Page 2

Alone.

I let out a breath and sink down to the edge of the wash pool, letting my fingers trail through the water, and inhale the scents of vanilla.

I am warm. Clean. I know it is a luxury.

Everyone in the kingdom of First Light carries a drop of Sól’s magic—granted at the temple on their blessing day—an infant held up before the altar and given the god’s golden coin. Enough to warm a tea gone cold, to coax a candle to light and provide warmth for their families during the winters. And to heal a scraped knee. A drop, and devotions owed for life. I had never once thought to ask who was brought to the altar and who was not. Sól did not give more than a gentle drop because Sól’s magic is not gentle. Light heals, yes, but light can also burn. Light could knit a wound closed or peel a memory out of a skull like fruit from its rind, or in the case of the truly blessed—or truly cursed—it could turn a living man to ash, or worse, leave the body standing and hollow out everything inside of it.

The saints know the power of light. That was why their eyes are sealed—scarred shut in smooth silver lines, burned out by the god himself the moment they behold him. They call it devotion to our god. I had always thought it to be cruel.

I draw my hand from the water and press it flat against my sternum, where the light lives—where all of it lives.

I do not carry a drop.

I carry a sea.

But that is not a thing I could ever say aloud. “You are blessed, Elysia.” Mother’s words bring back the memories slowly and painfully. I shake them away. Mother and Father told me not to tell a soul, or I would be hunted. So I said nothing, for all these years.

I reach for the vanilla soap, and I scrub my skin like an ordinary girl with an ordinary drop of magic.

Issa and I have our suspicions as to why the West would be visiting our kingdom.

My mother taught me to fear water. Not the way the southern Kingdoms fear it—Nix's saints walk the drowned marshes of Lunaris, waiting for something in the water to reach up and claim them. I learned later that Lunaris holds its marriage ceremonies on platforms above those marshes. The bride and groom stand barefoot on wet planks while Nix listens from below. It sounds romantic.

Far east, in Terraméré, they seal their marriage vows with blood—a cut across both palms, the earth drinking what the couple offered. My tutor said it meant the land itself witnessed the bond. As a child I thought it meant Goröth was always hungry. And West—West was the blank space on the maps. Umbra, where their god Vaël has no temples, no rituals, no saints with sealed eyes like our own. The traders didn't return; the armies did not return. The maps simply give up at the border, ink trailing into black vellum, people afraid to go further.

Four gods.

Four kingdoms.

And me in the North.

Chapter Three

Irise from the water and stand dripping on the stone. Damp long blonde curls, eyes the colour of the sky, my movements are steadier than I feel. And on my collarbone, the small cut from yesterday’s cloak clasp, thin and red. I lay two fingers over it, let the smallest warmth gather—and the skin seals itself smooth.

That is the trick of light, the thing the saints chanted, but nobody really looked deep and heard them.

Light is not kind. Light is not cruel. Light simply is, and it becomes whatever the hand holding it asks it to be.

Our whole palace is depicted as a dedication to Sól. Resting a hand against the pillars means feeling the deep, foundational chill of polished stone, even as the gold lace tracing its surface seems to hum with the sun's trapped heat. To step inside is to step into Sól's own treasury. Vast, seamless sheets of marble stretch out underfoot, bordered by thick, raised gold trim that guides the eyes upward toward impossibly high ceilings with paintings of the gods and kingdoms of all spread far and wide, like a mural.

The gown Issa picked today is a representation of that, a golden yellow—it is colder than I expected. I had thought the dress would hold warmth, but when I slide it over my light bronze skin it is like water from a winter well, and I stand very still until my body warms it. Layer by layer the dress flows, the underskirts are stiff with embroidery some poor woman had stitched to wear once—suns of course, Sól’s rays worked in gold thread from hem to hip so that even my clothing is devoted.

It took longer to dress alone. That was the point. I started with the eyelet at my collarbone—the one Issa always catches on the third try. Today, it took me many tries, well in to double digits. Each ribbon I am crossing deliberately, with my hands, my time, this is my small rebellion. By the bodice lacing, my fingers are sore and shaking slightly, and I leave it loose enough that I can fill my lungs completely. When I look in the mirror, the dress hangs wrong—a princess should sit tighter, neater, more contained. Good. Let me breathe.

Issa named this perfectly for what it was. She has always been brilliant at finding information through her connections in the servants’ quarters, in this kingdom and the next. I owe her a great deal. Issa’s words replay to me: “A wise woman speaks little but knows much.”

Noémi and I were often spying throughout the palace as children, learning information but never repeating it. Noémi was meant to rule, she was built for it. Where as I was always the spare. I miss her.

I clamp down my emotions. I have been sitting in the dark place inside myself since they died... and if I ever want to find more information about what’s happening in our kingdom, I can’t do that from the confines of my bedroom. They would want me to rule.

I open the door myself. Issa startles back a half-step, then catches herself and drops into a curtsy, and I watch her look at my face like she has never seen me before. Her hands flutter, unsure where to land without eyes to meet. “Oh,” she manages. “Elysia. You look⁠—”

“Presentable,” I interrupt. “That’s the entire idea.”

I don’t want compliments today; I don’t think I can stomach it or believe it. I know I look dull from months with no sunlight, with food only when I could stomach it. Grief is a sickness, even though the healers would not call it this. It is a location in your mind—you stay there until you decide that you must get far away from it.

Today was the first time I left my rooms. It is time to seek answers—you cannot lose so much without understanding why, and there are questions in my kingdom that I need answers for.