Chapter 1
one
Nesrina goes to the capital.
Clutching the summons in her cloak pocket, Nesrina shuffled along with the line, her fingertips tracing the ridges and divots of the king’s seal. Craning her neck to see past the ox-drawn cart ahead, she blinked at a sliver of Kirce Palace visible through the great arched gateway.
So close.
She’d never been inside the second wall of the capital, but she’d heard all about it, aggrandized tales from Papa’s glossy memories: “the beating heart of Selwas” ensconced behind double walls in the center of Serkath, with “one-hundred-foot ceilings and fifty-foot doors.” Surely, he’d exaggerated, and she was finally going to find out.
The line moved forward again, and a man clad in the green garb of a soldier leaned out from his stone hut. “Name and business,” he said, sounding affronted he’d even had to prompt.
Brilliant. Her first faux pas.
“Nesrina Kiappa, responding to a summons from the king.” The letter crinkled when she smoothed it and held it up for perusal.
The guard hardly glanced at the honey gold seal, then ushered her through.
A whoosh escaped her as she stepped beneath the portcullis and into the palace proper.
Her halting steps on the cobbled street, the few jangling coins in her pocket, and the anxious rhythm of her heart came together in an orchestral disaster that further fueled her discomfort.
No, her excitement. No, it was mainly discomfort, with a sprinkling of hope.
The palace outbuildings were regal, and everything sparkled, coated in a sheen of salt from the nearby sea. She felt dull in comparison, her boots and cloak blending with the stones in the road rather than the opulence of the architecture.
It was fine. She had a duty to fulfill, and she needed this lened job.
A tight band of melancholy squeezed Nesrina’s throat as a blast of painful nostalgia stole her breath.
Lened, or “damn” in the Old Tongue, was Papa’s go-to swear.
It was her favorite, too, but using it always brought his face to mind.
He’d walked these streets years before, stepped on the same cobbles as a “Guest of the King,” and she was here now to do the same—doing the same—attempting to do the same.
Nes considered herself intelligent enough to recognize her own shortcomings.
She hadn’t the faintest idea how to interact with royalty, but she did know how to teach, like her papa, and she was here to make his memory proud.
He always said a person learned “more at the helm than reading books about boats,” and that adage proved to be true time and again.
She’d figure it out—the whole speaking to nobility thing—like she always did. She only needed time. Holding her duty close and her head high, Nesrina continued up the long, cobbled drive to Kirce Palace to turn up in place of her father.
Standing in the marble foyer, or grand hall, she supposed, Nes felt like a fish out of water. Flailing her hands, her mouth flapping with unspoken words, she tried to get someone’s attention, and failed time and again.
Liveried footmen and maids bustled through, crisscrossing the cavernous space in every direction, some carrying cloched trays. She’d lost track of time near the end of her journey, when the skies clouded over, but assumed it was just before, or after, luncheon. Her stomach confirmed her suspicion.
Giving up as a new wave of fast-moving servants pushed through, Nesrina considered the architecture and kept an eye out for someone moving with less purpose. A few stoic guards were stationed at regular intervals around the foyer, but she got the distinct impression they were not to be spoken to.
Kirce wasn’t exactly as her father had described.
The ceilings were grand, but certainly not one hundred feet high.
They seemed appropriately sized for the ostentatious space—making every sound louder and every person look smaller as they moved from corridor to corridor.
From the moldings to the mages, it was clear everything was intentional here.
The servants’ uniforms were all the same style and structure but came in an array of colors, coding them according to their magic: blue for watercoursers, red for firebearers, brown for the earthshapers, and gray for the windshifters. What color would they give her, if she made it on the staff?
There. A well-dressed man in a dark coat, not a servant, wandered into the expansive hall. The heavy door he’d come through swung closed with a slam, and he jolted, glancing over his shoulder like he hadn’t opened it himself.
Now or never, Nes! “Excuse me. Excuse me, sir?” Her boots clacked on the marble tile as she hurried forward.
The stranger stalled abruptly when she reached him, as if startled by her cacophonic and impossible to miss approach.
A breeze, warm and balmy, fluttered Nes’s skirts and blew a clump of her hair into her mouth, gagging her. As she pulled strands free, she wondered if someone was using air magic, or if the palace hall was cavernous enough to have its own weather patterns.
