2. Elara
Chapter 2
“Hurry!” I hissed behind me, hiking my skirts up more than was strictly allowed and turning a corner, only to dart back at the sight of the two men from court who were storming away mumbling about something I really didn’t care about.
Not right then, anyway.
Right then was not the time for palace gossip. That could come later. Right then, I had bigger plans.
I could always find out about the gossip later.
Which I would. It wasn’t like I had much else to do in this prison of a castle anyway.
“Shhh!” I turned back to the black-shrouded shape behind me, not that he needed to be reminded to be quiet. He never spoke. He barely made a sound.
“Come.” I grabbed his arm, the thick black leather of his tunic stiff and uncomfortable as I tugged at him to follow.
Racing down the hall, I darted down the black stone corridor and away from the still arguing men, who were growing more agitated with each step. Their voices faded to nothing as I raced down one corridor and then another in my trek to get to the large wooden door that was my goal.
The heavy wooden door that most of the people in this terrible place had forgotten about.
Hundreds of years ago, before the Goddess Leilan destroyed the last of the wretched Fae and saved the original holders of magic, the Lynar, from the monsters who stole their power, the Runturin had been a fortress built into the sheer cliffs of the mountains of Luftyn. Now, the Runturin was the sprawling castle of stone that jutted out from those peaks like dark knives looming over the capital city of Turin.
No one forgot what it once was; however, every child in the Realm knew the histories. They recited prayers to the Goddess as they thanked her for saving the Lynar from the Fae, thanked her for killing the monsters who enslaved us. Every faithful citizen of Okivo bowed and left offerings at the black stone gates of the Runturin every moon cycle or at the Temple of the Sister during pilgrimage. Every week the chapels would fill with those that worship the Goddess; I had prayed at those altars many times and given my own thanks for the destruction of the Fae.
It all took on a different meaning when you were trapped in those halls, when those ancient battlegrounds were nothing more than a fancy prison. At least I could use them solely to my benefit.
The corridors that had once been meant to allow royals to escape from invading Fae now helped me escape from all the rooms they tried to lock me in. The impenetrable walkways had once housed an army protecting us from the Fae murderers, now they were where I went to spy on the training sessions I was banned from.
That was where I was going now.
What else was I supposed to do? I certainly wasn’t going to sit around and hide in my room or look pretty like my mother wanted. This suited me better anyway.
My soft shoes padded down the hall as I finally let my skirts fall back around my legs and pressed my ear to the thick wooden door. The wood was cold, the metal trimming on it biting against my cheek. I barely even flinched; I only smiled at the sounds coming from the other side.
“Lari was right.” I grinned, trying to shimmy closer to the door. “They are training after taking the solstice off… It’s the first day back.”
The Boy came right up behind me, his thick leather boots not making so much as a sound, even though I could hear the gentle flap of the fabric of his dark cape as he raced to keep up with me.
“The new Requisites are here already.” I beamed at him, not that I could see him. His face was as covered as the rest of him.
Every inch of him was shrouded with either black leather or black muslin; his breeches were the color of slate, tucked into ebony high boots. His thick leather tunic and elbow-length gloves were the shade of ink and looked just as liquid. Even his cape, with its oversized hood and dark fabric that fell over his face and kept him from view, was the shade of the darkest smoke.
All was dark except the brooch that attached the face shroud to his tunic, the glistening ornament of a white snake twisted around a dagger biting into the black. The emblem matched the pommel of his sword, which was a carved white snake.
He was meant to be my shadow, and he certainly looked it, all dark and foreboding as he was.
I had never seen his face, so I could only assume he was dark and brooding underneath, too. Possibly with scars or some other malady that required him to be covered.
I often wondered about it and had even asked about it a few times. But it wasn’t like he could give me an answer; he just clicked his tongue and stood straighter.
He couldn't talk, so that’s how most of our conversations had gone since the day he was brought to me days after my Catalyst was found dead. The day my magic died. Since the day I became nothing more than a liability to my family.
