AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A month later, I bought my own lot in Lowtown. To my surprise, Lana helped me find workers to tear down the fire-damaged tenement and built a modest two-story house with a shop and apartment. It had a rooftop garden I longed to fill when the heat returned. Until then, it was my spot to speak with the stars and Lumi. A place all to myself, such as I had never had before.
Learning to be alone and set my own path meant failures and stumbles. I was still not sure who I was, but I was learning I needed kindness for myself as well. And success held its own thrills, not dissimilar to all the other leaps I’d taken. No matter how many times I fell, I got up again.
Lowtown rebuilt around me as the fall winds calmed Tal.
Some had died in the Gateways fire, and poisoned food had still been sold the following months, but the hospital had treated everyone who asked. It could have been much worse. By the time winter settled, the clans and Oberwalden had sold us enough food to prevent famine. As the prices declined, I wondered if Dimitri had emptied the royal treasury to provide for the poor. And each time I thought of him, I returned to the worn journal Ealhswip had gifted me. I’d discovered drawings of griffons so lifelike they were ready to fly off the page and places I longed to visit. But his real skill showed in the people. I spent evenings studying Alexei’s face, smiling at Mariska, and tearing up as I saw myself over and over. The words I read echoed in my mind—anger, longing, confusion. His plans for revenge were not committed to the pages, but I saw it between the lines. The more I toldmyself I’d let him go, the tighter I clutched the journal and compass still around my neck.
Still, time passed and it became easier. Days passed without turning toward the palace. Nights without tears.
As the streets and Taliell froze, few braved the weather to draw bloody skeletons, and when it warmed again, the survivors silently drifted back to their farms with their families. Not that everything was good. Tal was still Tal. The poor scrambled for the scraps of the rich, merchants took what they could from you, and I heard of more bandits on the roads.
Through it all, I worked furiously, knowing what poverty felt like and enamored with building instead of stealing. Only nights when the mage sickness rose and I could not block out the world, was I forced to rest. Mariska had told me it might never go away. Mages were insane, everyone knew that. So when I heard people’s thoughts as loud as their voices, I stayed with my great-grandmother, taking solace in the quietness of the Spirits.
Tonight was my reward for months of work—a fancy I never thought possible. It was frivolous to the point of danger, but Lana had confirmed my books were in good order, and I had secure work lined up until summer.
Irina, my part-time coach driver, opened the door for me while tilting her hat with a cordial, “Princess.”
Even after all these months it felt like a role, but one I was growing into as I used all the tricks I had learned on the street and the magic I had gained since to fulfill Lumi’s dream. Tal was progressing, even if we had to drag it there, as Popova, the new councilwoman of Lowtown, was fond of saying.
Dimitri had been announcing changes, seeming no longer to care whose toes he stepped on. The Rivertown hospital clinic was under construction, each neighborhood had elected Council representatives, several judges had been arrested for taking bribes, and—maybe the largest of all—we had an almost four-year-old crown princess.
When the criers and broadsheets announced Dasha’s existence, I rejoiced for him. He had the family and future his father tried to kill. While there had been no further announcements, I often imagined Dimitri, Eki, and the beautiful daughter they must have made and wondered if his family inspired the work he put into Tal.
My carriage crossed Dragon Bridge, where Lumi died and everything changed. At the mooring stood a new statue of a young woman with cut hair, determined eyes, and scarred lip. She had attempted to kill the crown prince and failed, while I might have had a hand, however unknowing, in murdering the previous king. Ealhswip had claimed the kill, but he sickened the day after I snuck into his chambers, and I no longer believed in coincidences. It would remain one of the many truths she had taken with her back to the realm of the dead.
Not that anyone knew about attempted and successful murders.
Still, it shocked me Dimitri had allowed a statue of Lumi—not that he had been involved in raising it. During one of my three-day visits, Morovara had told me of the people coming to the temples after the Day of the Dead saying they had seen the Goddess walk the streets in the shape of a girl. How she had spoken to them, promising tomorrow would be better. And because of her blessing they did not eat the poisoned food or get trapped in the fire and fighting.
Then, while we were below the Women’s Tower, all the Spirits of Tal had covered the sky, turning night into day, before disappearing.For this as well, the people of Tal thanked the Goddess. So a river of pennies and chipped coppers had flowed into the Temple’s coffers to honor my sister. I thought Morovara secretly liked seeing the statue of her great-granddaughter, the one she had planned to mold into the future high priestess. If Lumi had been here still, I liked to believe she would have laughed.
The spring rains kept the pilgrims away, but in summer they would return, though the dead no longer lingered as they had before. All Spirits came to Tal, but most moved on before the season changed. The older ones that had haunted the City of Bones and Roses for centuries, illuminating the nights and hiding the stars, were gone beyond the Gate.
I cracked my walls to brush against the living as we passed, listening and sometimes calming an old hurt, providing support when a heartbroken boy doubted himself, soothed the pain of scrubbed knees, and eased loneliness. Acknowledged worries and hopes.
The world hummed in satisfaction, bringing me the tunes it thought I should hear, for in the winter dark, I had finally learned to listen.
At night, the music still sometimes overwhelmed me, and I would return to my old existence, drifting through the streets, watching the world. But I had promised Lumi to live. Tonight was a step toward that, one I had dreamt of for too long.
Irina halted the horses, then opened the door and offered me a hand to step down.
The Royal Theater towered over me, seeming larger than the place I had climbed when no one was looking. Where Dimitri had held me in his arms on the day I believed all my dreams were coming true.
Seeing the glittering crowd, my steps faltered. My clothes were not nearly as fine. My breeding less refined.
But I was bold and strong and a foreign princess with her own box. And a dangerous mage none wanted to offend.
I would belong here as well.
My time sneaking in through the window was past.
The dancers twirled below.
I had accepted I would never stand before an audience again; at least, not on a stage such as this. My road was another, and the surety of my path was the one solid part of my life.
At the end of a long day of settling disputes and ensuring contracts were kept, I relaxed safely in the house I bought with my own funds and found a contentedness I had not known existed. Lumi had been right; there were things which mattered more than happiness. That did not mean I did not think about her and Dimitri each night.
Someone entered my private balcony. I could not read their mind, but I knew that obsidian shape like my own mental stone wall and Lumi’s archive.
