by Dana Swift
“He picked you up? Like carried you in his arms?”
“Yeah.”
“Blood, you must have hated that.”
“It was horrible and not so bad at the same time.”
Riya shoots me a weird look, one that signals she wants to crack open that answer and get to the bottom of my emotions. But I can’t reason out how being held was both embarrassing and nice in its own regard. I yank myself from the memory. I shouldn’t be thinking of Jatin’s guard or the warmth of his arms wrapped around me. So I focus on Jatin. He had seemed so…I search for the word. Controlled? Calm? Then the right word slaps me in the face and I offer it to Riya in sacrifice.
“Raja Jatin seemed unfeeling.”
“Unfeeling?” She pauses, mulling over the word like I did. “Huh, maybe that is a good thing.”
I laugh bitterly. “I should be happy to marry a cold and unfeeling man?”
“He didn’t know who you were, right? It’s good he wasn’t too friendly. You are Gods-blessed beautiful and he didn’t do anything, didn’t care.” She stresses the last word, and I finally latch on to her logic.
“You interpret this as loyalty to the engagement or his faithfulness to…the real me?”
“Well…yeah.”
I guide Hubris closer, lean in, and raise an eyebrow. “That’s a whole lot of assumption for someone who doesn’t even like men.”
Riya rolls her eyes. “Don’t be jealous, Adraa. We can’t choose who we are attracted to.” Isn’t that the truth. As a royal, there isn’t much of a choice of who I could marry, much less who I’m attracted to.
I snap my fingers. “Perhaps his unfeeling demeanor means he wasn’t attracted to me? Maybe he thought I was ugly.” I laugh and cannot seem to stop. That would truly be something incredibly ironic. After all these years of stress and rivalry, it comes down to Jatin simply shaking his head and walking away.
“Please, get ahold of yourself.”
Hubris sways with my laughter. “Imagine Jatin objecting to the blood contract because he thought I was hideous.”
Riya makes a show of looking me up and down. “Yeah, don’t hold your breath.” She huffs and grips her skyglider tighter. “Besides, it’s a positive assumption, and I need positivity. I want to keep my job, and that means one day living in Azure Palace. I would like to think I will serve a good raja, just as I serve a good rani now.”
The raw compliment settles my laughter and I hiccup into silence. Riya was always supposed to be my guard and accompany me to Azure Palace. Mr. Burman had been priming her for it. If this were seven months ago, I would make a joke about her assumption that she can keep her job after failures like today, but I hold back. I like to poke Riya, but I love her too much to slap.
“Thank you.”
The concept of attraction sticks to me as we land, latch our skygliders, and walk to the grand hall. I’m throwing open the doors and all I can think is, what if Raja Jatin could look beyond our past and really get to know me?
Father’s voice knocks me out of my thoughts. “Behind schedule again? That’s my girl.”
He’s at the head of a long table, surrounded by what he dubs his second family. I’ve grown up seeing our advisors. But today it is a small counsel, and the five chairs for the Belwar rajas remain empty. Riya’s mom, head of security, sits to the right of my father with her usual elongated frown. That frown embodies her entire demeanor. A couple of the guardsmen are here, including Hiren, Prisha’s guard. Willona and the cook, Meeta, have both awkwardly taken seats too, which means it is a palace security meeting.
I go tongue-tied. Riya was right to question me about my father before, because what am I going to tell him? Sorry, Dad, but did you realize your friend Basu is a lowlife who sold my product to the Vencrin? Even worse, how do I indicate how bad this is without telling him how I know about a cage caster named Nightcaster?
I take a deep breath. “I need a private audience.”
Father tilts his head. “Serious as dawn or dusk?”
I smile at his code. “Duskish,” I twist my hand side to side. “We aren’t in the dead of night yet, but…” I hold his green eyes, trying to convey what has happened with only a look.
“Well, then.” He turns to his companions at the table. “Everyone please leave. I need…”
He looks at me expectantly.
“Five minutes,” I supply.
Willona and Meeta tumble from their seats thankfully. They tell me they hate these meetings so much because they don’t want to imagine a harmful spell sealed in any of the letters sent to the palace, or a poisonous potion that could lace our porridge. They don’t want to think about treason and murder. Well, I’m going to have to tell Father about Basu’s betrayal. Maybe he’ll be readier than I was, since he has been contemplating people trying to kill him all morning.
Riya’s mom lingers outside the door and stares Riya down. The real interrogation will be later tonight, for my friend. I wish I could squeeze her hand or apologize. I understand Mrs. Burman’s paranoia and worry for her daughter, but that critical gaze is why I can’t confide in my best friend. It’s my only real reason to dislike her mother, but it’s enough. I can’t trust her because she can’t trust me. And around the circle we go. Mrs. Burman finally steps out. Gods, every move she makes is so dramatic.
Hiren, on the other hand, slides smoothly from his chair and walks toward us. He winks at Riya, a reminder that he got to sit in this meeting and she didn’t, even with her promotion.
“Lady Adraa,” he says as he walks past, his black cloak, a tad too long for him, dusting the ground.
