“My darling daughter, my little one. You may not understand what I have done for a long time. You may be angry with me, you may hate me, you may grow up and be indifferent to me. But whatever you feel, know that I have loved you desperately, and that’s why I had to leave you. You will have a life now, and though the world has changed, it will be safe for a time. You will be frightened, some days. You’re allowed to be frightened. But you are stronger than any flame that burns. Watch over your father. Hold him close to your heart. Cherish your friends. Love yourself and the power I have given to you. Watch the skies and feel the sun on your skin. Swim the rivers and play games in the shadows. In every moment, in every blade of grass, in every path untraveled—there I will be, beside you, and there I will always be. My Eliana. My brave girl. There you are, beginning.”
—Letter from Rielle Courverie, late queen of Celdaria, to her daughter, Eliana Courverie, princess of Celdaria and heir to the throne of Katell, dated November 11, Year 1000 of the Second Age
Five Years Later
Eliana sat on her favorite stool in her favorite corner of her favorite place in all the world—except for her bedroom, and her father’s bedroom, and her grandmother’s sitting room with the godsbeasts painted on the ceiling, and the quiet, cool catacombs, where the pretty statue of her mother marked an empty tomb.
Besides all of those places, Garver’s shop was her favorite. She liked the way it smelled of plants and tonics, a sour but clean sort of smell that woke up her nose, and she liked the herbs in their neat little glass jars, the tonics and ointments labeled in Garver’s precise letters. She liked the tidy worktables and how Garver had sanded them smooth, how the air grew steamy when they were brewing new mixtures to be bottled and put away.
There was the cheerful garden of flowers and herbs outside the windows, and now, in early summer, it was bursting with color. Sometimes Atheria’s shadow would pass across the window as she flew about, searching the skies for lunch. There was the bright silver bell hanging at the door, and there was the broom Garver kept in the corner, and the kettle of tea warming over the fire.
But out of everything in the shop, as wonderful as it all was, Eliana liked Simon best of all.
She snuck a look at him while he worked. He had a very solemn face for a thirteen-year-old boy, everyone said. Rather severe, Eliana had heard. But she liked his face and its seriousness. His pale brow furrowed when he read lists of ingredients, and his hair was a dark golden color, falling messily over his forehead. He had deft fingers that chopped up roots and herbs so quickly and carefully that a feeling of warmth came over Eliana as she watched him. The feeling told her that she was safe. When she was with him and his sharp little knives, nothing could hurt her.
“Can I try?” she asked, scooting forward on her stool.
He glanced at her. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because the knives are sharp. Do you want to cut off your fingers?”
“No.”
“Well, then.”
“But someday I can use the good knives?”
He smiled a little, finished chopping his pile of yarrow leaves, then scooped them into his palm and dropped them into the crushing bowl.
“Maybe,” he replied. “For now, you’ll use the bad knives.”
He raised his eyebrows, looking at the knives next to her. They were kept dull for her use and therefore were not good for cutting, which meant that when she used them, she was slow and stupid-looking, and she hated looking stupid in front of Simon.
“They’re not bad knives,” Garver said from his own table. “They’re knives for learning.”
Eliana made a face at the knives, and then Simon laughed under his breath and bumped her with his elbow. This sequence of events cheered her considerably, so much so that she chopped up her own pile of leaves faster than she ever had before, then shot Simon a look of haughty triumph.
And that made him laugh aloud, his big laugh that he hardly ever used. She beamed at him, watching him smile. It was a rare thing to see him so happy. Often, while they waited for roots to boil or while they hung leaves to dry, Eliana caught Simon looking out the windows with a terrible sadness on his face.
It happened most often when the winds were high, carrying the scent of pine down from the mountains. Simon was quiet on those days, strange and serious, and not serious in the way she liked. On those days, he hardly talked at all. There were shadows on his face, and his eyes were sharp and angry, or else flat and full of sorrow. When this happened, he hardly looked at her.
