Sunlight reflects off the waves as I look out to the horizon in a poor attempt to fend off seasickness. The choppy water seems to mock me, making a game of seeing how quickly it can sour my stomach. In the distance, I see the outline of a creature lingering just under the surface. I turn to Orion to ask what he thinks it could be; he’s always been a better observer than I am. With a start, I realize that the face of the maroon-haired teenager behind me is not that of my brother, but rather that of someone who has been threatened by imminent danger. The dark shadow of a storm starts to blanket the ship’s deck, and I turn around to assess the incoming clouds before moving to sweep Orion below decks. But the sky above is still clear and cloudless; my gut twists as the sea dragon I must have spotted a moment ago towers over the ship, twice the height and girth of the hull. The dragon unhinges its jaw, revealing a row of dagger-sharp teeth that are headed straight for us. Knowing there is nothing that can save us now, I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the lethal heat of its -
“Luna . . . Luna, wake up! You’re going to set the entire palace on fire.”
I hear the words from far away a moment before feeling the shock of icy water being poured over me, soaking the entire bed. I scramble out from under the waterlogged covers with a shriek, tearing off the now-freezing outer layers of my sleep clothes.
“What the hell, Vania? If this is your way of getting back at me for drinking the last of the witchwine last night, it’s not very –”
My speech is promptly interrupted by a bout of hysterical laughter from my closest friend, now keeled over, her ebony hair nearly brushing the ground. My confusion and appall quickly vanish, and I make a sorry attempt to remain stone-faced before succumbing to a laughing fit of my own.
“Sorry,” she gasps, “It’s just that - the look on your face - I wish you could have seen it . . .” Vania regains her composure upon seeing my exposed skin pebbling, and she grabs me a dry blanket from the wardrobe as I try to stop shivering.
“In all seriousness, though, you must have been having some sort of nightmare. I came in to check if you still had my green gown - you know, the one with the gold embroidery on the corset? And you had flames weaving between your fingers.” She demonstrates with her hands, nails painted a deep violet. “Next thing you know, the sheets began smoking, and . . . let’s just say you’re lucky I came over when I did. The last thing you need is another reason for your mother to have you slated for exile.”
Wrapping the fur blanket around myself, I give Vania a deliberately sidelong glance. She’s right; my mother and I exist on a crumbling precipice as it is, and I don’t want to find out whether it could hold up to yet another incident. Besides, being her offspring has never protected anyone from her wrath in the past.
My friend begins tearing the ruined sheets off the bed as I trudge to the bathing room that adjoins my childhood bedroom. I turn the spout of running water as hot as it will go and pour my signature sage oil into the tub as it fills, fragrant steam rising. I look out the window to see the sun just now crawling out from behind the peaks of the Aurenade mountains in the distance. I imagine a life in which I could dwell in this chamber with Vania day and night, taking in the surrounding desert landscape while pretending the rest of this palace doesn’t exist. If that reality existed, maybe the obligatory monthly visits with my mother would be more tolerable.
Regrettably, the day that happens will be the day all of Averian disintegrates. Lines of sunlight stream into the bathing room as Vania sweeps open the pink velvet curtains of my bedroom, her tan skin glowing from the bath she must have had this morning. She cracks open one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing a dense surge of the already-sweltering desert air into the room.
“See,” she says, plucking my drenched nightshirt and robe from the lush carpet, “It’s as if the bed didn’t have any sheets on it in the first place. If anything, the servants will just assume you had a special guest over last night and didn’t want any evidence lying around.” She winks and spins away before I can react, turning toward the laundry chute. The stench of burnt fabric is already fading from my chamber as I ease into the bath, embracing the scorching water as it meets my freezing limbs.
“What do you think would happen if I didn’t attend the Showing today?” I call across my suite, even though we both know the answer. As the Duchess’ daughter, Vania is well acquainted with the social protocols that accompany this ceremony. My fingertips glide along the surface of the water, splitting the greenish bubbles of congealed oil that sit on top. Vania appears from the dining room and hands me a steaming clay mug of peppermint tea, which I eagerly accept.
“Well,” she pretends to ponder this as she lays a fresh set of underclothes next to the tub, “If you ever wondered about the daily lives of those on the Wetrocks, missing the Showing would be a great way to learn more. The only thing is, you wouldn’t have any way of letting me know what you find, and I thought we had agreed to tell each other everything.”
