3. Prospective Seconde Mancella Amaryllis Cliff
3
P ROSPECTIVE S ECONDE M ANCELLA A MARYLLIS C LIFF
|14 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|
I am eight years old, and my father has brought me to a ghost town.
We trudge forward, my hand in his. Desert sand bites at my cheeks as a hot wind rattles the loose, broken shutters of empty houses. It makes my skin crawl, like the sand isn’t sand at all, but ants that burrow into my clothing and my eyes and my mouth. Worse, there’s no life here. Not even a lizard or a spindly shrub. The whole city feels like an open wound.
And still we keep walking.
In front of us lies the Broken Citadel. Squinting into the sun, I can almost imagine the grand castle it must once have been. That gritty, charred masonry was probably a blend of warm, inviting earth tones when it was constructed. Those spiraling columns must have been stories high. But now it is only a jagged set of walls jutting out of the ground. The rest of the castle is gone, as if it were made of nothing but more sand, and someone walked up and kicked it over, spilling its innards into the wind.
And if the castle had stayed that way, it wouldn’t be scary. There’s nothing to fear in empty ruins.
But these ruins aren’t empty. Something grew there, like a fungus in its festering corpse. Within the open, gaping shell of the Citadel is an amorphous green ball of light so intense it should hurt to look at it. But it doesn’t. It has a strange, sickly draw, such that it isn’t the looking that’s difficult. It’s the looking away.
“I’m supposed to go in there?” Mara asks, clutching Father’s other hand so firmly that her knuckles turn bone white. Her posture is rigidly regal, but a note of uncertainty weaves itself into her voice, and I tear my eyes away from the Citadel to look at her sharply.
“Yes,” Father replies, squeezing her hand hard enough to force her fingers to release. “All you have to do is walk in. The magic will accept you, and you’ll walk out again with a piece of it to keep.”
This is enough for Mara, and she nods solemnly, her expression set.
But it isn’t enough for me.
“What about Uncle Edwarn?” I ask, tugging Father’s arm so he’ll look at me. “He didn’t get magic. He never came back out at all.”
Father’s face goes slack and I shrink into myself, regretting my blunt words. It’s been almost a year since Father and Uncle Edwarn entered the Broken Citadel and only Father came back out, but it’s still a sore subject. Everyone in the castle knows not to mention it. Even Edwarn’s wife and son—my aunt and cousin—have avoided his name. At least they did before they suddenly disappeared a few weeks ago, something no one has been willing to explain to me.
But I know my cousin Alect, and he wouldn’t have left willingly. At least, not without saying goodbye.
He was one of my best friends.
“He… wasn’t worthy,” Father says, and it takes me a second to realize he’s talking about his brother.
I bite my lip. “But… why not?” I press. “Uncle Edwarn was good! And brave, and kind, and—”
“We don’t know,” my father snaps. “We never know. The magic decides.”
A shutter clatters in the wind, and it draws my attention back to the yawning desolation around us. The silence feels so loud, so heavy in its emptiness.
“Did it decide this whole city wasn’t worthy, then?” I ask quietly. “Because we’ve yet to see a single person.”
For a second, he looks at me like he wishes I would disappear, too. Like if the sand below our feet turned into quicksand, if it started to suck me in, he would drop my hand and keep walking. But then he turns away from me and his expression clears.
“In a way I suppose it did,” he says distantly.
My mother comes up and clasps my shoulders, rubbing small circles with her thumbs.
“Magic was common once,” she tells me. “Did you know that? But then one realm tried to harness the magic to use against another. They only wanted to use a little, but then the magic started feeding on them and they didn’t know how to stop it. It just kept going, draining every drop of power they had. First everyone in the castle, and then the city, and then the realm. In the end, it took the magic of everyone in the world, and the blast it created was so large it destroyed six whole realms completely. Those who were left thought the magic was gone forever. But then, just a few years ago, it appeared again. As a glow on the horizon.”
“And ever since then, the magic has been wrong,” the Captain snaps. She’s been tromping stonily at the back of our party, and this is the first I’ve heard her speak on the entire journey.