I nod in indication that he should hurry it up, but he stops instead with a grin. “You’ve got some dirt on your forehead, you know.” He reaches out a hand.
I push his shoulder and he chuckles. Hiren may be older than I am, but he still acts like a child. I don’t know why Prisha respects him so much.
“Move it, Hiren,” Riya says.
He gives a little salute, and I think I catch another wink before he disappears.
I sit a few chairs away from Father. Don’t really know why; feels more official this way, I guess. He eyes Riya as she sits beside me.
“She stays,” I tell him.
“All right, what is the dusk-level emergency?” he asks.
“Basu is in the Dome.”
Father’s eyebrows knit together. “Go on, you’ve learned how to hook my attention.”
* * *
On the way in, this felt like such a long story because of its heaviness, but after a few sentences, with some details omitted, I’m done.
“As a future maharani, what would you do next?” Father asks. Gods, everything, even life falling to pieces, is a lesson. He continues after seeing my irritation. “Or better put, what are you requesting of me?”
“Nothing. I wish to consult with Maharaja Naupure to see if he can give me more information about this Nightcaster.” I don’t mean my tone’s sharpness. But I can’t help it. When I talk to my father of politics and agendas, it feels that’s what I become too. He wants me to learn the game. Right now, I’m playing it. I already know how I will investigate.
“Why Naupure?”
Another question to which I can’t tell the whole truth. I need my answer to sound good and convincing. “As our greatest trading partner and the man who helped me set up the firelight distribution, Naupure might know more about any connection between Basu and the Vencrin. He could provide a clue I’m missing as I begin my investigation.” It’s a lie. What I need to do is talk to a man by the name of Sims, who runs the underground cage-casting ring. But I can’t tell my father how I will put myself in danger. How I will lie and manipulate and bleed so everyone can access my light once again.
“Granted. Talk to Naupure.”
“Fine. Thank you.” I hate counsel with this
version of my father, when the political raja emerges. I’m just another witch requesting another thing. I place two fingers on my neck and search for the laugher in his eyes. It’s unsettling that I don’t find it now, but I reassure myself it will return at dinner. The idea that one day it will be gone forever frightens me. I walk to the door. After all, I have a letter to write.
“Adraa?” Father calls.
I turn back.
“I’m sorry. I know how much your firelight initiative meant to you. Bad people are always trying to corrupt good things. This setback shows us how good firelight is for Belwar, though. Don’t let this deter you. Don’t let it—”
“Basu was your friend. How can you be so…so nonchalant?”
“Basu was another trading partner. The term friend is used loosely to craft allies. Truthfully, I always thought he was a mucky little fellow.”
The crinkle around his eyes appears and relief tugs at the corners of my mouth. There he is. There’s my father.
The incident with the girl has become a distraction, a centerpiece on which to focus so my mind doesn’t wander to the peripherals where the anxiety of homecoming gobbles up space like air, invisible and all consuming.
We have tumbled through Belwar’s East Village, North Village, and a bit of the West, and then, finally, entered the mountains. We trudge along Freedom Pass, which skirts the foot of Mount Gandhak and then stretches across my country. It’s named for the trail that people seeking religious and social freedom used to flee from northern Moolek. Those trailblazers believed all nine gods should be respected equally and each forte had a place in society. The people of Moolek think some gods, particularly Htrae, Retaw, Ria, and Erif, deserve privilege over the others since they are the original four fortes. It’s been four hundred years since this path was used for freedom and I’m still glad I’m not my uncle, who rules over Moolek’s lands, however vast they may be.
As a white forte, I might have been banned from ruling Moolek. There, being an orange, purple, black, white, or pink forte is a mark of inferiority from the start. Naupure might have its own problems with judging and devaluing people based on how many of the nine they cast, but right now white ribbons and brocade banners frame doorways. One fountain glistens, frozen with sunlight charging through. All in my honor; all for my name.
The academy resides in the flowing fields and lush marshes of Agsa, which means that for nine years I lived in the open. I forgot the cluttered squish of people when they mob the capital’s streets, blurring in a faceless mass. One hard bump knocks me into Kalyan, and I straighten my kurta, the heavier one with the Naupure emblem. Itchy and constraining, that’s all I can think about it.
The carriage jolts again as if the wheels have caught a stone in their shoe. We limp along painfully. It was a miracle when we broke through the mountain terrain, but the cobblestones might be even worse. I can understand a little of what my ancestors must have thought after traveling so far to find their place in the world, but I had forgotten what it would be like coming back to my own city.
I have only skimmed along Mount Gandhak, an hour by skyglider at the most, and yet, Naupure is different, the air not as thick with the smell of fish, spices, and dyes. The houses are squatter and angled to climb the slopes of mountains. The streets are narrower, stair-entrenched and brighter, both in colorful paint and lack of litter. My people are louder in their hails, not only because I’m their heir but also because Belwar has a different sort of reverence for those chosen by the gods, one that makes their voices and cheers softer and themselves less hungry to see my face and know me. If the girl were to have saved the boy here, the crowds would have knocked us over to find out what was happening. And that difference in mentality stems from Belwar having the largest population of Untouched in all of Wickery. When half of a city can’t do magic it naturally separates itself between the haves and the have-nots. Naupure teems with talent. Our ancestors were the outcasts whom Moolek tried to segregate and still does today. We slowly discovered this mountainous land and spread out, finding its pockets of habitation. Belwar grew from coastal opportunity, melding Pire Island explorers, Agsa businesspeople, and Naupure adventurers.