I feel a wave of guilt at the mention of the promise we made as children, knowing that I haven’t quite told her everything over the last few years. Letting out a resounding groan, I sink deeper into the porcelain tub. The Wetrocks are the farthest known land mass from mainland Averian, resting in the depths of the Pormenite Sea in a region known as the Bottomless Deep. As far as anybody knows, the Wetrocks offer no life-sustaining resources, and those exiled from all regions of Averian are sent there to either find a way to survive or to wither away, never to be welcomed back to their homelands. That’s assuming they even survive the journey there; that part of the sea is dense with all manner of sea monsters, which are known to linger close to the Wetrocks in hopes of ravaging newcomers. Anybody who has ever gone to the region with the hope of finding out what happens there or rescuing a loved one has suffered one of many lethal fates. Needless to say, once the threshold into the Bottomless Deep has been crossed, there is no turning back.
As Vania returns to her family’s wing of the palace to ready herself for the ceremony, I channel heat from my solar reserves into the mug of tea that has gone cold. Feeling the familiar tug between my ribs as power flows through them, I am glad that I took the time to replenish my stores yesterday while sunbathing with my friend and brother. My thoughts begin to wander, and I feel the initial dregs of pain that I know all too well, letting me know that a new scar has begun forming on my side.
Sighing in defeat, I stare down at the cursed mug. Despite the effort, the tea can hardly pass for lukewarm.
I reluctantly lift myself from the solace of the tub, the bathwater having cooled along with the tea. My mother is known to comb every inch of my appearance, which she fervently does throughout the week I reside at the Fulminian desert sanctum each month. Having wrinkled fingertips from soaking too long would inevitably bring on a sermon about how I continue to humiliate the family with my impropriety.
My burning fingertips having forced me to rise earlier than usual, I decide I have at least a few minutes to study before a maid shows up to fix my hair and dress me for today’s Showing. I pull a potions manual from my leather satchel, titled Sun Wielding: The History and Future. Because potion-making is a form of magic most commonly associated with the Braidbone witches, I wouldn’t dare express interest in it anywhere near my mother. Rather than abandon my calling for an entire week each month, I managed to convince a bookseller at the Feldar market to rebind my guidebook, the new cover bearing a title that my mother would find more palatable.
Hours later, I find myself in a satin maroon gown with a golden lace overlay, the shade of satin almost identical to that of my hair. I refrain from scratching at the raw skin on my side, the fresh scar evidence of my power stores having been wholly depleted this morning. My hair, now braided into a coronet, pulls at my scalp so tightly that it begins to go numb. I had requested a looser style, but the hard-nosed lady’s maid who was sent to prepare me had insisted that I was long overdue for a trim and wouldn’t be able to get away with leaving my hair down. After all, she’d droned, You wouldn’t want to insult Her Highness by not looking your best. Struggling to breathe under my corset, I hadn’t bothered telling her that I had bigger worries than presenting myself to the Lady of the Fulminian desert with split ends. The maid had at least been merciful enough to bring me flat silk slippers rather than the typical heeled ones usually reserved for nights like this.
I take a moment to gaze out at the grounds, which are swamped with servants making preparations for this evening. In the distance, the afternoon sun rests directly above Crow’s Peak, the tallest of the Aurenades. By now, guests will be heading to the temple on the sanctum’s grounds, where they will spend the afternoon acknowledging the sun gods before the Showing this evening. I picture my mother, father, and Vania among them, awaiting my presence. Orion likely went to the temple alongside the palace guards this morning before it was crowded with visitors from every region. Trusting that the sun gods will understand, I decide to pay my brother a visit in his chamber before reporting to the ballroom, where the royal family will be hosting tonight’s ceremony.
Minutes after knocking on the carved sandstone entrance to my brother’s chambers, Orion opens the heavy door halfway, shirt still half unbuttoned. I stride in without waiting for an invitation, heading straight for my favorite chaise by the window.
“I thought you and Vania would be at the temple by now,” he says, shutting the door and returning to the large mirror in his dressing room. His butler pulls out a jar containing a thick paste and begins sculpting my brother’s freshly-cut maroon hair. I resist the urge to roll my eyes; there’s a reason he’s always been our mother’s favorite.
“Decided not to go,” I sigh, resting my feet on the cushioned velvet upholstery of the chair. “Besides, according to Mother, the sun gods didn’t see enough favor in me to grant me any notable level of power anyway.” I pluck at a loose thread dangling from my billowing sleeve, accidentally scratching my wrist in the process.
Orion looks at me with a mixture of pity and irritation; we’ve had this conversation countless times before. “You don’t know that,” he says softly, buttoning the rest of his silky gold shirt. “Your Showing is less than three months away, and we won’t know your true potential as a sun-wielder until you receive your prophecy.”
