Cast in Firelight

by Dana Swift

  “I did this because of you, for you.”

  “Because of me?” A fresh dose of anger streams into her voice. “Oh, this is going to be good.”

  “I’m trying to find the men, the ones who hurt your dad, Riya.”

  Her expression falls. Whatever she thought my explanation was going to be, this isn’t it. “Then who was it? What are their names?”

  “After I started to investigate I realized how big this whole thing was. I focused on the drugs and then firelight was being taken off the market and—”

  She scoffs. “Don’t pretend you did this for my father, then. Don’t you dare do that!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But all this is bigger than you or me or your father. It’s about Belwar’s entire future.” When she swings away, I tug at her arm. “Riya, I think it’s Maharaja Moolek. I have reason to believe he has corrupted our guards and is taking my firelight. I think your father, our teacher, was one of the first they silenced.”

  She jerks as if I’ve sucked out all the air in the room. “Maharaja Moolek? Adraa, that’s why I’m here.”

  “What?”

  “You were summoned to the throne room. Zara and I searched and searched and we couldn’t find you, and then—” Her words spin faster until I think even she realizes they are out of control. And my best friend is never out of control. She pauses and I finally take in the strands of black hair falling from her bun, her wraparound skirt askew.

  I lunge forward, dread filling me. “Riya, tell me, what has Maharaja Moolek done?”

  “Nothing,” she breathes. “But he wants to talk to you. Personally.”

  * * *

  I burst into the palace. I left Kalyan with a fumbling apology and only a sentence of information, which resembled an excuse more than an explanation. Gods, how I wish he could be next to me opening this door, though. On the way over I cleaned myself up and threw on garments worthy of the Belwar name, but you can’t clean up shock like you can a bloodstain. It overwhelms my face. I might as well go in there with my red mask on with as much as my parents will be able to piece together.

  But that doesn’t matter so much as what in Wickery am I going to say to Moolek? Or, more important, what he has to say to me?

  As I enter the throne room three heads turn in my direction. My parents look worried and annoyed. The third is a bulky man doused in green-bejeweled garments. His skin is light brown, lighter than even some of the Moolek rajas’ I have met. He’s strikingly handsome. Built like a palace, with a tall straight spine, layers of muscle, and adorned with decorations. But his eyes—they’re watchful, predatory, the goose bumps up my arms yell. He’s almost exactly how I imagined. And I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified.

  A dark-green table has been crafted in the middle of the room, with chairs and a tablecloth that glows with the intricate designs of a Touch, overlapping swirls, branching crisscrossed lines, and pebbled dots. He has literally mapped out his blessing into the purple magic so we can witness it shine in the firelight that burns around us.

  “I’m glad you were finally able to join us, Lady Adraa.” He constructs another chair and gestures for me to take it.

  I bow, placing two fingers on my neck. Never before have I felt nauseated giving my respects. “It is a pleasure,” I say, the lie dripping with pretend sincerity. Then I sit, perched on my enemy’s magic, knowing at any moment he could break the spell. As if I hadn’t already felt like I was walking into a trap.

  “Yes, a pleasure. You are as stunning as everyone says.” His eyes flip between my parents and me, and a smile I’m sure many would label as charming beams at the three of us in turn.

  The retort I know comes to mind, as does Maharaja Naupure’s laugh way back then. But I am no longer eight and I don’t want this man knowing my true nature, the rebellious streak conjuring up questions and suspicion. “Thank you,” I say, my face surely blanketed in disdain.

  “Now that we are all here, I’ll get straight to the point. I want to talk to you about an alliance.”

  We all pause at this word as if Maharaja Moolek has said something disgusting. But, well…

  “What kind of alliance?” my mother says slowly.

  “I find the best alliances are those made of blood, through marriage.”

  My heart thumps hard in my chest, as if it just woke up and must climb Mount Gandhak in one bound.