The Boy, the guard for the weak, magicless Princess, grew with me, so I knew he was about my age. Although he had surpassed me in height more than two years ago. His broad shoulders and low bark of a growl that sometimes pierced that veil told me he was a male. But other than that, I knew nothing about him. Everyone just called him “Boy.” The Boy, the princesses Boy, Boy.
“I can finally see a ‘first day,’” I sighed, placing my hand on the metal latch of the door. A second later, a leather glove curled around my fingers, a low growl of an exhale in my ear.
I turned to him, and he stepped back, his hand falling from mine.
“Don’t give me that look,” I teased, even though I couldn’t see his face. “You know I’ve wanted to see this. Now I finally can. We finally can.”
I turned back toward the door, and he took another step toward me.
“Stay here if you don’t want to come,” I said, lifting the latch on the door before turning to him and giving him my widest grin. “But I know you do. You love this as much as I do.”
I could have sworn he smiled as he shifted his feet.
“I knew you’d come around.” I grabbed his hand, pulling him out onto the high walkway with me before we both dropped to our hands and knees and he carefully closed the door behind us.
“Not like you’d ever miss a chance to come out here.” I poked him in the shoulder before we crawled our way over the long, high walkways to the turret that sat in the middle of the courtyard.
The old stone was dirty and forgotten save for a path of clean, smooth stone that was that way purely thanks to the fact that he and I crawled over this space at least twice a week. Even with that, a gritty combination of dirt and dust plumed as I shifted my arm, the musty scent of a forgotten war pluming around me.
I wasn’t supposed to be out there, and the Boy knew it, hence the show of trying to stop me. It was his job to keep me safe, but we both knew there was nothing dangerous out there, just things I was not supposed to see.
Forbidden magic.
“Besides, if you missed this what would we work on tonight?” I looked back at him, pretending he was rolling his eyes or saying something snarky. The way he knocked his head toward me and then gestured that he would beat me was snarky enough, even without words.
“You only beat me because you have real training.” Not the training where I imitate the things I see them do in the courtyard late at night when we were supposed to be sleeping.
It barely counted, but it still counted. I had no interest in being some wilting flower of an invalid princess and following Mother’s rules, no matter how hard she tried to make them stick.
No matter how much she wanted me to be the weak, dying princess she thought of me as it wasn’t going to work. It was all bull anyway. I wasn’t weak. Not having magic didn’t make me weak. It just didn’t make me what she wanted me to be.
“Over here,” I hissed as we reached the turret and the wide walkway that circled it.
The wooden stands that used to hold arrows and swords had long since rotted and fallen apart, leaving pieces that were still anchored against the stonework in a skeletal reminder of an ancient war. The notched wall on the outside was crumbling as bad as the wood, so it was even more imperative that I moved carefully. I had once sent a large piece of stone down to the courtyard and almost crushed a Catalyst. I couldn’t have a repeat, not on a day like today.
I crawled the last few feet to the far side of the turret, the overlook for the space of the courtyard that usually held the youngest of the trainees, the Tyro, that were brought to the castle to live each year.
Careful to keep myself hidden, I peered over the wall to the huddles of children far below, all of them paired off as they stood waiting. One of each pair was dressed in their nicest wear, the others in long red cloaks and scarlet tunics they tugged at uncomfortably. They couldn’t have seen more than ten years, even though some of the pairs were clearly younger than that. Each pairing moved together like one, hands clasped together as they waited for their class to begin. Their first class. I knew what they were, even if the red uniform of the lesser gave them away.
A Requisite and a Catalyst.
At the end of the Black War, when the Goddess ended the Fae, magic had been split into pieces. It was The Fae’s last attack against us. Now, as the descendants of the Lynar, if we were to wield the magic that used to be so plentiful in our kind, we needed to join the two halves of that magic together.
The Requisite, the person who wields the magic, and a Catalyst, the one who ignites it. Both were required for magic to work, and each pairing was unique and could never be replaced. If a Requisite lost their Catalyst, or a Catalyst their Requisite, they were… Well, they became me.
A Dri.
Magicless.
If Mother had her way, useless and hidden away.
