My irrationality fled, and reason settled into my mind. I couldn’t stay in this compound until tomorrow. The jittery feeling in my stomach and the weakness in my legs, however, told me I couldn’t plan and execute an escape before then. As the girls were dismissed, I vowed I would get myself out of this situation as soon as my strength returned, no matter what Olive and I could gain financially.
I flowed with the crowd as we left the ballroom, and Matu gestured for me to follow him. I stumbled after him and Castillo, all sound melting into a dull roar. Before I knew it, Castillo swung open the door leading to my suite.
“So, His Majesty is quite handsome, no?” His soothing voice chased away the disbelief of what I’d just done.
My head snapped up; feeling rushed back into my limbs and life back into my mind. Castillo held his head cocked to the side, a contemplative grin on his face.
“Are you mocking me?” I asked.
He shook his head no, but his green-brown eyes said yes. Matu stood next to him, his face devoid of all emotion.
“I heard you made quite an impression on His Majesty.” Castillo took my arm and gently guided me into my suite. “Good night, princess.”
Before I could tell him to stop calling me that, or ask him how he’d heard anything when dinner had only just ended, he retreated into the hall and closed the door behind him.
Seven
Sleep was a luxury for girls who lived in towers with their sisters, who hemmed trousers for nobles, who knew exactly what would happen when the sun rose.
I was not that girl now, so I didn’t sleep. With Helena’s replenishing, magically infused bath water, the large dinner I’d eaten, and my solitude, I had felt mostly whole again. Certainly well enough to sing a simple detection spell, as only a little magic was needed. A complicated spell-song to aid my escape, on the other hand, would require more magic than I had at the moment.
I waited until I felt certain the entire city slumbered, and then I crept into the courtyard beyond my room. Darkness blanketed everything, but I didn’t need light to sing. Above me, the wind still whistled around the rooftops. I listened to it, warring with myself about whether I should sing my magic to life or not.
Worry gnawed at my innards. I risked detection by using song-magic so near to those who could seize me, imprison me, drain me of my power.
But somewhere in the compound behind me, the Prince lived. I wanted to know where, and I wanted to know if he had personal guards I would meet the next morning. I needed to know what his true motives were, and I had to confirm that Olive had submitted my application. Perhaps the song would even rebound with a reason accompanying the vision.
A chill emanated from the stones as I drew a cleansing breath. The silence felt absolute, buried under so much darkness, but I broke it with my melody. The notes flowed seamlessly from low to high and back again. The magic left my body, swirling away into the depths of the night.
A rush of dizziness made the ground sway beneath my bare feet. I opened my eyes wider, hoping the vertigo would pass quickly. It did, but I still sank onto a wicker chair near a small table.
Minutes passed, and my skin pimpled in the cold. My impatience started to get the best of me, and I began humming the spell-song again, but quickly cut it off when the image from the location spell appeared in my mind.
The Prince’s windows faced west, and the view of the river suggested his quarters enjoyed a top-floor location. Behind my closed eyes, the vision faded, leaving me free to launch into the next song. This time I didn’t weave the Prince’s image into the song, but only the rebounded images of his living quarters. This would show me who else resided in the Prince’s suite.
The rebound came much quicker this time, probably because I’d already located the Prince. A face appeared, with a square jaw, deep-set eyes, and a shaved head. His shoulders looked like he was strong enough to pull a wagon. I recognized him as the Prince’s scribe; the crier at dinner.
His unsmiling face faded into another, this one tanned like leather and with black eyes filled with malice. The rebound brought the tang of magic with it, and because of that, I knew this man was also a magician.
The image winked away as quickly as it came. My shoulders shook with oncoming exhaustion, but I thought I had strength to sing one more spell.
This time, I wove a motivation charm into the song before sending it to the Prince. While I waited, my legs felt shaky and fire bursts popped in my peripheral vision, forming into the shapes of people. I closed my eyes to keep myself from trying to recognize them, knowing they weren’t real.
My breath left my body in a slow hiss, and I felt so, so tired. Finally, the magic I’d sung filtered back, with only a feeling, not a full-blown conversation as had happened in the past. People most often revealed their true reason for doing things to those closest to them.
But I was surprised to find the Prince didn’t have advisors who knew every detail of his life. Or even one trusted friend. He must have a true motivation for being here in Umon, for filling his compound with hundreds of girls—and I didn’t think it was to find a bride. The feeling I received from my spell-song ran deeper than that, maybe along the lines of proving himself. I also felt a strong tie to Nyth, which might indicate that his motivation was connected to his family. I knew he would feel no obligation to his people, for they feared royalty above all. Their kings had used magic against them for years, and those who stayed in Nyth were those who could not afford to leave. Or those who supported the harsh treatment of hardworking villagers.
This Prince held his motivations close, but I felt it had something to do with his father . . .
The vertigo returned in full force, and I moaned at the tightness radiating through my muscles, at the rising nausea. I would have to find out why Olive submitted my application another time.
I stumbled back to my room, those fiery shapes of people following me, and fell into bed.
