5
Noise snuck beneath the door before the waking bell chimed.
Hope widened my sleepy eyes. I stumbled across the room and cracked open the door.
Wards crowded the railing and the tall window at the end of the hall, many still in their evening robes. They appeared to be excited about something outside. But if the war was over, they wouldn’t have been standing around. They would have been preparing to go home.
Though disappointed, I was also curious. So I quickly got ready for the day and made my way downstairs to breakfast.
Only to find a smattering of people seated in the prayer hall.
Halting between the rows of wooden tables and askew bench seats, I frowned before heading to the open glass doors. Some wards stood outside on the terrace, a few even within the dunes, laughing and twirling and tossing colorful feathers.
I smiled.
Featherfall had arrived.
Fyrefowls molted multiple times per year, and their penchant for wandering ensured their fiery feathers touched all four kingdoms annually. My smile waned when I considered that such an event might mean little to the strict keepers of Avyshla’s sacred isle.
Darcen was the only one seated at our table.
Already halfway through his oats, he gave me a close-lipped smile. Sleep pillowed his emerald eyes. Endearing, as he hadn’t rushed from bed to see the pretty feathers dusting the grounds like everyone else.
He’d hurried downstairs for food.
Darcen was used to eating what he wished when he wished. That was also true for the rest of us, but I doubted I ate half as much as Darcen and Meront typically did.
Even so, it had taken me the entire first week to adjust to three meals per day. The simplicity and smaller quantities weren’t solely to blame. It was also the taste, being that our fellow wards prepared lunch and dinner.
My oats lost their meager flavor as my mind drifted to bowls of glowing fruit, glass pots of herbal teas, and freshly squeezed juices.
Meront’s arrival squashed my imaginings and made me tense.
He rubbed his hands together as he straddled the bench seat. “Featherfall.” Snatching his bowl and spoon, he gestured to me with the latter. “Why are you still inside?” He dug at his oats. “You love Featherfall.”
My body loosened. He was finally done with being moody, then.
In the two days since I’d interrupted the sparring session between Voran and Oaken, Meront had continued to convey his displeasure at my foolishness. Between bouts of glaring, he’d grunted barely-there responses to any questions I’d asked—attempts to soften him.
And Prince Voran…
Fleeing again, Princess?
Though the morning was already balmy, I shivered.
Even when I’d needed to relieve myself, I’d stayed in my room after curfew. The wolf prince hadn’t taken part in training again, leading me to believe Meront and Darcen had been right, and he’d done so that morning to unsettle us.
“It’s not the same,” I said, the weary words trailed by an unnecessary exhale.
“Why?” Meront asked through a mouthful of oats. “Because we’re on a gloomy isle in a gloomy fortress?”
Celestine joined us, grinning wide and braiding her hair. Darcen watched as she finished and secured the cream strands with a blue ribbon.
I looked over at the doors. “Because we cannot celebrate like we would at home. We’ll see to our duties, read another book about Avyshla or previous kings and queens, and eat our meals before being forced to retire a mere few hours after the sun.”
At home, everyone was free to do as they pleased during Featherfall.
Shops closed early. Streets filled with twirling and basket-toting younglings collecting feathers.
People gathered in the homes of family and friends to play games and stop their offsprings’ attempts at Featherfate—the most exciting game of all.
Meront’s gaze swung to Priestess Mala, who stood by the open doors, then to Darcen. Their curving lips told me their intent before they rose from the bench.
Celestine laughed as they sauntered toward the priestess. “You’re cruel,” she said to me. “You know Mala will get so flustered that she’ll go speak to the high priestess for us just to escape their flirting.”
Smiling, I ate another mouthful of oats. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But not a minute later, Priestess Mala scurried to the stairs, her robes gripped tight in her hands, and we both laughed.
Crouched beside a cluster of red, orange, and black feathers, I searched the damp grass ahead for one that had all three colors.
“Mother doesn’t care for Featherfall. She says it’s unsanitary, and the groundskeepers immediately rake all the feathers into piles to burn.”
Though that shocked, it shouldn’t have. Lady Rosedon turned up her nose at most things—including me. No wonder Tyressa had been eager to accompany me outside.
I gently placed an orange feather with a red tip in the woven basket held by the youngling. “Well, your mother isn’t here.” I smiled as I straightened. “You can pick as many feathers as you like. You can even keep them in your room.”
Tyressa frowned at the feather-speckled grass. “They would make my room prettier.”
“And it’s said they bring good tidings.”
She swung the basket around her legs. “But what do you do with them?”
We continued toward the woods. “Many people keep them in bowls or cups or jugs until the next full moon, claiming that something good befalls them in the weeks afterward. And some people…” I scrunched my nose. “They use them for fun things.”
Tyressa squinted up at me. “What sort of fun things?”
“Games.”
“Games?” she repeated.
“Yes.” Mentioning Featherfate could get me into a lot of trouble with Lady Rosedon once this war ended.
So I quickly thought of something else. “Hide-and-find is a good one. Everyone puts their collected feathers in a basket, and while they close their eyes and count to sixty, someone hides as many feathers as they can in rooms or across the grounds.”
“Why?” Tyressa asked before I could finish.
I helped her over a mossy log, then released her hand and explained, “Well, whoever finds the most feathers in one minute wins.”
“What do they win?”
I failed to remember if there was a prize. “I think they just get to hide them next.”
Mercifully, more feathers shone within the tree line, putting an end to her questioning.
Tyressa hurried over to them. Her basket was dropped without care onto the grass. Leaning against a tree, I spied a black feather in a leafy fern next to my boot and bent down to retrieve it.
Tyressa shouted, “This one is almost yellow.” She waved the feather in the air, her exuberant smile tightening my chest.
“Rare,” I said.
As she crouched to add it to the basket, silver winked in the trees behind her.
The feather fluttered from my fingers to the ground. Keeping my eyes fixed on the steel hair moving deeper into the woods, I quietly said to Tyressa, “Let’s head back now. We don’t want to be late for lunch.”
“I don’t mind. It’s probably not very good.”
I refrained from wincing at her loud voice. “We must eat it all the same.” Retrieving her basket to hurry her along, I whispered, “Then you can show these off to the others.”
She placed another feather into the basket and happily took my hand.
As we walked across the clearing to the courtyard, it wasn’t fear that tempted me to look back at the woods, but curiosity.
I highly doubted Valadorn’s merciless prince was hunting for fyrefowl feathers.