Chapter 4
Elva
Ican hear my heart beating.
It pummels at my ribcage. It keeps me awake. Condemns me to consciousness when all I seek is oblivion.
The sky is a deep, velvety black, peppered with pinprick stars.
If it weren’t for the opulence of this bedchamber, or the raven-haired boy sleeping at my side, I could be a thousand miles away, gazing out at the eternal night of Obsidia.
I see it when I close my eyes. Our cottage, with its thatched roof and smoky fireplace, dozens of nightshine blooms snaking up the walls.
Amma, humming softly while she prepares our evening meal.
Stew, maybe. Or soup – beansprout and nettle – with fresh, salty bread.
Papa, whittling perhaps, or chopping wood, or counting coppers – always doing something with his hands.
My older sister, Astrid, singing quietly to herself, one hand stroking Kjara, our moon panther, stretched out peacefully at my feet.
I try to ration my memories. I keep them contained, like birds in cages, and only open them one at a time. It’s easier this way. In small doses they sustain me. I live off them.
But lately I’ve found myself consumed by thoughts of my family, of the life that was ripped away from me. Of who I was, and now, what I have become.
I used to dream about the Shadow Magi: my ancestors, with eyes that glowed like fallen stars, capable of wielding darkness so impenetrable it could swallow the sun.
I was ten before I saw my first dawn. It broke around the same time as my heart – beams of light gilding the waves as the slave ship sailed across the Second Sea.
Nobody knows for certain why the Magi lost their magic all those years ago, just as I don’t know why that magic was returned to me. All I do know is that if my secret were discovered, I wouldn’t have long to wonder.
As if to taunt me, a tendril of shadow escapes from my fingertip. I ball my hands into fists, resisting the urge to shudder as fear rattles through me. I’ve always been frightened, for as long as I can remember.
Elva’s afraid of her own shadow, Astrid used to say.
If only she knew how right she was.
My sister saw fear as a hindrance – something that needed to be stamped out.
Don’t be such a baby, she’d hiss as I edged behind her, clutching her arm while the other children played, launching themselves from the rocks and into the starpools below.
And when we returned home, Astrid soaking wet and glittering, me bone-dry and ashamed, my father would just smile in his quiet, gentle way and pretend not to notice.
It was my mother who would sit me on her lap, prise my hands from my face and murmur softly, Don’t shut fear out, Elva. Invite it in.
I’ve tried to heed her advice – to welcome fear rather than cower from it, because fear is a response to danger. And sensing danger is key to survival.
The Earth Cleaver told me that if I wanted to survive, I’d better keep my mouth shut.
The day after my powers awoke, I remember coming to, surrounded by herbs and tinctures and vials of medicine. When I realized who was standing over me, I let out a piercing scream. He simply sighed and offered me a glass of water. Then he told me what happened. But not how. Or why.
Why now? Why me?
Hal mutters something unintelligible in his sleep and shifts his arm to cradle me. What would he say, I wonder, if he discovered that I am now … what? A Mage? A monster? He’s a Castellion – they are the same in his eyes. I fear the truth would break him. Break us.
I swallow, willing away the lingering shadows, concentrating on his face. These past few weeks have taken their toll. He looks older than his twenty years.
When I slipped into his chambers to say goodnight, he kissed me like he needed me.
So I stayed. It’s risky, being with him like this.
But as long as I’m back in the serf quarters before dawn, nobody should notice.
Nobody except my bunkmate, Ingra, but she’ll always cover for me, and she’d never betray me to Matron.
Matron is in charge of the palace serfs.
Not much gets past her – she makes sure of that.
Rewards for ratting out a fellow serf range from a fresh bedroll to an extra helping at supper, which many would do more than tell tales for.
It’s not that they starve us. We have enough to eat.
But that’s just it – enough, and no more.
Meals are determined by our size and the nature of the labour we perform.
Having inherited my mother’s slender frame, and given that I am – or rather, was – personal serf to an Heir – meaning my duties didn’t extend much beyond folding linen and braiding hair – my portions tend to make my plate look large.
Of course, Hal slips me food whenever he can.
I thought I’d misheard Blaze the first time she offered to share her breakfast. Rather than feeling grateful, though, I felt guilty.
She was kind, and undeserving of my deception.
Yet Hal’s plan, however unfair, was the perfect distraction.
Their involvement provided a subterfuge, and both of them had just the right touch of shyness to make it believable.
But then Blaze started to fall for him, and so every smile we shared was a sharp twist of the knife.
Only the knife was buried in her back, not mine.
Even still, she forgave me.
When I heard about the attack on Fire Mountain, my first thought was of her.
But Hal has since received reports that the Storm Weaver was unharmed, and that she and her brother will soon be moved to a safe house.
In just a few weeks, Blaze’s life has turned full circle.
It doesn’t matter that she won the Aquatori crown – she’s just as confined as she has been for the last seventeen years.
Trapped by circumstance, like me. Except now …
You could go home.
That’s what she said to me, and she was right.
After the Binding Ceremony, once he’d regained the ability to form a sentence, Hal, as the new emperor, offered me a ship, as much gold as I could carry, and said that if anyone tried to stop me, he would have them killed.
I am free, and yet, here I am.
There are three reasons why I chose to remain in Ostacre.
The first is that if I were to go home, I’m afraid of what I might find there.
Or worse, what I might not find. When the slavers came ashore, they set my village aflame, snatching the children and slaughtering any who stood in their way.
My parents are long dead. As for Astrid, she was put on board a different ship – only she never arrived in Ostacre with the rest of the serfs, meaning she didn’t survive the journey across the Second Sea.
And without my family, there’s nothing left for me in Obsidia. Nothing but bones and memories.