My father scowls at her. “It isn’t wrong, it just requires strength to handle. To tame. As I said, not everyone is worthy. The magic knows to reject those who are not up to the task.”
“Then perhaps we should not be tossing it children,” the Captain hisses, but softly enough that only my mother and I can hear, and my mother pretends not to.
I peer at the Captain over my shoulder, but she doesn’t say anything else. She merely keeps marching, her every muscle tensed like she’s expecting a threat.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I say, loudly enough to be heard by everyone. “I don’t think Mara should go in.”
“That’s not up for debate,” Father tells me.
Mara ducks behind his back and pokes me in the shoulder. “Don’t worry so much,” she says, with big-sisterly confidence. “I’m strong. I’ll be fine.” Her eyes shine with newly acquired purpose, and I have to admit that it suits her. If she gets magic she could become eligible to rule today, and that’s a powerful and important thing. In a mere handful of years, Father could name her his Seconde.
On the other hand, in a mere handful of hours, she could be dead.
The heat suddenly feels stifling, searing. I have the irrational thought that it may soon burn me alive. I want to get away from it. I want to go home.
But before I can express the wish, our party comes to an abrupt halt.
The Citadel looms above us, its strange green flames licking at the edges of its empty doorway like a starving man might lick his lips.
Mara takes a step forward, and it feels too fast, too soon. I grab for her arm, but my mother pulls me back, her pretty nails scraping my wrist, and my father’s grip tightens uncomfortably.
“Don’t — ” I say.
But before I can even finish the plea, Mara takes off, running through the great archway and instantly swallowed by its light.
My breath catches in my throat. Dread creeps down my scalp. I pull away from my parents and stare into the curling flames so hard that my eyes start stinging.
“Why can’t I see her anymore?” I demand.
“That’s normal,” my father says. His gaze is also riveted on the twisting magic light, but his expression isn’t one of worry. It’s… hunger.
“Well, how long will she be in there?” I push.
“It varies,” he tells me, unconcerned.
The Captain’s armor creaks as she shifts. My mother returns her hands to my shoulders, but they feel heavier this time and I fall silent. There’s nothing I can do now anyway. Whatever happens next has already been set in motion.
So we wait.
Each minute feels like a lifetime as the sun sinks lower on the horizon. Soon the sky is a brilliant orange, clashing with the green of the blazing, radiant magic contorting before us. It feels like too much color. The vividness is inescapable, suffocating.
And Mara still hasn’t come back out.
My mother sniffs behind me and it’s only then I realize she’s crying. Silent, desolate tears making wet tracks in the sand on her face. Why doesn’t she make any noise? I want to pinch her, just to make her scream.
Then my father detaches her from me and plants a firm hand on my lower back, shoving me forward.
“Your turn, Mancella,” he says.
I whip around, angry, as the Captain stalks toward us.
“Mara could still come out,” I protest. “She will come out.”
“Your turn,” he repeats. Something about him has hardened, and it makes my skin go clammy.
Mother sees it, too, and tries to encourage me. “You’ll get magic!” she says, but she can’t make her mouth smile, and tears still darken her cheeks.
And she can’t really tell me what will happen, anyway. She’s never gone in herself. As the fifth child out of seven, she was never expected to rule her native Coast Realm. It was safer and more useful to secure an alliance with my father by marrying her off, rather than keeping too many contenders for the throne in one castle.
“My Prime,” the Captain says, stepping between us. “You cannot throw both children in today. Think it through! If what you say is true and the magic looks for strength, then perhaps it is rejecting them today when it would not do so later on. You could lose them both, senselessly! Just… give Mancella time!”
“I do not have time!” my father shouts, wheeling on her. “You know why.”
I look between them, startled. “Why?” I ask. Because if there’s a reason that Mara and I are going in at eight and ten years of age when Father and Uncle Edwarn didn’t visit the Broken Citadel until well into adulthood, no one has told that reason to me.
But my father keeps talking as though he didn’t hear me. “More importantly,” he says. “This is not your decision to make. And you would do well to remember your place.”
“I cannot watch you sacrifice these children for nothing,” the Captain shoots back. “I — ”
Her hand twitches toward her sword, and in a cold moment of clarity I realize she might actually attack.