#
I didn’t pry my eyes open until midmorning. Even then, I felt spent before I entered the courtyard, where I discovered I couldn’t see beyond the red-tiled roofs of the compound.
The outdoor area settled some of the disquiet raging inside me. I loved wide-open spaces and miles of greenery. The plant life in Umon differed from Iskadar, and the foliage here in the compound was different still. Leafy palms and whiskery ferns lined one wall of the courtyard. A breeze whispered down from above, and the storm from last night had blown itself out. The bleak sunshine that remained was enough to relieve some of my nerves.
I looked up from my place at the table as Helena joined me. “Echo, we need to begin preparations for your outing with His Majesty.”
“Outing?” The word caught in my throat, making it sound like, “Awwtghn?”
Helena simply dragged me inside and began ordering Greta and Lucia about what my makeup should look like, what color of silk I should wear, and how my hair should be pinned.
“Silliness, these appointments,” she breathed as she helped Greta. “As if the people here expect such formalities.” She pointed a pin at me. “He should be establishing his own protocols. I’ll have to mention it to him.”
I nodded, unsure of how to respond. Surely Helena didn’t have the status required to mention anything of consequence to the Prince.
“Lucia!” she called. “Bring the shoes.”
I breathed through the ordeal, but only because the action didn’t require specific instruction from my brain.
#
Matu and Castillo once again met me at the door to my suite. By then, some of my senses had returned, and I managed to greet them with a proper “Good morning,” before we set off down the hall. The three of us could walk shoulder-to-shoulder if we wished, but I trailed behind. Standing side-by-side felt too intimate, especially after my blunder about Castillo’s handsomeness.
This time, Castillo opened a door not far from my suite. Beyond it stretched another hallway, this one with windows installed in the ceiling. The light here
fell unevenly, shifting with the clouds and wind.
Matu moved into the narrower hall first, leaving me to walk beside Castillo. All too soon, Matu turned down another passageway and said, “I’ll return to escort you to lunch, Echo. Castillo will take you the rest of the way to meet His Majesty.”
A fist of fear squeezed my stomach. “I’m to go with him alone?”
“He’s quite capable of navigating these halls on his own,” Matu said, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice. He moved away, leaving me alone with Castillo.
“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing down the endless passage with one arm and offering me his other.
“I don’t think the Prince is handsome,” I blurted out. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry. I tend to say too much, and never after thinking.”
I waited for Castillo’s mocking laughter, but it never came. When I dared to look at him, I found kindness in his face, the same quality I’d witnessed in the market when he said I should head home and rest.
I should have followed his silent lead. Instead, as I matched my gait to his long stride, I kept speaking. “I don’t understand what he wants with me,” I said. “I don’t know him, and I didn’t apply, and what in the world are we supposed to talk about?”
I glanced at Castillo for help, but he kept his eyes focused ahead and his mouth shut. He led me toward a magnificent staircase, one that coiled around itself like a serpent ready to strike. Instead of steps, though, the hall sloped upward in a ramp. The floor shone with white marble, and if I hadn’t been gripping Castillo’s elbow, my shoes would have slipped.
“What does he like?” I asked as we twisted toward the upper floors. “Food? Drink? Literature? Theater? Anything?”
Castillo remained silent, and for a moment, I considered demanding he tell me. But he didn’t take his orders from me, so I resolved to keep quiet until we reached our destination.
Once at the top of the spiral, and upon meeting a single door at the end of yet another hallway, Castillo slowed to a stop. “Magic, princess.”
I peered at him, but he refused to return my gaze. “He likes magic?”
Castillo bobbed his head before reaching for the door handle. “Matu will retrieve you for lunch.”
“And you?” I spoke quietly, like someone in this deserted corridor might overhear, as if we were secret lovers about to reveal details we didn’t wish others to overhear. “Where will you lunch?”
“I have other obligations.” He rapped on the door three times before pushing it open. As I made to squeeze past him, he murmured, “Beware of the Prince’s scribe, Bo, my raven-haired princess.”
My heart raced as the door closed behind me. Not from standing in this new foyer on an upper level of the compound, not because I already knew who Bo was, and not because I had no idea what I could say to the Prince that could hold his attention until lunch.
But because Castillo had called me his raven-haired princess.
#
Bo turned out to be as abrasive as his name. He wore the same standard soldier uniform as Castillo, but his indicated special training. Probably the kind that required him to deliver death with a single blow. The fabric flowed like dark water over his muscular body. His shaved head caught the light, and his gruff voice ordering me to follow him without so much as a simple hello set my nerves on edge.
His boots barked against the stone, obscuring the tapping of my low heels. He led me down yet another passage and through a garden. I stalled among the plants, admiring their vibrancy. I fingered the leaves of a potted strawberry before Bo snapped at me to, “Hurry up.”
I quickly followed him into a sunroom filled with white, wooden furniture. With the garden behind glass, and a wall of windows in front of me with a view of the Burisia River, I paused. I’d seen this picturesque scene in my momentary vision last night, but this real-life version stole my breath.
I’d never seen the river from this height. Its movement mesmerized me, flowing from north to south, with eddies running across and around the water. In the distance, the paths to the river carved wrinkles in the earth, and I picked out people as they moved along the scars.