But these children were not like me, and they were all in the Runturin to learn how to control that power for the first time.
Each section of this courtyard was partitioned off for different levels of training; the Tyro, the first levels who were still learning their connection. The Dillynth, who were mastering wielding skills. The Cedrian, who were learning to fight. The Plythe, the fighters that were perfecting all that training before they served their time in the Ramal’s army, the powerful force none of the surrounding kingdoms dared to face.
Shouts and explosions and grunts of magic echoed from everywhere as I watched them fight.
I had watched them all for years, but I had always missed the first day of the newly magic-bonded pairs. When that magic would first spark and they would discover what their gifts truly were and learn how to use them. Mother had always found something for me to do on these days, some task, or darning, or garden walk.
But not today.
Today, I could watch magic ignite for the first time.
Something panged in my gut, that loss that always hit me at the weirdest times showing its ugly face. It wasn’t like I needed the reminder that I could never do this.
My Catalyst, Toblin, had died of a fever in the night only weeks before we were to complete the oath of the bond and begin training, leaving the magic inside me dead.
It was so long ago that I could barely remember the way that warm buzz would ripple over my skin and how Toblin would make that buzz feel like a firestorm. Sometimes, I swear I could feel it, like now, watching the young bonded begin to find their places in the yard; but it was nothing more than a phantom.
That power was long gone.
“Come to! Come to!” Marc’s familiar boom echoed up to me and I darted behind the stone as the Boy's gloved hand touched my ankle in that soft way he always did when he was worried.
“Stop worrying about me, you big baby,” I teased, giving him a wink before I lifted back up to see the courtyard and Marc moving between the pairs as he placed them apart from each other.
Marc, the magics trainer, was a burly man with a beard as long as his shoulders were broad. He moved with a shuffle as he placed the children one in front of the other. His Catalyst, a wiry woman half his size, was not far behind, the red cloak that marked her status rippling behind her.
“Today we will truly invite your magic to rise for the first time,” Marc began once he finished placing the pairs and began wandering between them, staring down the smaller ones until they shook.
I would have called down and told him to knock it off if giving my presence away wouldn’t have ended in a lashing. Marc just liked to taunt the younger students. He was really a teddy bear. Even his Catalyst rolled her eyes.
“Your bonding has already taken place. A drop of blood has been shared between you. Now all that is left is to complete the connection of a Catalyst to their Requisite, to create the loop that will fuse your magic permanently and allow it to ignite.”
The children shuffled around at Marc’s words, the Requisites shifting before their Catalysts even as some of them moved back a step.
It made sense. The power of the Requisite was restrained to the royal lines. I even recognized a few of the children down there as distant cousins or the children of lords and ladies from the realm that Father ruled over. They were all raised to wield their magic, raised to know what was coming.
Catalysts, however, were often found on Qits or in the villages below the manor houses and estates in the realms. They were not raised for magic, many would not even feel the power before they were brought to the Runturin for The Matching, when Requisites and Catalysts were placed together, dozens of children wandering around a large hall until they felt their power ignite. Then they were brought there for training and given their Catalyst garb and a new life.
I envied even them. I would even wear the red cloak of a Catalyst if it meant I could be down there.
Settling onto my stomach, I rested my chin on my hands, watching as Marc and his Catalyst passed out what looked to be torn brown ribbons, showing each pair how to hold the long strand between them so as to let the magic pass between them.
“These are made from the hair of the Fae.”
My stomach dropped as though I was touching the vile things myself. I hadn’t expected that. Anything from the Fae was strictly outlawed. Anything that was found from those monsters was destroyed, and any of the beasts killed. Not that any of them were left.
Why was he giving these children the beasts’ hair?
“It was because of those monsters that our magic was restrained for so long, the bastards keeping the power for themselves. It was only after the war, when the Goddess Leilan extinguished the scourge from our lands, that the power was released and we realized just how much those child-eating monsters had taken from us.”