My father could die. Or my Captain could. And I can’t lose either one.
I take off, running toward the castle, questions forgotten.
“Mancella,” the Captain cries. “No!”
Heedless of her cries, I speed up, until I’m hurtling forward as recklessly as Mara did, straight through the doorway and into the beckoning light.
Just before entering the Citadel, I look back. I see my father’s puffed-out chest. My mother’s head buried in her hands. The Captain running after me.
But when I cross the threshold, everything goes black.
Black black. Not black like someone has snuffed the lamp but moonlight still streams through the windows. Black like light has never existed. Black like the world was only chalk on a chalkboard and it’s just been wiped away.
It feels like a force, the blackness. Like it’s solid and alive. Breathing.
I’m afraid to move. Afraid of what my hands might hit if I do. Afraid that if I open my mouth, the darkness will rush into it.
The force around me rumbles. Suddenly, I know that a closed mouth will do nothing to stop this darkness if it wants me.
Which it does.
It rushes in all at once, filling every pore of my skin, coating every strand of my hair, flowing through every vein. I don’t know where I end and it begins. I don’t even know what it is, and yet it knows me. Every part of my body and corner of my mind feels splayed open for the magic’s viewing, like I’m a bug pinned to a wall and then sliced apart and studied bit by bit by bit by bit by bit. I scream and writhe, but there’s nothing to attack but my own body. I don’t even feel solid ground beneath my feet anymore. There is only blackness. There is only invasion. There is only the magic and me.
Then, in a moment, there is stillness.
And in that small moment, that absence of anything, I feel something within me break.
I couldn’t have told you what it was beforehand, as I’d never noticed it before. But as soon as I feel it altered, I know it to be the most core part of me. It’s as though my very soul has bent. My self, my being, is twisted now, ever so slightly.
And that small, brief, infinitesimal moment of twisting terrifies me more than the rushing, consuming force that preceded it ever could.
A doorway appears behind me, with moonlight streaming through it, but the girl who walks out of that door is not the same as the girl who ran in.
My parents fall upon me, kissing me and embracing me, but even my love for them is bent a little. I still feel it, but it isn’t the same. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that they sent me in there, and my father, at least, knew what was waiting. I feel as though he’s killed me.
“Did Mara make it?” I ask, in a voice that doesn’t quite sound like my own.
Their faces fall, and my stomach along with them. I wrench myself free of their grasp and run back to the doorway, hoping for a glimpse of black hair or pale skin. Which part is she trapped in? Is the magic still consuming her, or is her soul being broken more than once? Twisted and retwisted like hair around a finger?
The green of the magic is paler now, ghostly and translucent in the night.
I can’t see Mara anywhere.
“Mancella,” the Captain says. Her voice is gentle, but her grip on my arm is firm. “It’s been hours. She’s not coming out.”
“It’s time to leave,” my father says.
But I won’t go, I can’t. I’m about to say this, to fight him, when Mother cries out. She’s pointing behind me.
And then Mara is there. A cry of joy fills my throat, only to die on my tongue when Mara steps out of the magic’s glare.
In the eerie green glow, her face looks like it’s melted. One eye is completely missing, and the skin around her mouth is red and raw. Her lips seem as though they’ve been peeled away, revealing all her teeth on one side. She leans heavily against the doorway, like she needs it to stand.
Then she looks up.
And the scars on her face are nothing compared to the stark horror in her hooded gaze.
I wake screaming, my sister’s terror even more upsetting than my own. My blankets are wrapped around my limbs, and in a moment of hazy panic I think the tightly wound comforters are the fiery tendrils of the magic reclaiming me, pulling me back in. I fight it, arms flailing, frantic when I can’t easily break free.
But then a cool hand touches my forehead. I stop thrashing long enough to realize that the room is chilly instead of scorching hot. The light is white and soft instead of green and searing. And that’s Mara next to me. Safe.
“They told me they gave you Uncle Veras’s sleeping magic,” she says.
I swallow and nod against her hand. The pearl-colored gas is imported from the Coast Realm, from my mother’s brother. It knocks you out, speeds your healing, and enables you to endure all manner of surgeries without feeling a thing. But it gives you horrible nightmares as you slumber. And they’re always true.