  “I don’t understand, Maharaja Moolek. You don’t have a son, so I’m unsure what you are proposing.”

  But I understand. I understand too well. I recoil, wanting to be wrong. The next words come, though, unstoppable.

  “I’m talking about between Adraa and myself, of course.”

  He bloody just said it. I lurch up from the chair and take a big step back, hoping that with it I can walk out of the room, rewind time, anything to retract the notion I would marry Maharaja Moolek, a forty-year-old manipulative creature of a wizard. The very man who might be fueling or funding firelight’s disappearance.

  “But you are correct,” he continues as he, too, stands. “I do not have any sons….” He smiles at me, his teeth bearing the word yet on his canines.

  Blood! This cannot be happening. I glance at my father, trying to scream the word dusk with only my eyes. My parents rise.

  “Our daughter has been arranged to your nephew, Jatin Naupure, for many years,” my father says.

  “And yet there has been no blood contract, not even a formal engagement meeting.”

  “Maharaja Naupure has been away, as you well know, and Adraa is not yet eighteen.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Maharaja Moolek’s eyes pierce me. “But I think we should give Adraa a choice in the matter, don’t you?”

  This is what I got wrong when I was eight and forced to climb a mountain. My parents want to grant me freedom, to fight for it. It was never blood contracts, marry Jatin or else. It was marry well and Jatin Naupure seemed to be the best candidate. But now, my father would let me choose with such good prospects in front of his daughter. Because how could I go wrong? Two powerful men are willing to marry me. I already know what my father will say too. So as he opens his mouth I can practically mouth the words. “We will let Adraa choose.”

  Everyone’s eyes fall on me. Maharaja Moolek’s and my father’s words are a cage, entrapping me. Choice has never felt so malicious. I can’t breathe, let alone speak.

  “Of course, you don’t need to answer tonight. I’ll give you time to think about it, Adraa. Let us get to know each other, shall we?”

  As I enter Azure Palace my thoughts keep snapping back to Adraa. She ran out so fast with her guard. And after that head injury…

  I think I deserve to know what’s happening. But no. Something in Riya’s face told me I’m no longer to be trusted. She must know about us being Night and the Red Woman, but it doesn’t appear that she knows who I truly am. If she had I would have gotten more than Adraa’s worried look and the bland words: I have to get back to Belwar Palace.

  I need to tell her because I can’t keep doing this. The lying, once a wall to protect myself, has become a barrier that distances us.

  I shove open the office door with a sigh. A figure stands in the shadows, rustling through the desk. Vencrin. Without hesitation, I cast a knife and it slices forward. A blue shield bashes the purple magic away and the weapon thuds into a wooden cabinet. My arms flame in preparation, the makings of a spell ready on my lips. Then the intruder speaks.

  “Planning to kill me?” The hallway firelight catches my father’s face as he looks up with a bemused smile. “I didn’t expect a welcome home party, but betrayal by my own flesh and blood is a little much.”

  My magic bursts into mist. “You’re…you’re home.”

  “A few hours ago.” He steps toward me.

  We perform a stumbling dance of “how should we gre
et?” before I place my fingers on my pulse and bow. It’s even more uncomfortable than when I came home, as if our relationship has regressed. Then again, I did almost murder him. I have found that always kills the mood and stiffens the air. Sadness touches his eyes as I rise from my respects and I yearn to withdraw the last five minutes and somehow fix our dysfunctional shuffle.

  Maybe it’s me. Maybe when you want connection so desperately, people can see it.

  He walks back to the desk and nods at the mountain of paperwork. “I forgot how messy you are.”

  “Looking for something?”

  “The twenty-first treaty actually.”

  “I have it over here.” I pull out the bundle. “And in these drawers are the plans for the new school and updates on the water system. And here is the bill about the Untouched. It’s going to be bloody awful to pass, but it needs to happen.” I catch my father smiling. “There is some order to the chaos,” I try to say without sounding defensive and resentful. I can do this. For weeks I was the raja of Naupure and the Night of Belwar.