I shivered again. Growing up, my nurse had told me the stories of the monstrous Fae who treated us as little more than slaves, the creatures who took our children and drank our blood. They were dangerous, wicked creatures. But there he was, handing out bits of their hair like they were precious scraps of silk.
“This hair, however, is a powerful conduit and will help you master this power before you can wield the magic with nothing but air between you,” Marc continued, pulling me out of my shiver as he lifted his hand, producing a perfect ball of fire on his palm and letting it linger there before extinguishing it in a puff of smoke. The children grinned, shrieked, jumped, and gasped as if on cue.
By the Goddess! It was beautiful. I had seen his power hundreds of times before, but it still hit me with all the awe as it did the first time. I couldn’t look away from his palm and the smoke that lingered there, the perfect ring of black rising to the sky.
“Fíra,” Marc said, igniting the flame once more, accentuating the power that made him the most valuable in the army. “Fíra magic may be the most common, but it can yield some of our most skilled, some of the most deadly.”
Marc moved his hand around, letting the flame dance between his fingers before he bounced it on his palm and then up as though it were the balls I had seen some of the servants' children play with behind the stables.
“It is not the only power with strength, however,” Marc continued, still playing with the flame. “W?der wielders, like our Queen, can manipulate water in many different ways. Those with vio power do the same with the rocks and the ground beneath our feet. ?r, is the rarest of all magic, and those lucky enough to yield it can control the wind and air around us. It all depends on the power you and your Catalyst share. And that depends on if you can find it.”
With that, he let the flame extinguish, moving between the pairs again as he helped position the ribbons of those who had lost their grip in the demonstration.
“For now, let this be your guide.” Marc continued to weave through the children, handing out a few more hair ribbons before returning to the front, his Catalyst following at a near run.
“Requisites! It is time for you to find your power. Focus on the buzz of power from your Catalyst in your bond. Once found, feel it through the hair. Find the connection,” Marc continued, the children shifting uncomfortably around the ribbon. “You should feel it in the air simply from being close, so search for that same sensation in the ribbon. It could be a buzz, a flood of warmth, or even a tingle. Find that feeling in the ribbon and focus on it. Memorize how it feels. Let it soak into you so you can find it anywhere. Anytime.”
That phantom feeling from before tingled over my skin, as though I could feel Toblin’s magic tickle its way over me again. As it had the day I had known he was my Catalyst, that first buzz of his magic. I hadn't felt it so strongly since… since…
I shivered at the sensation, ducking my head down as I tried to push it away. To push everything about him away, shoving everything about that life that could have been as far away as I could get it. A second later the Boy shifted up to lay right next to me, his cloak fanning over the worn cobbles as he wrapped his gloved hand around mine, his covered face turning toward me.
“I’m alright,” I whispered, answering the question that I was sure he wanted to ask me. “It’s just… sometimes I feel like he’s still here, like the magic is still here.” Like I’m not broken and useless to my crown…
He squeezed my hand as Marc’s voice drifted up to us, and I shifted to look over the side of the wall again, pulling my hand from the Boy’s grip.
“Now that you have felt the magic, tug at it, bring the magic into the ribbon. Let that power become a fuel to your own. It will know what to do.”
A dozen faces screwed up in concentration as they all did what they were told, tiny grunts and exhales filling the courtyard before magic started to pop into being. A spark of fire, a gust of wind, a pool of water, a sharp crack as the ground shifted… One after another, all of the types of magic I had been surrounded with my whole life emerged.
Another tingle moved over my skin, the feeling of starlight pooling in my chest as the ache I spent so much of my time trying to push away knocked its way back into being. Shifting closer, I peered over the ruined edge of the turret wall as a little girl shrieked in joy and another in horror as someone’s sleeve caught fire.
“Stay calm. Just put it out,” Marc gruffed with clear exasperation as he marched his way over to the frazzled pair. Some of the other kids had started laughing now, but I stared at the dull glow of the flame, at the water another child was playing with, his Catalyst looking slightly green as he still held on to the edge of the ribbon.
