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Nostalgia has no real value, Olly.
Even mother’s chiding voice didn’t deter me from leaning back onto the red brick of the windowsill, sinking my fingers deeper into Purrscilla’s sparse fur. Memories might keep me up at night, tossing and turning in bed, but what value did it hold in the real world?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
I supposed I’d always felt like I knew Zoei—the best parts of her, and the worst. Sneaking around the north wing was merely a way to ascertain if my memories had been accurate, or simply a child’s rose-tinted dream.
If I closed my eyes and sunk into the old cat’s soothing purrs, I could almost believe I was back in Zoei’s room as a pre-teen guest, dressed in my pajamas and waiting to slip between her satin sheets. Itshouldbe alarming that I could still hear Zoei’s giggles as we dove under the sheets, trying to reach for any bit of skin we could tickle. But instead, a smile warmed my lips at the memory.
Nanny would chide us with her hands on her hips, warning us that this wasnothow royalty behaved.
I wanted to believe that nothing had changed between Zoei and I, but I had to face facts. Our once-cordial relationship had become somewhat of a political chess match, each one waiting for the other to make a move.
Even as the analogy took root in my mind, I could not deny that I had been playing the defensive role for a decade now. Vetri nevercausedany problems—we had never been perpetrators in the realm of inter-kingdom politics. Rather, our shields were always up, ready to deflect acts of aggression that could cause a ripple in our status quo.
As our neighbors to the south, Agnivale shared a nine-thousand-kilometer border with Vetri, and for the most part, these lands were peaceable farming areas integral to our export structures. But recent news reports from ambassadors in the border districts had indicated a troubling unrest in these lands—a shift of allegiances from green to red.
I had a niggling feeling that Zoei and her council were to blame for this. Although I had none of mother’s striking leadership skills, I was grateful to have inherited her brain for strategy. And something at the base of my gut warned me that the new Agnivale king would seek to consolidate land along our shared border. After all, in the eyes of our people, land was power.
Vetri and Agnivale were split almost equally in the southernmost region of the Seventh Star. If Zoei was indeed looking to consolidate land, the upper hand would skew towards fire sorcerers too quickly.
It would be wise to nip this campaign in the bud. Cryssa had made arrangements for us to conduct a state visit in the borders tomorrow, and I hoped to better understand the sentiments of our local community there.
Purrscilla had long since fallen asleep with her paw tangled in my curls. I gently pried her nails from my hair and rose from the plush seat, ensuring the window was tightly closed.
Once again familiar with the route, it took me mere minutes to slip through the old passageway and pick my way back to the service entrance.
I dodged a low-hanging flag, pushing it away from my face as I stepped into gentle, distilled sunlight. The scrape of a cart preceded the grumpy shout of a tradesman, cursing me for standing in the way of an important shipment.
I called out an apology, side-stepping the pile of fragrant horse dung on the cobblestone and darting back into the orangery.
A gardener glanced up briefly, his large hat bobbing as he worked. I paused, wondering at the purpose of such an accessory since sunlight seemed to be sparse in these lands. As I studied his purposeful movements, he appeared to be too engrossed with trimming a hedge to offer more than agood eve.
Because it was indeed evening now. And I was late.
Cryssa would be awake; mother in one of her tithers. I groaned quietly under my breath, following the narrow pathway back to the east wing.
I’d closed the iron gate securely behind me when I felt it: the first strange prickle of forewarning. The hairs at the back of my neck rose to attention, and my palms turned clammy.
I took my time pushing the iron bolt back into its lock, hoping the eerie feeling would dissipate, but as I turned, every fiber of my beingscreamedat me to look up.
An apparition—that’s how she appeared. There one second, and gone the next.
I could have convinced myself that she was nothing more than a figment of my imagination if it hadn't been for the brief flash of her smile and the quirk of her brows. She looked exactly like the pictures in the tabloids—broad-shouldered and intimidating, garnering the attention of everyone in her path.
My breathing stalled as I watched her disappear around the corner of the parapet, the clank of the royal guards’ armor the only indication that this had beenreal.
Stunned into silence, I stared at the empty parapet long after she’d left, uncaring of the passing time or the darkening sky.
The stinging in my palms warned me that I’d dug my nails in too deep. As I trudged back to the assigned suite in the east wing, I found myself unable to shake off the embers of Zoei’s apparition. I doubted she had seen me nestled in the gardens between the shrubbery—her smile certainly hadn’t been aimed in my direction.
And yet… I wished a part of her had recognized me out of pure instinct, even three floors above.
I shuffled back to the suite, boots heavy on the tiles.
Two pairs of eyes scored a line of fire through my chest as I stepped back into my assigned chamber.