  “I’d hoped so.” He crosses his arms and leans on the desk. “You wrote about all the bills and plans. But tell me, how are you getting on with Adraa?”

  It’s the last thing I want to talk about. “It’s a slow development.”

  “But no domestic abuse, right?”

  I laugh roughly. “She hasn’t hit me.” But she has torn at my heart, almost died in front of me a few times, left me in the Underground alone wondering what the blood was going on. On second thought “slow development” doesn’t sound right. I might have gone backward.

  “Since we are covering all the big things that happened in my absence, want to explain this?” He holds up the poster with my masked face plastered on it. It looks nothing like me thanks to Adraa’s black magic spell, but of course there’s no denying it to him.

  “You wanted me to be a part of it.”

  “You two have gone far beyond gathering information.”

  “Yeah, that’s mainly Adraa. The night I met her she had the intention of ambushing a dozen Vencrin by herself.”

  He sighs. “I’m guessing you won’t stop, even if I ask.”

  “You want me to not help her?”

  He shakes his head and runs his hands through his thinning hair. Do I do that? Sometimes I catch myself trying to define our similarities or habits. And most of the time I come away with nothing.

  “You are my only heir, Jatin. Three times, my brother reminded me his son, your cousin, has taken the ceremony over a year ago. They will find any way to dethrone you. Your death would make it beyond easy to disrupt Naupure’s entire future.”

  “It might have started by helping Adraa, but now it’s about helping everyone. Do you realize what these Vencrin are capable of? I want this. For once in my life I feel like a normal wizard who can make a difference.”

  He stares at me for a long moment. “You’re a lot like her.”

  “Adraa?”

  “No, your mother.” He scans the big map on the wall and clutches his wedding bangle. “She didn’t want the throne either. All the power-hungry people in this world and my family simply wants a normal life.” His eyes jerk to me. “But that will make you a great maharaja, I think.”

  The mention of my mother not only stings, it scorches. It’s as if my father only brings my mother up to unravel me. He doesn’t speak of her. I learned not to ask. And now he thinks he can compliment me into submission. To blood with that. “I’m not stopping.”

  He sees something in my eyes. We face each other in silence. Whoever breaks first…

  “At least tell me what you’ve discovered,” he finally says.

  I sigh, the tension of our silence unwinding slightly. “We’ve traced it. It goes from East District warehouses to Pier Sixteen. But we haven’t found any evidence that it’s Moolek stealing the firelight. And, more importantly, we haven’t found out why it’s being stolen. Adraa and I think it may just be to tarnish the Belwar name. Prove how unstable it is in the market so that Untouched resort back to candles and thus Moolek’s ghee.”

  “Maybe.” My father rubs his chin. “But you have no concrete proof yet?”

  “No. None.”

  He sighs, a heavy sound that makes him appear even shorter, even older. “The trip was as awful as you could expect. Your uncle has never been a good man. But since he has taken power he has become worse than I could have possibly imagined.”

  “Where is Maharaja Moolek now? I thought he was coming to Naupure to re-sign the treaty.”

  “He did come. He is at Belwar Palace. He insisted upon staying there. That makes me nervous, of course, but I couldn’t refuse.”

  My body turns to stone. Maharaja Moolek is at Belwar Palace. Which means…he’s under the same roof as Adraa. “What does he want in Belwar?” I demand.

  Anguish washes over my father’s face. “What I’m afraid he has always wanted—Adraa.”

  In the past few weeks my dreams have amped up full force. It’s stress. It has to be, and yet, in my dreams I live in a world of red. And in this place fear penetrates every part of my body like a sword gutting me. Something is coming. Something bad is coming.

  “You must perform for the nine gods. You must complete the ceremony,” a female voice hisses at me. She repeats it over and over. “It’s the only way. Sometimes one must die so others can live,” she says.

