As she continues to lift it from the box, a chain comes with it, looped through the finger’s hole. She moves slowly as she removes it completely from the box. Her mother grasps the chain, and Nefari releases the ring. Glee dances in her chest when Amala slips the necklace over her head.
“When you’re afraid, I want you to press your lips to this ring and remember that you are as sturdy as the silver, as sharp as the stone, and as wise as all those who have worn it before you.” Nefari says nothing, too transfixed with the ring resting against her chest. “Nefari? You need to promise me.”
“I will, Momma. I’ll remember.”
The springs of her mattress wobble precariously when Nefari jolts up in her bed. In the darkness of her room, her hand covers her heart, and heavy beads of sweat cling to her back. She can feel her heart’s rapid beat pushing against her ribs, but somehow, feeling the life beneath her palm calms her – forces her to remember where she is.
The dream was a memory, one she had once cherished the days after her mother’s death. Now, it’s one that torments her, especially on the days following the events of freeing villages.
Her mother wanted her to be brave always, but Bastian asked her to be nobody.
The princess pushes her hand through her damp hair. She had told the lieutenant she was nobody, too, right before she revealed her true identity upon his death. After her kingdom was destroyed, and she and the remaining shadow children were walking through the hidden tunnel to the Kadoka City, Bastian had said, “You are nobody, Nefari Ashcroft.”
She remembers it like it was yesterday. She knows it wasn’t said without love. It wasn’t meant to hurt her. In fact, there had been tears in Bastian’s eyes. In these tears, she could see her shadow skin reflect back to her. But it did. It did hurt her. That is until she found the freedom of being just like everyone else.
Still, her youthful self had scoffed at his words while she absorbed the cave’s darkness and the shadows jumping out at her. Nefari didn’t know until years later that she had been the one who made those shadows move, but Bastian knew. Even if her mother didn’t, he knew. Her power had awoken at the base of their mountain, erupted in a blast of light that trembled the snow around them. He had been watching for more magic, more instances that she might lose control.
And though the magic always awakes in a shadow royal child on their eighth birthday, Nefari had never told him the shadows had bent toward her for as long as she could remember. It wasn’t part of this awakening. Somehow, she knew this wasn’t normal.
But Sibyl knows the full truth. She had seen it in her cave atop the mountain the very first day she was sent there for lessons on controlling her own magic-made shadows and the light that casts them. She had been delighted about it, to say the least.
Her thoughts drift back to the memory while her eyes stray to the embers breathing in her bedroom’s fireplace.
“You must be nobody,” Bastian had continued. “Do not let my words scare you, Nefari. Everyone will know you’re their princess – their rightful queen – but there’s a reason why you must be nobody. The realm believes you dead, and with your death, no one will come searching for you. Do you understand?”
Nefari’s nose had wrinkled, but her anger had banked. “Fine. I don’t want to be a princess, anyway,” she sniffled.
“But you are and so much more.” Bastian had glanced down at her. “It is too much to ask for a child to bear the weight of an entire kingdom’s death, but someday when you’ve grown, you will understand, and you will be able to pick up the pieces. That day is not today. Nor is it tomorrow.” He held out a hand. “Come. I have a room for you in my hut. It isn’t as fine as your room had been in the Shadow Castle, but it will do.”
Nefari blinks away the memory as she glances about the room Bastian had given her ten years ago. It looks exactly the same except her dirty tunics are draped over the broken rocking chair shoved in the far corner. She’s often considered moving into her own hut within the city, but truth be told, she only comes home to sleep. There would be no point. She supposes now she has the time since Bastian has grounded her until further notice.
She wrinkles her nose at the idea.
Maybe tomorrow.
The small fireplace barely heats her room or reaches her tiny bed. The room is tall and wide, and sometimes Nefari feels like it’s swallowing her. The wooden planks that make up the floor are dry and drafty, and during the day, meager light filters in through the window to smear across them.
Across from the bed and against the far wall, there’s a trunk full of the belongings she’s accumulated since she first arrived – leathers, coins, old swords, and sharp knives.
Sighing, she climbs from her bed and walks to the filthy window that overlooks the city.
Off in the distance, the secret tunnel is tucked within the city’s forest though she can’t see the trees at all through the storm. On foot, the city is only accessible through the secret tunnel. A path winds from it that leads through the main parts of the city erected in a valley between the peaks of the Kadoka Mountains. The city isn’t large, but the huts themselves are.
Through the spiraling snowflakes, she can make out the sharply pointed roofs of many huts. The roofs’ angle helps keep the snow from gathering too heavily, and each hut is sandwiched between beaten and snowy paths and large, sharp boulders. But this early in the morning, before the sun has even risen, the city appears grey with the storm still raging. When it’s a clear day, everything glistens brightly in all its fine glory. The air is always crisp and clean, however, and the tall trees throughout the city block the majority of the victorious gales that happen to make it over the mountain.
Nefari touches the window and traces the nearest hut’s roof. Her finger moves from the window and runs along the rough wood of the hut’s structure; tree trunks stacked on tree trunks like the cabins Nefari often finds abandoned while on journeys for the Rebel Legion.
When she first saw them, she had wondered how these huts had managed to stay upright, but as she grew older, she realized the trunks fit together like a puzzle piece. When she had brought it up to Sibyl, Sibyl had said in her crackling childlike voice, “Everything in life is a puzzle, Nefari. It is our job to proceed with caution and assemble it properly.”
She looks back out the window again.
Centaurs are already milling about. There are duties to be done, and a little snow and wind won’t stop the massive creatures built to live in such environments. If Nefari doesn’t leave this hut soon, she’ll never hear the end of it.
They had made it back just in time yesterday. Though, visibility of the storm had started to become a problem on the narrow paths up the side of the mountain. At one point, she had to hop off her mare and guide the animal the rest of the way by the reins. They’re lucky no one fell to their death, and if it hadn’t been for Nefari’s meager height compared to the others, they surely would have plummeted to the villages below. Being so low to the ground had made it easier to see, and they had used the mare’s tail to form a chain.
In the pane, she can see her reflection. She never wears shadows on her face when she’s in the city. Here, it’s safe to be who she is – to be no different than the rest of the few shadow people. Her white hair is back to its normal shade, and her ice-blue eyes sparkle as vibrant as a clear sky. The triangle markings still etched, albeit smeared, around her eyes make them appear more-so.