Even though he’s right, it doesn’t help that he can already channel power from the sun with double the force and half the effort that I can, and he’s still two years away from his Showing. Since the War of the Colonies, the Showing upon a mortal’s twenty-first birthday has been regarded as the most sacred ceremony across all regions of Averian. This tradition symbolizes the beginning of adulthood and the culmination of one’s growth into the full extent of their power. The pinnacle of this ceremony is the reading of the prophecy, which can only be done by the Inkblood witches of the Tovereth plains.
While the witches and the mortals of Averian generally keep to their independent territories, the Showing ritual is one of the few circumstances in which our paths cross. Although the prophecy is only to be known by its receiver and the divine witch who unveils it, the extent of elemental power that the freshly Shown wields is announced to all present at the ceremony. The Showing is followed by either a celebration or a mourning period depending on whether the newly revealed power lives up to what the Shown and their witnesses expected.
“I know, but it doesn’t make me feel any better considering that I can’t even keep a drink warm,” I think back to this morning with a grimace, “meanwhile you and the guards torch ruins for sport.” Orion has been close to the sanctum guards since childhood, much to our mother’s dismay. He routinely joins them in training to hone his solar control to perfection, even though his job as a court scribe rarely requires him to use his power.
His butler having excused himself from the chamber, Orion looks around to ensure nobody else lingers. His gray eyes meet my identical ones as he counters, “You know as well as I do that you can’t rush your prophecy. If you are destined to become a mighty sun-wielder, it will be revealed the night of your Showing and all those who doubted you will be proven wrong. But I would think you’d be hopeful about the prospect of your fate laying elsewhere given your . . . eccentric areas of interest.”
Orion is the only person I’ve ever told about my desire to spend my days brewing potions, a task typically reserved for the Braidbone witches of the Fulminian Ruins. I open my mouth to retort, but I don’t have a chance before Regis, head of the sanctum guards and Orion’s closest friend, comes bursting in. His tanned, heavily tattooed arms and torso are covered by the formal guards’ uniform reserved for special occasions. “The ceremony will begin shortly. Her Highness Lady Ravenna requests your presence in the grand ballroom.”
He exits without waiting for a reply, his muscled form opening and shutting the cumbersome door with ease. Swinging my pale legs off the chaise, I regard my brother in his glossy maroon overcoat, not a wrinkle in sight or a hair out of place. It often seems impossible that he could be a full two years younger than me. Standing at least a foot taller than me, he reaches for my elbow, linking my arm with his. We stand like that in the foyer for a moment, wordlessly preparing ourselves for the exchanging of pleasantries and displays of decorum to come.
Orion and I part ways in the corridor between the residential wings of the palace and the collective ones, leaving me to seek out Vania so that she and I can present ourselves together. My brother locates a fellow scribe, joining arms with her before approaching the entryway, above which is a grand stained glass mural of the phoenix that represents the desert region. Murmurs of the gathering can be heard under the marble door, indicating that we must be some of the last attendees to arrive. Floating down the corridor is Vania, who dons a lavender cap-sleeved gown that complements her tan skin and allows the deep sable of her hair and eyes to stand out.
We smile at one another before joining the queue of couplets waiting to formally present themselves to the Lady. While high-ranking officials generally present themselves first, this won’t be expected of Vania until she has replaced her mother as Duchess. Once we are close enough to catch a glimpse of the ballroom, I note the shimmering crystal chandeliers hanging throughout the lofty ceiling, light reflecting off of them and onto the shine of the freshly polished leather dining chairs. The last thing I notice is the grand throne upon the dais, upholstered in lush green velvet for the occasion. The thin, ethereal woman who rests upon it has skin so pale it’s nearly translucent, her night-black hair seeming to absorb the light from the room. Her gray eyes, almost the same shade as mine and my brother’s, briefly meet mine as Vania and I approach her with our chins dipped and hands joined.
I sink into a compulsory bow, Vania doing the same at my side before dutifully taking up position alongside her parents, who stand adjacent to the throne. The phoenix, Cyra, rests atop a gilded platform on the other side of the throne, serving as a symbol of the unity and rebirth that our region underwent following the Elemental War. In the center of the dais sits Lady Ravenna Morrenden of the Fulminian desert, who turns her gaze from the crowd back to me, hard eyes scouring me as her mouth curls into a sneer. “Hello, Luna.”
Everyone in the room, royals and denizens alike, looks between the Lady and me as our monthly performance begins once again. I refuse to allow my stance to falter, refuse to allow my voice to waver as I reply,
“Hello, mother.”
