But this wasn’t the refuge I sought.
A materialization barrier protected the palace so that elicromancers could not pass through the walls using magic. Beyond the imposing garden fence hidden by stately hedges, I could slip away, fling myself through the expanse toward true solitude.
My heels clacked along the path until I stopped to kick off my slippers, sending one flying into a bed of peonies. I’d recently made the habit of tucking a pair of worn-in leather boots behind a potted lavender plant. I shoved them on, swung open the gate, and closed my eyes.
I spoke the materializing spell and whirled through oblivion.
TWO
KADRI LILLIS
BEYRIAN, YORTH
THE letter seemed to sear my skin like a blazing coal.
I’d folded the crisp parchment into a tight square and tucked it into my skirt waist as though hiding it away might somehow make its truths untrue.
Tears gathered in my eyes as I drew my bowstring taut. The practice target was a blur of red and white, yet when I let the arrow slip, it struck the very center. My fraught mood made my form a little clumsy, however, and I felt the lingering sting of the bowstring slapping my unguarded forearm again. A faint, plum-purple bruise formed beneath my brown skin. I pressed it with the pad of my thumb as my brother’s words slammed back against my chest.
I reached over my shoulder for another arrow, sliding the silky fletching through my fingers, hoping it would bring calm.
“Are you all right?” Falima asked.
I let fly and palmed away an escaping tear. “Yes.”
“Did the letter from Rayed upset you?” my maid pressed. She slid her peach-colored summer scarf off her head, set aside her book of poems, and rose from the bench near the practice range. “What did it say?” she asked in our native Erdemese.
I turned but couldn’t seem to meet her gaze, instead studying the limb tip of my beautifully crafted bow. “King Agmur didn’t summon Rayed back to Erdem for just a short visit. He wants him to remain there permanently.”
She frowned. “Did Rayed do something wrong?”
“No. Erdem is dissolving the position and closing the embassy here. There will be no ambassador to Nissera. My brother’s not coming back.”
“I suppose it’s no surprise,” Falima sighed. “Nearly every week there’s a ship full of our people leaving for home.”
“And I can’t blame them. The horrors that befell this realm would drive even the bravest people to safer shores.”
Falima didn’t reply, but a crease of concern charted across her forehead. She had held me when I’d awakened from the fevered nightmares that forced me to relive the worst horrors from the journey to Darmeska with Valory, Glisette, and Mercer.
Falima could comfort me, but she couldn’t understand what I had seen and felt: the blight disease decaying patches of my flesh, the sight of corpses murdered by the Moth King’s servants rotting on public display, the fear that I might soon be one of them. Here in the palace, she had been shielded from the atrocities of the Moth King’s short yet dreadful reign, from the plague raging outside the gates of these very palace grounds.
“Do you think your brother will find other employment?” she asked, always preferring to keep the conversation somewhat superficial. Her friendship was largely one of silence and secrets—rarely frank or frivolous confessions.
“He’s already accepted a position in the trade ministry,” I replied. “King Agmur is sending him on some mundane mission, which Rayed described to me in exhaustive detail, of course.”
Falima chuckled, for she knew Rayed well, but I couldn’t manage to smile in response. The reason I had become queen of Yorth—my purpose, my mission, despite the fact that I could not feel romantic love for my spouse and king—was to help my people. Many had journeyed from Erdem to Yorth expecting that magic would rid them of disease, hunger, and fear of harm. But they soon realized that life in Nissera was far from perfect, and that magic, like any other resource, was more easily accessed by the wealthy than the poor, despite the best efforts of the Realm Alliance.
And then the Moth King’s evils had devastated the realm. Yorth was no longer safe. The life my people had sought slipped so far out of reach that they no longer had reason to stay.
And outside countries had lost faith in elicromancers’ ability to keep their own kind in check.
And King Agmur wasn’t only shuttering the Erdemese embassy and severing our diplomatic relations. He was challenging the legitimacy of our new Realm Alliance.
This was the bit of Rayed’s letter that I couldn’t bring myself to explain to Falima, the words that burned:
I know as well as you that many elicromancers are good, but King Agmur rightfully questions their ability to rid the barrel of bad apples before the rot spreads. He wants to scale back trade with Nissera until the realm proves politically stable.
Further diminishing the appearance of stability are Glisette’s and Valory’s dubious claims to their thrones. Glisette is only the “provisional ruler” of Volarre until her father’s advisors consent to changing the laws. Valory seized her position in Calgoran through violence. As far as His Eminence is concerned, Fabian is the only sovereign in Nissera with a legitimate claim to his throne.
Sister, I know this is not news you wanted to hear. But King Agmur is only trying to protect our people’s interests. He will not recognize the authority of the Realm Alliance until these issues are resolved and the disturbances settle down.
In light of this news, have you reconsidered His Eminence’s invitation?
Of course Rayed would remind me of that. King Agmur’s invitation had been so insulting that I had not even mentioned it to Fabian for fear of the repercussions.
Somehow, King Agmur knew that my marriage was “not in every way legitimate,” meaning unconsummated. Rayed fiercely denied disclosing this to him. The king said that if I desired, I could annul my marriage to Fabian and return to Erdem to work for him as a top advisor. He said he would give me my own estate, which I would not have to share with my brother or any other man. He claimed my passion for helping the Erdemese people would be put to good use in my new role.
I had scrawled a scathing refusal within seconds, knowing Rayed would rephrase the message before passing it along to his sovereign. Yet the request had lingered in the back of my mind, itching with possibility and making me feel restless. What if I could better help Erdem’s least-fortunate citizens by advising King Agmur? By leaving Nissera to its elicromancers and advocating for the voiceless within my home country?
Footsteps crunched along the garden path. I turned to find the redheaded kitchen maid, Trista, curtsying to me. “The tasting for tomorrow’s dinner is ready for you on the veranda, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you,” I said, and gathered my archery gear for Falima to carry inside.
Loosening my black hair from its braid, I walked the path that followed the back façade of the palace, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. I gazed beyond the pale beach with its mosaic of rock formations to the ships bobbing in the aquamarine bay and wondered what it would be like to leave this home I had known since childhood.
But it was unimaginable. Nissera was my home, the other Realm Alliance leaders my friends, Fabian my husband.