Mara smooths the hair from my face and tucks it behind my ear. “Did you see the Broken Citadel?”
“Yes,” I whisper hoarsely.
She makes a humming noise in the back of her throat. Then she leans forward and the moonlight catches her features. In the unguardedness of nighttime her face is uncovered. The scars from that day are still there, webbed across what’s left of her skin in puckered white lines.
I feel a pang of nostalgia. Mara and I haven’t been close since the Citadel, not like we used to be. It isn’t as if we’re enemies, but we don’t talk the way we did before. These days our jokes have barbs and our hearts have walls. I think we both dealt with what happened in our own ways and didn’t realize until it was too late that the way we each chose was “alone.”
But she always seems to appear in the aftermath of my darkest moments. She always knows, and she always sits with me until everything feels less terrible.
And that isn’t nothing.
I lean into her, and she strokes my hair until I fall back asleep.
Hours later, I wake again, to the swish of fabric and the clack of hangers. I crack an eye open to see Mara riffling through my closet, discarding one dress after another. With a sleepy groan, I pull the covers back over my head, hoping she’ll take the hint, but the clatter only gets louder. I whip the covers off again and catch her slamming one of the hangers against the back of the closet.
“Oh, hello!” she says, acting surprised. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Glaring, I prop myself up, inadvertently putting weight on my injured hand, then hiss at the resulting jolt of pain. Yesterday’s events come rushing back to me as I take in the fresh bandages that wind around my palm.
I can’t stand the sight of them, so I rip them off. Underneath, my flesh is red and angry. Black thread weaves through it in so many places it looks more like chunks of meat strung together than it does a hand. But I flex the fingers, and although it feels like sticking my arm in a meat grinder, everything bends like it’s supposed to.
“What do you think?” I ask Mara, waving my mess of a hand at her. “Pretty gruesome, huh?”
She turns toward me, holding a dress of midnight blue. Her face is still uncovered, the teeth on one side of her mouth exposed. “Not bad,” she says, “but still not on my level. Keep trying.”
I chuckle. “Maybe next time.”
She puts the blue dress back and grabs one in forest green. “If you really wanted scars as cool as mine, you’d stop dodging so much.”
“Duly noted,” I return. “Next time something comes at me with fangs as long as my forearms I’ll just stand there.”
“Very good.” She studies the gown in her hand, then holds it up to me. “How do you feel about this one?”
It’s a floor-length wrap dress with silver embellishments and a plunging neckline. And I mean plunging .
“I hate it,” I tell her frankly. “It’s too low-cut.”
“That’s why I picked it. Father said to dress aggressively.”
“My breasts are the least aggressive part of me.”
“Then you’re not using them right,” she says, tossing the dress at me.
For herself, Mara chose a severe black dress with stark lines and a high collar that frames her face. I note that it shows no cleavage at all, which really doesn’t seem fair. And, as usual, in lieu of a corset she wears several oversized necklaces strung with glittering glass gems.
I raise an eyebrow at her. “What if I told you I don’t care what Father thinks I should wear today?”
To my surprise, Mara laughs and gives me a pitying look. “You know I’m always here for a tantrum, but I would advise you to pick another day to throw it.”
Something in her tone makes me sit up straighter, throwing my blankets off. “Why?”
“Because the Prime of the Grasslands is here,” she tells me, like she’s divulging a secret.
“Oh,” I say, slouching again. “Sangua is pretty creepy.” She can manipulate blood, and instead of looking a person in the eye, she will usually focus her attention on your jugular or the veins of your wrists. No wonder Mara chose such a high-necked dress.
“Wow, you really haven’t been paying attention, have you?” Mara says, flipping her hair over her back smugly. She loves knowing things other people don’t.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever you’re preening about, why don’t you just spit it out?”
“All right, fine,” she says, affronted. “Sangua’s dead .”
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. “What?!” I gasp. “Are you sure? When did that happen?”