The gentleman eyed her strangely from way up high.
Good gods.
She was short, sure, but this man was enormous—height-wise. He had a rather slim build and wore a deep blue coat, fine enough to warrant assumptions about his aristocratic status. But his dark, tousled hair and the equally dark stubble shadowing his face did some damage to his credibility.
“Yes?” Curtly, he spoke in a low baritone, his single word conveying how unimportant she was, a thorn in his side, a fly in his custard.
This is a public space. Sputtering as that breeze picked up, she tugged new strands of hair from her mouth. One of them tickled the back of her throat, and she gagged again, nearly retching on the probably-a-gentleman before her.
“Please”—she swallowed, willing her throat to relax and sending several choice words to the back of her tongue—“Do you know where I might find the king? I have a—”
The not-such-a-gentleman stepped away, cutting her off with his silent action. His eyes raked over her from top to toe, taking in the entirety of her form.
Defensively, Nes gripped her travel bag and forced her shoulders back.
“Potential staff should use the service entrance at the rear.”
Her brows popped so high they nearly flew off her face. The audacity of this man. The way he emphasized “potential” made it crystal clear, he thought she had none. And the fool didn’t even know why she was there! Steeling herself, she began again, “I have—”
“Go out.” He pointed nonchalantly at the massive palace doors as he spoke. “Turn left. Go around back. Door’s by the kitchen.”
With that, the dark-haired stranger turned and stalked away, disappearing through a set of doors.
Handle biting into her palm where she gripped her bag, Nes trudged around the side of the—excessively, in her opinion—gigantic palace, and continued along the downslope beside the southwestern wing. At the base of the hill, the kitchen stood right where that horribly-mannered man said it would.
On the heels of a frustrated grunt, she inhaled through her nose, held it a moment, then exhaled through rounded lips, willing herself to relax. Surely, she would find someone far kinder around back who would help her locate the king.
Sniffing the heavy air again, Nes looked up at the billowing clouds and sighed.
Her lips drooped as the first wave of torrential downpour crashed down.
Creating an umbrella was futile at this point, but she did it anyway, weaving the portable canopy from thin air and holding it aloft as she trudged down the desolate cobbled path.
With her luck bouncing between decent and abysmal, Nesrina hoped things were moving toward improvement when she spied a lone guard leaning against a sheltered stretch of wall by the kitchen.
“How can I help you, miss?” The soldier grinned lazily.
With his silky golden hair, cheerful wide mouth, and soft features, he was the light to that horrid-man-from-earlier’s darkness. Smiling, she produced her rain-spattered letter, seal side up.
“Summons from the king?” He glanced at the wax circle. “You should’ve gone in the front.”
“I tried.” She shrugged.
“It’s lucky you found me.” He ushered her inside before taking the lead with a, “This way, m’lady.”
“Miss Kiappa will do.” She giggled, picking a seam on her cloak, one step closer to meeting the king.
The guard’s uniform gave no indication of his magical ability, and her particular type was rare, so she folded her umbrella and leaned it in a dark corner near the door. Hurrying to catch up, she released her hold on her magic, letting her creation vanish into the air.
“Lovely to meet you, Miss Kiappa. I’m Rihan Sarma.”
The way he punctuated his sentences with a quick little smile over his shoulder brought a genuine grin to her face.
Was she terrified? Absolutely. But this man seemed nice, and common. She may be waltzing into a den of royalty, but the staff would all be like her.
Winding through hallways and stairwells, each was more sumptuous than the last as they neared the family’s terrain.
In a salon at the base of one of the spire-capped towers she’d seen from outside, Rihan paused to say, “The king’ll be in his study this time of day.
I was heading here after my break, to relieve Aram.
” He nodded toward a statuesque sentry who stood immediately to their left.
The guard gave the pair an almost imperceptible nod that served as both a greeting and permission to pass.
Rihan opened the door to a stone staircase, then ushered Nes up first. As she slipped past, she inhaled out of pure curiosity. He smelled like cedar with a hint of leather. It was quite nice—calming, even.
On the third level, they stopped before a tall mahogany door, and he asked for her summons.