Lucien grinned at her. “Thank you, Bree. It’s always good to be reminded of how repulsive I am.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are all too aware you’re not in the least repulsive, Lucien.” She paused to give Stellan a stern look. “But aside from the fact that I’ve been raised to consider you all family despite the lack of blood connection, not even the prettiest eyes in the world could tempt me anywhere near a crown.” She shuddered dramatically.
“There you go, Lucien,” I murmured. “Some consolation for you. At least you’ve got pretty eyes.”
“The prettiest eyes in the world, apparently,” Stellan said with a wide grin.
Bryony snorted. “I’m nothing if not fair. Although it’s a sad waste. I’m sure some poor laborer somewhere could do with those eyes. You hardly have need of them, Lucien. Not when there are plenty of girls who do find a crown attractive.”
“Let your poor brother be,” Mother said, directing a quelling look at me in particular.
I instantly felt guilty. I had forgotten her words from a few days before about my aunt’s desire for a marriage alliance with one of the imperial princesses. There was every likelihood poor Lucien wouldn’t get the chance to choose his own bride.
“Stellan is just afraid of the competition,” I told Lucien. “He’s already thinking of when he’ll be starting at the Academy next year.”
“About that,” said Stellan quickly, and the mood in the room instantly dropped.
My father’s expressions could be hard to read, but I had long ago learned the tricks of interpreting them. Bryony might not have noticed anything at all, but to me he looked thunderous. I glanced at my mother who, even after more than twenty years as a princess, had never achieved my father’s level of control. She was giving Stellan the look we all knew meant it was time to let something drop.
My brother pushed on.
“If you would let me join the sealing ceremony next week, then I could properly start at the Academy next autumn. Who knows when another opportunity will come up?”
“We’ve already discussed this,” Father said flatly.
“And the answer is still no,” Mother finished for him.
I looked back and forth between them before looking across the table at Lucien. He looked as confused as I felt. We both turned our gazes on Stellan.
“Sealing ceremony?” Lucien asked at the same moment as I spoke.
“You want to be sealed?”
Stellan, who had remained resolute in the face of our parents’ disapproval, threw us both a guilty glance.
“Your brother has spent most of the year while you two were away trying to convince us to let him be sealed along with the next group of commonborns,” Mother said. “I thought he had finally given up on the topic.”
“I had,” Stellan said. “Until I heard there was going to be a sealing ceremony next week. We don’t have many of them anymore, so this is my best chance.”
“But why would you want to be sealed?” I asked blankly. I glanced across at Bryony, expecting to see her sharing my confusion, but she looked merely thoughtful.
“It makes perfect sense if you think about it,” Stellan said. “I know my royal status means they’ve bent the rules and allowed me to learn to read, but the Academy would be much easier if I could write as well. Mother knows that’s true because she had to make it through all four years without writing herself.”
“And I graduated just fine,” Mother said. “As will you.”
“We’ve already agreed to discuss it again after you finish first year, Stellan,” Father said in a closed voice. “You’re not yet sixteen. It’s much too early to think of limiting yourself in any way.”
“But that didn’t work for Verene, did it?” Stellan asked before cutting himself off with a guilty look in my direction. Changing tack, he focused his attention across the table. “You understand, don’t you, Bryony? An energy mage doesn’t need access to power. All we can do with it is accidentally destroy ourselves. You’re all born sealed, so I don’t see why it’s so strange I would want to be sealed myself.”
Bryony opened her mouth but then looked at me and closed it again.
Stellan glanced at me as well and then at Lucien. “I know being a spoken energy mage makes me strange, but I’m still an energy mage. Everyone agrees on that. It’s just another one of our oddities that I wasn’t born with my access to power sealed like all the regular energy mages. But thankfully that’s easy enough to remedy.”
“But…” I struggled to find the words. At Stellan’s age I had been desperately awaiting my sixteenth birthday, hoping against hope that some hitherto unsuspected power might emerge, and now my brother wanted to do the opposite and purposefully limit himself.
And yet, I also understood what it was like to dread starting at the Academy, knowing how different you were from everyone else. And in Stellan’s case, he would be starting the year after Lucien graduated, not only different from his year mates but walking in our brother’s impossibly large shadow. At the moment he was like a commonborn, unable to safely write without unleashing uncontrolled power, and so being sealed alongside commonborns actually did make sense. And unlike the power mage conducting the sealing ceremony, he would still be left with his ability intact since he appeared to have an energy ability which wouldn’t be affected by sealing his power.
But looming over all of those thoughts was the knowledge that had closed Bryony’s mouth. The knowledge we had agreed not to tell my family—and by inevitable extension, my aunt. My brother thought my example proved his case, but he didn’t know the truth. I was actually proof it was entirely possible he did have some power that hadn’t yet emerged.
“I think Mother and Father are right,” I said slowly, earning a betrayed look from my brother. “Sorry, Stellan, but I just don’t think it’s worth the risk. You can wait another couple of years.”
A crease appeared between Mother’s brows as she gave me a long look. I bit my lip, hoping I hadn’t somehow given myself away. However she didn’t challenge me, and immediately my concern was replaced with guilt. If I wasn’t concealing the truth from my family, then my brother wouldn’t be trying to get himself sealed.
I glanced at my father’s implacable face. Sealing wasn’t the sort of thing Stellan could do on his own in a fit of rebellion. He was safe for two more years. I resolved that if his opinion remained the same next summer, I would think of a way to warn him properly. I couldn’t let him forever limit himself because of my lack of transparency.
Meanwhile, my mother had turned her attention from me to Stellan. Her face and voice softened as she looked at her younger son.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re saying this because we love you. I’m truly sorry you children have had to inherit such a muddle of powers, but each of you is unique and special. Your Father and I couldn’t live with ourselves if we let any one of you limit yourselves in an effort to be normal.”
My father nodded. “Your mother didn’t change our kingdom and end the war with Kallorway by being the same as everyone else. And I truly believe you children have the potential to do even greater things than we did. We brought the beginnings of change, but we were forced into taking small steps by the weight of the past and established opinions. You four are at the center of the next generation—the one growing up in the new world, with a new way of thinking. You’re the ones who will truly live that change.”