more. Everyone expects a maharaja to be tall, looming. Only my Touch gives me away, the power of my studies and blood racing up both my arms to meet my shoulders. Concealed in cloaks and a long-sleeved kurta, only the five of us surfing above mountains can identify me as a raja.

  “You don’t want to pretend to be me for one last time, for humor’s sake?” I’m grasping, and we both know it.

  Kalyan sighs, letting me grasp anyway. “Fine, but as soon as we pass Mount Gandhak we are switching. I am not riding up to Azure Palace and knocking on the ice door wearing this.”

  “Deal.” I know I will never masquerade as a simple guard again. I already ache for the easiness, the simplicity in pretending I will not one day rule the country.

  “Himadloc,” I chant. Red streams of magic slip off my fingers and streak toward a bowl of water. The liquid stirs and slowly, way too slowly, hardens, cracks, and finally freezes over. Sighing at that pathetic attempt, I walk back to the covered porch, where the fattest book in history sits upon a podium. I flip through it, searching for other simple white magic spells.

  A door to the training yard slams shut, which can mean only one thing.

  “Hey! Your ceremony training isn’t for another three hours. Why did you start without me?” When I don’t look up, my best friend slaps her hand down on the page I’m reading. “Adraa. What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  “No.” I shrug and push Riya’s hand away.

  She peers down at the paragraph. “Snow spells, really? Might as well show me the letter now.”

  I finally glance at Riya, who’s
shaking her head because she knows I only turn this desperate with white magic when I’m reminded of my royal ceremony. And Jatin in any form is the ultimate reminder. Oh Gods, he’s really coming home today.

  “What? You are easier to read than this ancient thing.” She lifts one corner of the book and lets it drop for emphasis.

  “I resent that. I’m complicated, mysterious, and…”

  “And fretting over a boy?” Riya arches one of her thick eyebrows.

  I jerk the letter from my pocket and hand it over. “I’m not fretting about him. I’m fretting about…about…”

  Riya holds up a hand, my stammering explanations puttering out as she scans the letter. She finally meets my eyes again. “I guess he is kind of winning.”

  I tear the letter from her. “Aren’t you supposed to be supportive?”

  “I protect your life, but the job description doesn’t say anything about being nice to you.” Her hand rests on her knife in implication, but she also smiles.

  It’s a bad joke. Seven months ago there was no job description. Seven months ago Riya only had to worry about being my best friend. Then three Vencrin criminals cornered my personal bodyguard, Mr. Burman, her father. They blasted him with torture spells until he was comatose. Riya took up her father’s mantle to protect me without hesitation. But it wanes on us, stiffening our once comfortable relationship.

  And sometimes it feels like all I can do is change the subject. “I have to make more firelight and deliver it to the East Village. You in?”

  “Of course. Could I even get out of it?”

  A joke again, but this one bites because I think part of her means it. “Don’t fret over petty things like a couple of words.” I pat her arm playfully as I fetch the orbs for the firelight, hoping she knows just how much I mean that.

  She takes my distraction, though, and helps haul the bowl with hundreds of small spheres over to the huge courtyard. Frostlight petals crunch beneath our feet, perfuming the air with the smell of crisp snow even though it’s summer. These blossoms like to saunter into my training grounds like they own the place, which they kind of do. Hundreds grace the floor, taking over and leaving nothing but a sheen of white-speckled blue. One time they caught fire and almost burned the arched wooden pillars that surround us. I learned an extinguishing spell pretty quick after Riya and I saved the palace with a wave of water from the bubbling fountain. I chuckle at the memory as I wipe some of the blossoms away to reveal the dirt underneath.