“Can’t see why they’re this happy. My return doesn’t mean they’re saved or any better off,” I whisper to Kalyan.
“No, but it does mean their children could be,” he says casually. Why the blood does he have to make such heavy statements? The sheer bulk of it presses on my shoulders. No wonder my family is short. Maybe the weight of the kingdom has pounded down my bloodline.
“We are going to have to climb that mountain of yours, aren’t we?”
I look to where Kalyan points. It’s a mountain, Mount Gandhak’s miniature that hugs closely to its mother’s side. Hills and slopes flourish into the rest of the city, but nothing stands taller than Azure Palace. It’s so proud up there. I can make out the glint of the sun reflecting off the rooftop. Samik turns the elephant left and the carriage slowly follows. More faces, more waving hands.
“That would be the tradition for a homecoming or one’s first arrival,” I say.
“Tradition is important, I guess.”
* * *
“Next time I say tradition is important, remind me of this!” Kalyan shouts over the wind. The path up the mountain is a few miles of sloped zigzags, but after reaching the outer gate, it’s a straight incline of stairs. For all of Kalyan’s height and strength, his endurance when it comes to rough climbing could use some work. I’m sweating and cursing my legs too, but his huffing raises laughter in my chest.
“It’s summer, Kalyan.”
“So?” he pants.
“Imagine doing this in winter, might take your mind off it,” I yell.
“Whatever the season, I’m sure most people who climb this thing have two legs.”
“Then shouldn’t I hear half the complaining?” I tease.
Mountain goats jump from the staircase. “They make it look so easy,” Kalyan mutters.
“We are almost there.”
“Can’t see this blue palace of yours yet.”
I scan upward, searching the stretch of stone. “It’s there,” I whisper, mostly to myself.
Behind us, Samik and two gate guards follow. My other men, who have flown above the carriage the whole way to provide air support, are still flying. In the future I’ll be flying, but right now the people need to see my face, need to believe I am home for good. Disembarking from the carriage and showing myself to the swarm around the market hadn’t been a disaster. I waved, people cheered. I cast some snowflakes in the air, people cheered again. They never stop cheering.
Still no Adraa, but she could be next to my father, beside the palace. Maybe that’s why my muscles ache and my heart beats fast. Not out of shape, but bent sideways by anxiety of the unknown.
Climbing the last step and taking in the palace leaves no time for rest. My father and thirty advisors, nobles, and servants stand before the entrance. Behind them, guards in full armor stand at attention in a giant V. The tip points to me like an arrow aimed at my heart.
Kalyan whistles under his breath. “I get to live here.”
I clap him on the back, take a breath, and step forward. I haven’t gone nine years without seeing my father; he visited five or six times when I was at the academy, and came months ago for my royal ceremony. Still, even though I recognize him, and his smile, I’m onstage in front of all these people. No one has exactly given me my lines here. Am I expected to make a speech? Do I hug him?
“Welcome home, Son,” Father says as he presses his forearm to mine. The guards fall to one knee, each with two fingers to the side of his throat. The staff bows, each one also saluting me.
“Thank you,” I say as I glance around for any girl who could be Adraa. I refuse to be caught off guard.
Father watches me. “Lady Adraa isn’t here. I thought
she might come, but I didn’t summon her, so I presume she carried on working like any normal day.”
I smile, the first true one. She wasn’t here. Thank you, Gods. I straighten my expression to a neutral one. “That’s fine with me.”
“Here, you remember Chara.”
I turn toward an elderly woman and the second true smile erupts. “Chara.”
The woman who practically raised me as a child lifts her shoulders as if to say, Lookee here, I’m still alive. She comes in for a hug, and I return it. She squeezes a bit, and that jump-starts my nostalgia. After my mother died, how many times did Chara hug me like this? I could probably cry on demand in this embrace, a habit easy to retrigger. But I’m glad to say that upon my release, my eyes remain dry. Kalyan walks to my side and I step aside to introduce him.
“Oh my.” Chara blinks. “You boys look so alike.”
“That’s why I have a job,” Kalyan jokes, bowing.
I introduce Kalyan as the palace staff greets me. Some new guards, some new servants, but all in all, most faces have changed only in age. A young servant, probably my age or close to it, lingers after his bow. “Raja Jatin, I have to say, um…thank you for Alkin. My sister, you see she moved out there—”
This is what that girl must have felt like when the boy thanked her for his life. What exactly do you say to something like this? “Of course,” I whisper, and offer him my forearm. His face brightens as he presses his arm against mine.
After I’ve greeted everyone, Logen, the lead guard and my father’s bodyguard, takes Kalyan in like a lost chick and steers him toward the garrison and training fields in back. The servants disperse to other duties. Within minutes it’s only Father and me walking through the ice door.