Riya chuckles at my dramatic wilting and kicks my foot with her boot. “Are you still having those red room nightmares?”
“Only one last night. But it’s not that. It’s…he’s…he comes home today,” I groan through my hands.
“What?” she yells. I’ve surprised Riya, which is an unusual development. I peer up to take in her confusion, happy someone else feels like this is serious enough to warrant stress.
“Gods,” she gasps, before reeling in her shock. “But we still have time.” Riya is the only one who truly understands the extent of my problem. Of course, my parents know to some degree, but they believe I’ll pull through with more practice. It’s why I’m still allowed training time in the middle of the day. I would explain to Maharaja Naupure, but a little thing called pride gets in the way, and I refuse to tell Jatin, ever. He cannot have another thing to sneer at. That’s how I imagine him writing at his desk—sneering. The boy needs an ego boost as much as I need another reminder that I’m losing. That I may lose everything.
“Let’s get going. I want to fly, to forget about all this for a while,” I say.
Riya nods as she examines her timepiece. “Yeah, we’re running late anyway.”
The little stumps of our skygliders hang in the training yard attached to a wooden post. With a quick green spell, the post unravels and releases Hubris in condensed form. Riya keeps glancing at me, worry drawing her full eyebrows closer to her dark eyes. I proceed as usual, trying to convey through my actions I’m well and unafraid of my impending ceremony or my marriage.
With a hard flick and a simple spell, the eight-inch-long wooden tube enlongates. The handle, bound in interlacing wicker, extends, and at the tail two kitelike pieces of red fabric unfold and stiffen with a snap like when the wind catches a sail. I smile at Hubris’s full form as I chant the flight spell that will cast us both air bound. Red the color of blood pools into the woven wicker, finding and soaking its way into the wood’s slivers. I add a little extra magic to take the additional weight of two saddlebags filled to the brim with firelight.
Before settling atop Hubris, I adjust my belt and redo the knot of my orange skirt over my pink pants as Riya pulls on a purple pair. Around the palace I normally wear pants under my wraparound skirt because, well…let’s just say I’ve been so active and forgetful in the past that Zara never creates an ensemble without them. Riya, however, is more proper and elegant. Any outsider, though, might think I’m the more modest and traditional one, with my dedication to long sleeves. They would be wrong, of course.
When you’re under eighteen, it’s best to wear your parents’ colors while in public. So while I’m doomed to pale-orange and bright-pink attire, Riya, who’s three years older, gets to wear whatever she wants. Like most days she sports her parents’ purple and a soft blue that looks fantastic with her light-brown skin. One day the nine-pointed sun will also be stitched to my clothing, but the royal emblem of Belwar is only donned after the ceremony. I can’t seem to get away from the fact that I’m not ready for the throne.
I crisscross the straps of two large saddlebags around my shoulders. Riya does the same, heaving them over her head before mounting her floating skyglider.
“Ready?” she asks. I fix the curled strap of one of the feisty bags before nodding and punching my feet hard in the ground.
“Makria!” Riya and I shout. Frostlight petals explode into the air as we jet upward. The sticky grip of humidity loosens as the wind ruffles my blouse. The aroma of frost lingers until Mother’s factory of smells takes over. Years ago, Mother seized the east wing of Belwar Palace and converted it into a pharmacy and patient station. It can smell of anything, from rotting seagull feet to spring flora. As I glide by the roof of my home and Mother’s potion galley, the smell of lemons and fish circles through the air. Not too bad, since everything near the coast smells of fish anyway.
Already fifteen meters in the air, I can see the line of people amassed outside the palace gates and curved around the corner. A baby wails. The elderly hobble forward. Younger kids anxiously bounce around, sent to fetch my mother’s potions. A bittersweet smile pulls on Riya’s lips as she catches my eye. I know how the lines of people looking for medicine can unwind her. They unwind me too.
We are flying right over her father. Mr. Burman’s room is near the east wing, close enough to all the potions and pink magic to remind us that he needs my mother’s expertise to keep breathing. She knows how much it destroyed me too. He was my tutor before he became my bodyguard. He taught me how to fly. He taught me how to fight. And nine years ago, after I came back from my visit to Naupure, he’s the one who caught me crying about my Touch. He’s the one who took me aside and said, “A true rani doesn’t have to have magic or a god’s blessing. A true rani just helps the people.”
He is one of the reasons I am the way I am, that I’m doing what I’m doing when I sneak out at night. He always knew what to say. Sometimes I do too, but today, like most, I’m lost for words for my best friend. We stream upward and eastward in silence.
Anchored between lush mountains lies the cavernous valley of Belwar, my city and home. As we rise, I can see just how far my country extends to include the smaller villages nestled in the northern mountains and among the rice fields. But the majority of the population that my father and mother protect is here, bustling and moving beneath me and Riya.
It’s the most diverse place in all of Wickery. Belwar has always been a shipping port calling to travelers and hagglers and foreigners. Then, five years ago, the Southern Bay Monsoon tore through southern Agsa and refugees fled here. Pire Island, right off our coast, was left without the usual shipments of agricultural goods, which sent another wave of asylum-seekers. With Mother being Pire we welcomed them with open arms.
It would be easy for my country to segregate itself like Moolek does, based on religious tradition and forte color. Or by any other facet along which hatred likes to divide. By skin color like Agsa does, by gender like Pire Island, or by power level like Naupure. We don’t. While we might have a problem with the long perpetuated stigma against Untouched, with half the populace powerless, I’m proud. And I’ll do anything to be a “true rani.”
Belwar may be small, a pond compared with the lake Maharaja Naupure controls or the ocean of land Maharaja Moolek governs, but it is home. The four villages, denoted in simple geographic terms—north, south, east, west—all splinter outward from Belwar Palace. I live in the center of a compass. Maybe that’s why I so fiercely want to retain my title. Being a Belwar gives me direction and purpose. Without it, what am I, really?
I gaze westward toward Mount Gandhak, the towering volcano separating my land from Jatin’s. It is a foreboding but dormant landmark of distinction that casts a wide shadow. Was he there already?