“Focus on the magic. What you create is part of your power, so it can easily be extinguished by the same magic,” Marc boomed, putting the fire out with a wave. I only gave him a glance before I returned to stare at the pair with their growing water orb, that feeling of tingly need still growing in my chest.
It sure felt like magic, but I knew what it was really. Longing.
Or maybe jealousy.
Probably jealousy.
I had watched the Requisites bring forth their magic for so many years, but the longing I felt was so much worse seeing this first day. Everything from breastbone to navel felt like it was cracking.
I shouldn’t have come.
“Now, focus again on that magic. Cling to it. Pull at it. This is the connection you will keep between you and it’s important that?—”
“What are you doing up here?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the low hiss of a whisper directly in my ear. I yelped instead, which sent the Boy directly to his feet, sword drawn before we both realized who had caught us up there.
Batian.
My brother.
The Crown Prince of Okivo.
“Calm down, calm down.” Batian grinned, his usual smile stretching across his perfect face. “It’s just me. Although you are lucky it wasn’t someone else. An assassin, maybe?” Batian gave the
Boy a look, the poor guy letting out a small grunt before he resheathed his sword and stepped back.
Crap. He was going to hear about this later.
Even with how much Batian was smiling, I knew better. Batian almost always smiled.
He was known as the Sun Prince for a reason. First, because he was always grinning. Second, because his blond hair always looked like gold, as though it was reflecting sunlight. Third, he held the rare magic of light, Let.
It was a nickname he leaned into, however. He stood there in a golden tunic and cape, his pale deer-skin breeches tucked into white boots. White! I wasn’t even sure where he found a cobbler to make him such boots!
Well, he was the Prince, so I am sure it wasn’t that hard.
He was quite the opposite of me with my green dress that had dirt smeared down the front, a ripped hem, and shoes that had holes in both toes. I wasn’t even sure I knew a cobbler. Mother would be displeased, but she was always displeased. At least my dress matched the tangle of long dark curls and smattering of freckles that covered my face. Batian and I barely resembled brother and sister. We were two sides of a coin, night and day.
Everything about me dark, everything about him light. Well, except for his eyes. His eyes were so dark they were more black than brown. It was the only thing he inherited from our father, the Ramal of Okivo. Everything else about him was from our mother.
I, however, was my father’s daughter. I inherited nothing from the Queen. She was tall and elegant; I was short and, as she loved to put it, ‘disastrous’. Oh, a mother’s love.
“No one’s going to assassinate me, Batian,” I grumbled, ignoring his outstretched hand and pushing myself to my feet. “They’d have to know I exist to want to kill me.”
I rolled my eyes before straightening my skirts, not that anything could be done to the large streak of dirt that was there.
I sure hoped that would come out when I washed it next.
“They know you exist.” Batian was still smiling, even as he gave the usual sigh I always got with that argument. Even the Boy gave a rough exhale.
“Correct,” I lifted a finger, “but they do think I am weak and sickly.”
I made sure to drop my shoulders and give a little cough. Apparently, when someone loses their magic it turns them into an invalid.
Or so says Mother.
“Hence the need to protect you from assassination attempts.” Batian leaned down to look me straight on like I was a child, closing the nearly foot-and-a-half height difference between us.
“Maybe that’s why I come out here, to learn how not to be sick and weak. Because you know I’m not.”
I gave him my biggest grin and punched him in the stomach. He gasped and doubled over, which only made me smile more. Usually, he stopped me before I did that.
“Who’s the weak one now?” I tried to punch him again. This time, he was ready. He wrapped his hand around my wrist easily as he pulled me to one side and went to the other.
“If I answer that honestly, are you going to punch me again?” His voice groaned above my ear. Well, guess I hit him a little hard that time.
It was hard not to be proud of myself.
“Actually, don’t answer that,” he said when he caught sight of my grin. “You are a Requisite without a Catalyst, Elara. You need protecting.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but one look from him, and I knew it wasn’t an argument worth fighting. He was playing the part of a prince now. The smile was smaller, but his eyes had narrowed and somehow dipped to the shade of ink spreading over the whites.
