“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.