  Listening to the voice makes the fear disappear. I try to hold back at first, try to explain how I need more time to determine the Vencrin threat. “I need to be the Red Woman!” I shout at the voice. By the end, every time, I give in as the fear swallows me.

  The night Maharaja Moolek proposed marriage, the dream grew worse. The fear pressed in on me like fire.

  Since I can’t sleep, I train. But after white magic spell upon white magic spell fails, I stop. I haven’t performed my morning prayers in weeks. Guess in times like these most people would consult the gods. I might as well try too.

  I walk to the temple slowly, not wanting to grovel to Dloc so early. Dread fills my gut like I’m an orb about to bust. Stress does that, feels like it’s unending and limitless, like it will keep eating at you until nothing is left.

  As I trudge up the steps, I’m surprised to spot Prisha praying.

  Instead of calling out, I kneel beside her. She starts. “You’re normally asleep this early in the morning,” she says.

  I guess she’s more observant of my comings and goings than I thought. “Yeah, I guess I am. Do you come here every morning?”

  “Most days.”

  I never knew she was so devout. What could she possibly be praying for that much? I’ve seen her in the clinic and on the training field with Hiren. At fifteen she has a good grasp on all nine types of magic, better than I was at her age. Back then, I was failing white magic consistently. Who am I kidding? I’m still failing at white magic.

  “Were you ever scared?” Prisha whispers.

  I stare at her. She doesn’t look at me; she’s still in the position of meditation, her eyes wide, gazing at Laeh’s pillar.

  “Scared of what?” There are just so many things now.

  “Your forte.” Finally, she turns to me. “I mean, did you want to be Erif Touched?”

  “I didn’t pray for it if that’s what you’re wondering. But I was scared. No, actually I was terrified. I thought I wouldn’t be chosen at all. Since I was little, Mom and Dad and Maharaja Naupure told me they”—I nod toward the pillars—“were fighting over me. I was so afraid the gods would give up the fight and I would be left Untouched.”

  She nods, but I can tell it’s not the answer she was looking for. My sister is normal; she never had to deal with the prospect of having a naked arm.

  “Are you scared?”

  She fiddles with some sand on the floor, building it into
little mounds, dispersing it, and then rebuilding. “I don’t want to be Laeh’s. That’s what I pray for every day.”

  I reel back. “You hate the clinic that much?”

  “No, it’s not the clinic exactly. I just…I just don’t want to be like Mom. She’s so trapped there.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. She loves the clinic.”

  “Maybe. But, I mean, have you ever seen how some people treat her? Like she’s their slave, expected to dole out potions every day. That because she is a woman, that’s her one and only use. And I think Mom hopes I’m Laeh Touched so that I can take over for her. But I want to be strong, stronger.”

  “Pink healing magic is not strictly feminine, and it is not weak. It saves people’s lives. Mom. You. Me. All pink users. We save people’s lives. There is nothing weak about that.”

  She won’t meet my eye as she plays with the sand. “I want to be wanted for me, not what I can do. Not what Belwar thinks I should do.”

  But what someone can do as a witch or wizard is connected inherently to their talents, their desire to devote oneself to specific types of magic. Pink fortes are always a welcomed skill, especially when trained by our mother. Prisha will always have a place in society. But I guess that’s what upsets her. She doesn’t want to fit in. She believes pink fortes are inherently lesser, weaker, feminine. Gods, I never imagined how different we are. She’s so spoiled by her normalcy that she can’t see how good she has it or how important pink magic is to saving Belwar, saving everyone. Once the drugs are off the streets, we will still need to help the wizards and witches who are in withdrawal or have damaged Touches.

  “Prisha, it’s only a one in nine chance you’ll become a pink forte.”

  “I know, but…”

  “And you would be more than a pink forte anyway. You are a Belwar.”

  Prisha pulls at her choli.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll— Wait, is that my sari?”