Mara plops down next to me on the bed, pleased that I’m finally showing some interest in her gossip, and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Seems like it happened about a month ago but they kept it under wraps for a while, so Father only found out last week,” she tells me. “I overheard.” Translation: She was spying.
I lean back on my elbows, processing. “I can’t believe I didn’t know this. How did she die?”
“That’s the weird thing,” Mara says, leaning forward. “From all accounts it sounds like she did it herself. When they found her body, it was completely bloodless. Not a drop left inside of her, but it looked like blood had burst out of her mouth and her eyes and even exploded from under her fingernails. It was everywhere . And no one could have done that to her but her .”
I feel my own blood drain from my face. “That’s horrible.”
“Isn’t it?” She doesn’t say it with the same sincerity that I do.
“Wait, but then… who’s coming tonight? Sangua didn’t have any children. And she didn’t name a Seconde. Who was her heir?”
“That’s where it gets even weirder!” Mara exclaims, throwing her hands up. “She had no blood relatives at all, but a week before she died she tossed a bunch of her servants into the Broken Citadel to see what they came out with, and then she picked her favorite to inherit. Some kid barely older than us. Her name’s Azele.”
“But that doesn’t even make sense!” I burst out, cutting her off. “What about the treaty?”
When the magic came back, for a while everything was chaos. Primes would cart their citizens up to the Citadel in droves and come back with destructive, overpowered armies. War was rampant, and it was more breathtakingly vicious than ever before. Casualties were high, borders were constantly shifting, and many families started running out of successors. My grandfather was one of the only Primes who survived the whole turbulent period.
Finally, after a few years of chaos, the standing Primes of the six living realms made a treaty to limit Citadel access to royal bloodlines only. But because this agreement was reached by a group of Primes who had already attained magic, they also decided that no one could run a realm without it. It was to be an aristocratic rite of passage. Which means if a Prime dies before naming a Seconde—the formal title for an heir and second-in-command—then rule of the realm would pass to their closest magic-wielding blood relation, and no one else.
It’s the reason Father’s naming me his Seconde instead of Mara. Because despite what the Broken Citadel put her through, it never gave her anything back.
Her magic never manifested.
Mara plucks leftover pins out of my hair, making my tangled tresses unfurl around my shoulders. “Apparently she altered their blood before having them enter to make them all her cousins, and then undid it if she didn’t like what they came out with. Azele is the only one she didn’t change back, which means she’s the only one left eligible.”
I shiver, imagining what it must feel like to have the very blood in your veins altered, most likely against your will. “And they counted that?” I ask.
“They kind of had to,” she says, combing through my hair with her fingers in search of any pins she missed. “They’ve got no other heir. And if the rumors are to be believed, the girl didn’t even know she was set to inherit. She was mucking out the stables when they told her she’d just become the ruler of the entire realm. And then her Ascension was the very next day.”
“Wow,” I say. “That must have been quite the adjustment.”
“No kidding,” she says. “Although maybe she knew the whole time and just kept it to herself. I would.” Once the last pin is free, Mara braids along my scalp with nimble fingers, smoothing strands into submission effortlessly. Then she stabs the pins back in to keep everything in place.
“Ow,” I mutter. “So what’s her power?”
“Oh!” Mara says, brightening as the last pin slides into place. “She can turn any inanimate object into ash. And she’s got this bodyguard with magic, too. One of the other servants Sangua tossed in. His name is Rift and they say he can turn into shadows.” She wiggles her fingers dramatically.
“So they’re really keeping the creepy theme going, huh?”
“Well, sure, it’s tradition. So anyway”—Mara pushes off the bed and heads back for the closet—“because Sangua wasn’t really one to make treaties, everyone’s scrambling to convince her successor to be more amenable. Including us. So… now that you understand the circumstances, will you please wear the flattering dress?” She holds it up, shaking the skirts at me so that the fabric shimmers. “As I have just clearly outlined for you, it is of great importance to inter-realm relations.”
“I see how the meeting is of importance to inter-realm relations,” I tell her. “I’m still not entirely clear why my breasts are. But I’ll wear the red one. All right? Red like the blood of our enemies.”
She sniffs but seems satisfied. “I’ll see you in there, then,” she says, returning the sparkly monstrosity to my closet.