Blue sky stretched down to meet the river, and so captivated was I with the scene that I didn’t notice anything else in the room. I’d somehow moved to the windows and had both palms pressed against them as I surveyed the scene below.
“You love the outdoors,” a voice like velvet spoke, and while I felt nothing but relief that it wasn’t Bo’s harsh snap, a tremor of unease swept through me.
I turned to find the Prince grinning at me from a seated position at an oblong table. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and sipped it as he lounged against a row of plush pillows.
I raised my chin and tried to appear ladylike. “I do love the outdoors. Do you, Your Majesty?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I breakfast here every morning so I can watch the river.” He stood, joined me at the window, and settled into a posture of sophistication. “There’s just something . . . magical about it. Don’t you think?”
Indeed there was. Water possessed a powerful magic, and few there were in this world who could control it, or so Oake’s tales claimed. Castillo’s revelation about His Majesty’s love of magic weighed heavily in my mind as I considered how to respond.
“It’s lovely, yes,” I said. “But not magical. True magic resides in the life the river sustains.”
The Prince examined me. I felt like he was trying to peel back my brain, layer by painful layer. I held his gaze for a few seconds before I realized I wasn’t breathing. I looked away and drew a deep breath as slowly as I could. I swallowed hard, wishing for an icy sweet tea to drink. Heat raced across my skin as the silence lengthened.
“True magic resides in life,” he repeated.
I watched a flock of black birds land in a distant field. “I believe so, Your Majesty.”
“Cris,” he said. “You may call me Cris.”
“Oh, I may, may I?” The words caused the Prince to choke in surprise. “I mean, I’m sorry, Your Highness. I think I—” That was just it. I did not think. Regretfully, I turned away from the window. “Excuse me.”
I’d taken two steps when His Majesty latched onto my arm. “No,” he said. “Don’t go. I find you . . . refreshing.”
“Impossible.”
The Prince laughed again. “That’s the second time you have made me laugh,” he said. “And that is something that hasn’t happened in a very long time. Come, sit, eat.”
He gestured to the table, which was now set with breakfast foods. I hadn’t seen a servant enter or exit, hadn’t heard anything but the pounding of shame in my head. I forced my body to the table. I plucked a raspberry scone from the basket and nibbled on it.
His Majesty—Cris—poured a cup of coffee for me and chattered about springtime in Nyth. “The tulips will be out by now. I miss the yellow blankets of them. Are there any flowers like them here?” He looked at me for confirmation.
“No,” I said, delighted to have found common ground among the flowers. Wild tulips grew along the forest edges near Iskadar, and Grandmother’s rose bushes had been the envy of every widow in the village. “The city proper doesn’t have many bulb flowers, but the bushes flower. The bleeding heart is my favorite. It’s more of a summer bush though.”
“Bleeding heart,” he repeated. “I shall remember that. Do you have a bleeding heart in your garden . . . ?”
“Echo,” I say. “My name’s Echo.”
He took my hand and clasped it in his own. His fingers were long, warm, the spaces between them filled with mine. He led me away from the table, away from the delicious breakfast foods, away, away, away.
And I went. I went because I wanted to be near him. I wanted to know more about his name, and about his homeland of Nyth, and why he wore such a suffocating jacket on such a fine early summer morning.
Out on the balcony, behind the glass that protected me from the river, he stopped. Somehow, he held two
cups of coffee in his free hand, and he offered me one.
I took it without looking away from his face. His cheeks seemed hollowed now that he was away from the crowds and gas-powered light in the ballroom. His jaw was square; his teeth straight and white; his hair the color of the rich brown rug in my bedroom.
“Echo is such an unusual name,” he said.
“Strange, I know.” I wrenched my gaze from his face to look over the water, suddenly thinking of Grandmother. Before I could stop it, a sigh escaped.
“Let me guess. You named yourself when you were five years old and . . . screaming for help at the bottom of a canyon.”
I didn’t answer as I sipped my coffee. I didn’t normally tell complete strangers how I named myself, a village custom in Iskadar most outsiders thought primitive. But Cris eyed me, his expression open, unassuming, despite his sarcasm.
“My grandmother let me play outside a lot,” I started, testing him. His attention remained on me. His eyes danced with life; he listened eagerly.
“We had a large garden, and I would follow her out there. As she worked, I filled bucket after bucket with dirt and dumped it out. When I laughed, the sound got caught in the metal.”
I broke eye contact as I lost myself in the memory. I heard Grandmother’s throaty laugh, smelled the earth on her fingers, the pollen in the air. I missed her beyond anything imaginable.
I swallowed a mouthful of scalding hot coffee so I could continue. “When she heard me, she told me it was an echo. That was when I chose my name.” I wondered what Grandmother’s garden looked like now, desolate and unattended as it had been these past many months.
“How old were you?” Cris asked.
“Two.” I cleared the emotion from my throat. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Is Cris a family name?”
“Something like that,” he said, his words fading and his mouth turning down. He reached out and brushed a curl of hair off my face. “Your hair is lovely.”