There’s a door slightly ajar, down a side corridor, with light spilling out. That’s where the voices are coming from. I creep across the rug towards the main corridor I came down this morning. I don’t want to be caught here.
Especially with the Queen’s Advisor and Prince Praseep arguing right down the hall from me.
‘It’s just not right, Your Highness. You must see that.’ Vilpur sounds as calm as usual, so I suppose it’s only Praseep arguing.
‘It has to happen, I want him gone from here! Now!’
‘Be reasonable, please.’
‘No! I am your Prince! He goes!’
I hasten away down the corridor, away from the voices and the anger. What are they fighting about? Not a what, a who. A he.
Danam?
After all of Praseep’s soft words, is he plotting to do away with Danam? My heart is racing. I turn down a corridor automatically, placing as much distance and as many turns as I can between me and the voices. My boots race silently over the rug. From far behind me, a burst of sound, a door crashing open.
‘I expect compliance!’ Praseep’s voice echoes towards me.
I race onwards on silent feet, around a corner.
And barrel into someone.
Squeal in fear. A light blinds me momentarily, but then drops.
‘Sunaya?’
‘Aji!’ I sag with relief.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I went for a walk and got lost, I found … never mind. I’m still lost. Please tell me you can take me back to my room?’
‘I can. If you’re found wandering … Come with me now.’
I hurry after Aji, her urgency affecting me.
After we’ve walked a few more corridors, she stops at a door. As it opens, I recognise the room I was assigned. Thankfully, the heat ball is still glowing, though much reduced. I rush to it with hands outstretched to catch its glow. It still has an echo of Praseep. I think uneasily of the argument I overheard.
Aji smiles at me huddling over the heat ball. ‘Nice of the Prince to do that for you. He’s a good sort, and I’d say that whether he was royal or otherwise.’ Then she frowns at me. ‘Where is your cloak?’
‘I left it behind by mistake.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘And I thought you had mountain sense.’
I feel my cheeks go hot. Leaving my cloak is the stupidest thing I can remember doing for a while. Or ever. ‘So, what’s so dangerous about me being found wandering around?’
‘You’re already treated with suspicion by many in the palace, it would do no good to have you found traipsing about without anyone watching.’
‘Because of what happened to Danam?’
Aji shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge a snowflake from her ear. ‘A bit. Not entirely.’
My insides squirm. ‘Because of the tapestry?’ I whisper.
‘You’ve seen it?’
I nod, relieved she doesn’t realise how recently I was studying it. Because I’m sure that wouldn’t help my case here.
‘Notice anything?’ she asks.
I grimace. ‘It kind of looked like me. But that’s absurd.’
‘It is, the timing is all wrong and you don’t fit the prophecy. But people have noticed your clothing and they’re talking.’
I sink to my haunches in front of the ball, deflated. ‘I should just go. Danam doesn’t want me, I’m less than useless, and now …’
Aji walks up and crouches next to me. ‘No! You should definitely not go. You’re the Protector the Princess needs, and this country needs her. You must stay here and fulfil that role. Don’t let the chatter of the court put you off. Just be sensible about wandering around all alone like a …’
‘Donkey?’
She smiles briefly. ‘I was going to say spy, but donkey works as well.’
I’m smiling too, but it falls away. ‘I don’t want to stay here, this isn’t my home.’
‘You have to stay, it’s as simple as that.’
‘And if I say I won’t?’
‘I will lock you in until you change your mind. You need to accept what is happening, you need to tell the Princess what you can do. If you care nothing for the Princess, or the fate of her people, I’m sure you at least care for your nephew. And if you let him enter the Dragon Tests, and he truly doesn’t have the gift, he won’t make it out alive. Think about that.’
I bite my lip. ‘What are these Tests, anyway?’
‘If you were an Applicant, I could tell you more. As it is … how much do you already know?’
‘Not much … the necklaces … have they got something to do with it?’