Before she leaves, she grabs a scarf from the vanity and winds it around her face. It’s black, like her gown, and makes her look even more austere.
“See you at dinner!” she calls as she shuts the door. “You have twenty minutes!”
Dinner? How long have I been sleeping?
I look out the window to see the sun already low on the horizon. The clouds are the same color as my dress, a red that is both bright and deep. Like gashes in the open sky.
The same color Sangua’s blood must have been when it exploded out of her body and coated her room.
I shudder and draw the curtains shut before I change.
The dining room is as dressed up as we are, with oversized goblets, wine-colored tablecloths, and all four candelabras lit and shining brightly. As usual, glass plays prominently into the decor, framing the plates, encircling the napkins, and dangling from the chandeliers above. My mother’s dress is crafted entirely out of glass beads stitched together, and it makes her look like a curtain, or perhaps a lamp.
My father is seated at the head of the table, with Mother at his left and Mara beside her. The empty seat on his right is for me.
Across from him sits the new Prime of the Grasslands. Just like Mara said, she’s young, but she looks convincingly regal. Her posture is rigid, her hands are folded, and her eyes are intelligent. She’s wearing a cinder-colored silk dress that contrasts stunningly with her dark skin. Her cheekbones are highlighted with ash.
Beside her is her bodyguard, presumably the one who can turn into shadows. Rift, was it? His gaze snaps to mine as though he can sense my attention, and his eyes are startlingly lifeless. They’re gray, but one of them has a jagged orange line slashed through it, like a vein of quartz in granite. It feels as though someone carved a statue out of stone and painted it to resemble a living human, but entirely forgot to paint over those cold, stony eyes.
I sit.
Father smiles at me warmly, which puts me even more on edge. It almost never means something good when he smiles like that. I shift in my chair, wishing I’d told everyone I was still recovering and taken dinner alone in my room.
He claps his hands and servants appear behind each chair, carrying dome-covered plates. I regard the one placed in front of me, hoping for salad, or corn soup, or roasted sweet potatoes stuffed with a black bean relish. My father knows I won’t eat meat, that with all the killing I’m forced to do I refuse to endorse any more for something as trivial as my meals, but sometimes when we have guests, he “forgets.”
The dome is lifted.
And my stomach roils.
Sitting on my shiny glass plate is a steak. Rare. No sides, no garnishes, just a giant slab of steaming, bloody meat. My hands fist in the tablecloth as I fight back the urge to vomit, but it’s not until Prime Azele takes a bite and draws her eyebrows together like the flavor is something she can’t quite place that I realize the situation is even worse than I thought.
I study the meat meticulously, hoping I’m wrong. But the color is slightly off. The texture is different, too, tougher and grainier than a steak would typically be.
It’s no cow on my plate.
“How do you like it?” my father asks, barely containing his glee.
Prime Azele looks unsure. She cuts another slice but doesn’t raise it to her lips. “It’s a unique flavor. What kind of meat is it?”
I flinch and make an involuntary noise in the back of my throat.
“It’s jaguar,” my father declares, as though revealing a delightful surprise.
I knew before he said it, but even so, the words are like a slap to my face. I am shaking with anger. Within me, my animals rear up on hind legs, clawing at the underside of my skin. And among them is a new voice, a new roar, a new set of furiously swiping paws.
The pressure is unbearable.
My father leans forward conspiratorially. “Mancella killed the beast herself,” he gloats.
Everyone’s eyes flick to me. Azele’s look startled, but her bodyguard’s are cold and flat, like he could kill me and it would barely even register.
Under their gazes, my body feels even tighter. They must be able to see my struggle. It feels like my skin is bulging with the riot it’s holding at bay. Can’t they hear the snarls? Can’t they sense the jaguar herself breathing down their necks as she watches them feast?
But Father just keeps beaming.
I can’t stand it. His boasting, his pride. The delight he takes in that which causes me the most pain. The gusto with which he slices into the flesh, juices spilling onto his plate and flecking the front of his shirt.
“It’s very interesting,” my mother says, mulling over a dainty bite. “Sort of like wild boar in taste, but with the texture of goat.”