“You have a guard for a reason, Elara.” His gaze suddenly darted from me, and my stomach dropped. Here it came. “You know better than to let her out here, Boy.” He stepped away, clearly intending to lead us back inside.
“Don’t get mad at him. It was my idea. I just like seeing the magic.” It wasn’t a lie. Even saying it took me right back to the edge, my focus drifting down to all the magic pairs as they trained. Except all the training had stopped. The courtyard had gone quiet. They were all staring up at us, jaws dropped as they looked not at me… but him.
Of course it was him. I wasn’t exactly lying when I said no one knew I existed.
Batian, aware he had been noticed, was now waving and smiling at them all, sending sparks of white light into the air with each wave of his hand.
Silly Crowned Prince.
Although, the power of the Ramal, let, would always be my favorite. It was only in the royal line, taken from the Fae by the first Ramal after he worked with the Goddess to exterminate them. The brilliant light that Batian and our father shared was so pretty. Sometimes, I wondered if I would have the same. Or if I would be able to harness ice and water like Mother.
Better not to guess.
Better not to think about it. That cavity in my chest was opening again.
“Time to go,” Batian hissed through his teeth, already leading us back to the door.
I stepped closer to my guard, hopeful that maybe we could turn into one black blob as we were escorted back the way we came. Careful to play my part, I dropped my shoulders and let out a little cough. The Boy shook his head and gave another disapproving exhale.
That one was probably deserved, though. I may punch Batian in the gut from time to time, but the Boy was the only one who knew just how not ‘weak’ I was.
“Sorry,” I whispered to him as we reached the end of the walkway and the door swung open to the consuming depth of the castle that threatened to swallow us whole. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
He clicked his tongue once, his usual sign of understanding or agreement.
Blinking wildly, I stepped back into the pitch of the castle, only to have my eyes adjust to the red cape of Batian’s Catalyst. She stood just inside the hall, head down as she waited for Batian to return. Her blond hair was pulled back in the usual knotted style of Catalysts, her fingerless white gloves folded one over the other. I was actually amazed that he left her there rather than let her stand on the walkway. The amount of distance one could have from their Catalyst and still produce their magic was a sign of strength. I guess not having her seen would produce the same awe.
“Why did you have to come and spoil my fun anyway?” I asked the second the door closed, the bright sun and aroma of magic and dirt falling into smother lanternlight and stale air.
He sighed, signaling for his Catalyst to follow before he led us down the hall. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
“I guess she did find something for me to do,” I grumbled. At least she hadn’t caught me, though. It had taken many years, but I had finally seen their first day, heard how to pull at magic.
It wasn’t anything like I had expected, but I had seen it.
“What was that?”
“Just telling the Boy about how much I wished I had boots like yours,” I teased, kicking the back of one as he walked. He immediately stopped and shuffled around, trying to see where the bottom of my shoe had touched.
He looked like a dog chasing his tail, and I chuckled, Batian’s Catalyst trying desperately to hide her own smirk.
“Oh, calm down. It didn’t leave a mark.” I gave the Boy a wink and imagined he gave me a conspiratorial grin back. The fabric over his face crinkled as though he had.
“Let’s hope not.” Batian twisted his face into a half smile, half scowl. He could never be fully upset at me.
“If it is, I’ll wash it myself. Why were you looking for me anyway?”
Batian stopped trying to inspect his boots for smudges to give me what was clearly an exasperated look.
“Two reasons,” he began, and I lifted a brow. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“Aeinya is coming—” I squealed before he could finish. I jumped up and down and hugged the Boy, who didn’t even move before I turned and threw myself into Batian’s arms. He should have been smiling wider considering it was his fiancé who was coming.
His fiancé. But she also happened to be my best friend. Well, my only friend, but that wasn’t the point.
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” I was still shrieking as I pushed myself out of his arms and smacked him once on his over-pressed tunic.
He, of course, wiped away the invisible dirt.
“Because of the bad news.” That’s when his face fell, those eyes once again growing inky again as he held his hands out to me.
I took a step back. He didn’t need to say more.
“Mother wants to see me.”