The second is that I cannot bring myself to abandon Ingra and the others. I will never truly be free until they are too.
Hal always secretly intended to find a way to liberate the serfs, long before he met me.
To do what his father did not, and undo what his grandfather did all those years ago.
Sometimes I wonder how someone like him was ever born into a family like that.
Yet the timing of King Balen’s betrayal has thwarted Hal’s plans to end serfdom.
His advisers will not hear of it. His reign is already being called into question. He has no one to support him.
Which brings me to my third reason …
I stroke my thumb along Hal’s forearm. His father is dead, his half-brother responsible, and his uncle is intent on taking his throne. How can I leave him now, after everything? He is utterly lost. He needs me, and I …
I love him.
I wish I didn’t. I tried not to. I hate myself for it. But I do.
What would the other serfs think of me if they found out about us? How could I even begin to defend myself? By telling them Hal is different? That he is good? Nothing I say would change the fact that he is their enemy. So what does that make me?
I’m so tangled up in my thoughts that I don’t notice the slight shift in his breathing, and I start as he whispers, ‘Can’t sleep?’
I shake my head.
‘Hm. Maybe I could read to you from one of my father’s old trading ledgers? That’d do the trick.’
Hal’s eyes are still closed, his voice husky with remnants of sleep. He’s not fully awake yet – I can tell because he’s smiling. I watch him remember, his smile faltering then falling, the weight of an empire crashing back down upon his shoulders.
‘Hal –’
‘I’m fine.’ Lie. ‘It’s fine.’ Another lie.
I don’t press him. I turn on to my side so that we’re face-to-face, and rest my hand on his cheek. Hal closes his eyes again, leaning into my touch. Even now, his features heavy with sleep and pain, he is beautiful.
I glance out of the window at the sky beginning to lighten. It won’t be long before dawn arrives.
‘I have to go soon.’
‘Don’t,’ he murmurs. ‘Stay.’
‘I can’t. You know that.’
A pause. ‘It won’t always be like this.’
‘I know,’ I say, though I don’t – not really. We are both of us changed. The future is uncertain. It scares me even more than the past.
I kiss him once, lightly, then slide out of bed and pull on my white tunic and boots.
The solid-gold floor gleams in the waning moonlight.
Hal is still living in his old chambers.
He has no wish to move into his father’s quarters, not while his death is so fresh.
There’s also the fact that Lady Kestrel Calloway, Imperial Mistress and mother to the Earth Cleaver, refuses to leave the emperor’s rooms. She is, by all accounts, inconsolable.
She barely sleeps, will not speak to anyone, won’t eat.
The serfs bring her trays of food, which remain untouched.
One of the girls, Shireen, swiped a peach, thinking Matron wouldn’t notice.
Her foolishness cost her two days in the Pit.
‘I have to go,’ I say again, but Hal catches hold of my hand.
‘Promise me you’d tell me if anything was wrong?’ He laughs, short and hollow. ‘What am I saying? What isn’t wrong? Nothing about any of this is right. I just meant, you’d tell me if anything’s … changed?’
I can hear the words he doesn’t say ringing loudly in the silence.
Between us.
I don’t answer, tracing the lines on his palm.
‘Elva?’ Soft, almost pleading.
‘Of course I would.’
The lie burns my tongue. There are too many secrets. We are an ocean apart, he and I, and he doesn’t even know it.
Gently, I break the bridge of our joined hands and edge behind the screen. There, I press my shoulder into a portion of the wall, which swings open. Hal whispers something into the darkness, but I don’t catch it before the door snicks shut behind me.
The serf tunnels are dank and dark, but I ignore the torch crackling in a bracket. I have no need for it any more.
Ever since the shadow magic of my ancestors was returned to me, I can …
well, I can see in the dark. And I don’t just mean I have a better sense of direction or can make out shapes amid the gloom.
I mean that I can see, fully, perfectly, in complete darkness.
It’s difficult to explain. There’s no invisible spotlight.
There’s no light whatsoever. The dark doesn’t lessen or recede.
It’s still there, surrounding me. Only, I can see through it.
I slip between it, just another shadow. I’m part of it now.
After what feels like an age, I emerge from the tunnel near the kitchens.
The cramped corridor is empty. Everyone is in bed.
I move silently through the passageway until I reach my room – a space no larger than a few square feet, furnished with two wooden boards sticking out of the wall.
Ingra sleeps on the bottom one, I on the top.
The moment I creep inside, Ingra opens one eye like a cat, smiling conspiratorially.
‘Well, if it isn’t fair Irabella returned from seeing her Emmeric. Tell me, how is loverboy this evening? I do hope he earned his keep.’
The Tragedy of Emmeric and Irabella was a play performed for the Court of Eyes by a travelling theatre troupe called the Bronze Buckle some years back.
Ingra and I were both serving wine at the time, and so we got to watch along with everyone else.
It was a tale of two lovers: rich, handsome Emmeric and poor, beautiful Irabella, who fell in love against the odds and sacrificed everything to be together.
Only, Emmeric was cursed by a witch who’d lost everything at the hands of his scheming family. Hence, the tragedy.
Ingra doesn’t know that the Emmeric to whom she refers is none other than the former Crown Prince, now emperor, of Ostacre.
I reach up to the top bunk and pull back my bedroll to reveal the assortment of rags beneath, all bunched together to give the appearance of a human silhouette, just in case Matron had decided to check on us.
‘Thank you, Ingra. I owe you.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ she says, waving her hand dismissively, her long honey-brown hair spilling off the side of the bed in a thick braid.
I step on the edge of her bunk and pull myself up on to my own, finally allowing myself to exhale as I lie down and close my eyes.
What feels like minutes later, the bell begins to clang.