Mara nods in agreement, even though she hasn’t touched hers. She’s trying to catch my eye, warning me to keep my temper in check in front of our guests. And with good reason, because Prime Azele is still looking right at me, as though whatever I do next will form her opinion of me, my family, and my realm forever.
Which is a pretty big deal. It’s been drilled into me from birth that the success of a realm depends heavily on its relations with the other five, and my father is diligent, sometimes even ruthless, in maintaining them. His marriage to my mother guarantees good standing with the Coast Realm, the Jungle Realm is secured by a longstanding alliance based heavily on militaristic promises, the Forest Realm hasn’t been an issue since we decimated half their population in the last war, and the Swamp Realm keeps mostly to itself.
Which makes the Grasslands the only realm we’re not sure of.
The only realm with whom war could be on the horizon if tonight ends in disaster.
And that is the only reason I stay still and silent. Because if I move even a little, I know I will break.
My father swallows a hearty bite and frowns down at me.
“Eat, Mancella,” he says, steel behind his jovial tone.
I give my head the tiniest shake.
He slams the end of his knife on the table. “ Eat!” he roars.
I feel something rise in my throat again, but it’s not bile. It’s a roar much worse than my father’s. The roar of a creature slaughtered too soon.
Rage blinds me, and before I can think better of it, I let the jaguar surge free. As always when I summon, it feels like my skin is the surface of a lake and she bursts through it, creating ripples that run across my whole body, though there’s nothing actually visible.
She lands on the table, scattering silverware and sending the giant glass goblets careening toward the floor. Instead of merely tickling my mind, her roar fills the room, echoing as harshly as it did in the arena. Her luminous, yellow eyes are narrowed and accusing. Her lengthy fangs are bared.
I meant to shame them, I think, but their reaction is the opposite. My father bellows in approval and my sister gapes, hands at her throat. My mother looks frightened instead of chagrined.
“What is this?” Azele asks, her lips twisting like she’s suppressing a snarl. “Are you trying to intimidate me?”
My father smiles as though this was all in his plan. “I am trying to show you the strength of our realm. It need not intimidate you if you intend for our realms to cooperate. But if you intend to make us your enemy, well… then perhaps it should.”
Rift lunges out of his chair, but Prime Azele lays a hand on his arm and he stills.
“I believe we are done here for today,” she says. “I will consult with my advisor about your proposal, and you will receive my response to it within the week.” She sounds as formal as any other noble, like she was born into it.
Maybe Mara’s right. Maybe she really did know. Or maybe this advisor of hers kept her a secret for the last month because they’ve been training her, drilling the proper etiquette into her until she could maintain it in the face of a predator baring its fangs at her from across the dining room table.
“Of course,” my father says. “May I walk you out?”
Prime Azele inclines her head in a stiff nod, and Father rises to join her. The two Primes make stilted but cordial small talk as they exit the room, but I notice her bodyguard’s gait is tense. Controlled, but… displeased.
My stomach takes a nosedive.
What did I just do ?
“Interesting performance,” someone says.
I’m startled to find that the words came from behind me, from someone leaning in surprisingly close. Close enough that I can feel the vibration of his voice on my skin. It’s a servant, one with a jagged haircut and an easy grin that is completely at odds with the present situation.
“E-excuse me?” I stutter.
He juts his chin at the plate in front of me, and I turn as directed, too stunned to do anything else. The meat is gone, replaced by a small bowl with a colorful salad.
In front of that, a note, folded over three times. I snatch the parchment from the table and look to see what my mother and sister might have witnessed. They are both still focused on my jaguar, my sister reaching fingers out to touch its snout, and my mother inching her chair away as she grasps the neckline of her dress with white knuckles.
I turn back to the boy, questions now fully formed and ready to be deployed, but he’s already headed back into the kitchens.
So I open the note.
It doesn’t contain any explanations. It doesn’t tell me who the boy is or what he wants with me or why he thinks it’s appropriate to smirk at me like that when I’m in the middle of destroying any hope we have of establishing a positive relationship with the Grassland Realm.
There are only five words:
Kitchen. Midnight. See you there.