She nods. ‘Good. There are four levels to being a Protector. First you become a Rock Dragon – they have a black obsidian pendant. If you pass the next level, you become a Snow Dragon.’ She lifts her white moonstone and I nod. ‘If you pass the third level, and I’ve tried twice and failed, you become an Ice Dragon. Care to guess what they wear?’
I think of Praseep’s necklace, that perfect blue of the deep folds of a glacier. ‘Turquoise?’ I venture.
Aji nods, and I’m reminded of Vilpur’s reaction when they found my turquoise. No wonder he asked those weird questions.
Aji continues with her explanation. ‘Each level gets progressively more difficult, culminating in the final level. The Cloud Dragon and the opal pendant. No one has passed that level in my lifetime. A good friend of mine died trying.’ Her face stills for a moment, infinitely sad. ‘Prince Praseep himself couldn’t finish … My point is, it’s dangerous. Normally a Protector would work their way up to it. But Danam is being sent straight to Ice, if not Cloud.’
I shiver. ‘Because of the Queen.’
Aji nods. ‘The Queen is stable at the moment because her Dragon is giving her his strength, but she is dying. It may take a month, it may take a year. And if, when the Queen dies, Princess Rishala has no Cloud Dragon, our laws say the Princess has been judged unworthy. And the throne will be open to any who choose to fight for it. It will mean civil war, right when we need stability. We need Princess Rishala’s strength and intelligence to lead us. There is no time to waste, we need to find her Cloud Dragon.’
I stare at her, chilled. ‘But it’s not Danam, is it?’
She shakes her head.
I groan. ‘I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t believe me!’
‘Of course he wouldn’t. He thinks this is the best thing that has ever happened to him. He won’t choose to ruin that. You have to do it for him.’
I wince.
She presses her point. ‘If you don’t tell someone the truth, Danam will die.’
‘But Praseep failed the Tests, and he’s still alive.’
‘Prince Praseep has powers stronger than any other except his own father. He was not strong enough to pass the Cloud Dragon Tests but his powers kept him alive.’
‘What’s so dangerous? It’s not a real dragon, is it?’
Aji shakes her head. ‘I cannot tell you, I’ve said enough as it is. Believe me when I say, a person without the powers of a Protector cannot hope to survive. My friend was not weak … but the Tests have no mercy.’
Her pain, her loss, is vivid in her hawk-eyes. Sure, I don’t want to be stuck here in this palace for the rest of my life, Protecting some Princess I barely know and eating terrible food. But in this palace is one that from birth I have been required to protect. My infuriating nephew. My friend. Danam.
And I know what I need to do.
I nod. ‘Okay, I’ll tell the Princess.’
It’s going to make Danam hate me, and probably Praseep too. But Danam will live.
Aji nods, lips pursed in thought. ‘Good, a strong decision. I must go now, but I will return in the morning to take you to the Princess.’
After Aji leaves, I stoke up the heat ball and use it to warm up the golden bowl of water by the corner. I strip off and do what I can to clean myself. Once done, I reach for my clothes and wrinkle my nose at the crusty feel of them.
There are pale beige clothes in a neat pile next to the mattress, and I finger them. They feel soft and warm.
But they’re not me.
I may be throwing away my past, and facing a strange new future, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it or embrace the change. I don the pale underclothes, but I wash my colourful tunic and hang it next to the heat ball so that soon it’s steaming. It’ll be dry by morning.
Let them try and change me.
I brush my hair with a bone comb I find on the table, and plait it. Then I finally do what I’ve been longing to do for a while. I lie back on the fluffy mattress. Let out a sigh. This is heaven.
If this is sleeping in the SkyCity, maybe being stuck with these people for the rest of my life won’t be such a bad thing. I palm off the light, and pull the fleecy blankets over me, as the orange glow of the heat ball flickers over the green walls.
Tomorrow I’ll wake in the green glow of a forest city on the roof of the world. And I feel like I’ve been waiting for that all my life.