Once, he had even snapped at her. “Is it possible that you could stop talking to me for once in your life, for even a few minutes?” he had shouted, and then his face had crumpled in horror, for she had immediately burst into tears. Garver had sent him upstairs to his room, not even letting him try to apologize, and then had sat quietly with her until Zahra came to bring her home.
Later, tearful and sniffling on her father’s lap, Eliana had asked him why Simon had done this. Why he grew so sad some days, so cruel and short.
And her father—her dear, gentle father, who always had the answers to her questions—held her for a long time, cozy on his lap beneath their favorite blanket. She thought maybe he had fallen asleep.
Then he said softly against her hair, “My darling, you may not understand all of this just now, but I’ll tell you anyway, because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We talk to each other. We tell the truth.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said, staring up at him. She had heard her father sound sad and serious many times, especially when they visited her mother’s tomb, but this was different. This voice held secrets.
“Simon, I think, grieves the loss of his power. You remember what I told you about what your mother did when she died?”
Eliana had seen paintings of her and had heard her father describe her many times. When she imagined her mother—her green eyes, power painting her hair and arms with gold—Eliana sometimes had to hold her breath, because it felt as if she could turn around and see her mother standing there. As if Eliana’s mind could bring her back from the empirium, wherever it had taken her.
“She helped the empirium go to sleep,” she told her father, her voice falling to a whisper, as it always did when she spoke of her mother. She thought carefully through each word, because her father had taught her how important that was. The magic in their world was gone, he said, but some still remained in the words they spoke, and that power must be respected. She held the necklace her father had given her—a disc of gold on a slender chain, engraved with the image of her mother riding Atheria. Holding it always made her feel a little stronger.
“Someday the empirium will wake up again,” Eliana said to her father, “but right now it’s asleep, and only I…”
She stopped speaking, her cheeks warming as she stared at the floor. When she wasn’t praying at the temples with Miren and Sloane, or reading books about the empirium with her father, Eliana often forgot about the power inside her body. Her power was why she could see Zahra and the other wraiths, while everyone else could not. Her power was why her father sent her to Garver’s shop for lessons, and why her father and Miren and Sloane and Zahra taught her so many things that sometimes she felt like her head had grown three times larger than it should be. They wanted her to learn everything there was to know about this magic that lived in her blood, and to not be afraid of it, and to know many other things too, like healing and music and mathematics, so that her power was not the only thing she loved.
Sometimes, when Eliana remembered that she wasn’t like anyone else in the world, it made her feel lonely, like a bird perched high in a tree, too high for the other birds to reach.
Her father kissed her head. “Only you can still touch the empirium. That’s right, Eliana. And it isn’t a bad thing. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Your mother left your power intact for a reason. Maybe she thought something frightening would happen someday. Maybe she loved you so much that she wanted you to keep this piece of her inside you.”
Eliana shivered. What frightening thing might happen someday, and what could she do to stop it?
“This is why Simon sometimes feels sad, I think,” her father said. “Why sometimes he even seems angry with you. You have power still, and he does not. His gift was taken from him, as was mine, as was everyone’s—for good reason, I have to believe it was for a good reason—but they are gone nonetheless. I think seeing you sometimes reminds Simon of what he has lost.”
Hearing this, Eliana’s eyes filled with tears. “Should I not be his friend anymore? I don’t want to make him sad, Papa.”
“No, darling, that’s not what I meant. In fact, I think it would make him saddest of all if you stopped being his friend. There may simply be days when he is not himself, and you will need to be patient with him. Maybe you’ll even feel that you should not talk to him at all at those times, and that’s perfectly all right. You can work together in silence, or read one of Garver’s books and leave Simon alone at his table. Do you think you can do that?”
But today was not one of those days. It was a day of light and cheer in Garver’s shop, and Eliana stared and stared at Simon as he laughed—laughed because of a thing that she had done! Her chest hurt a little, watching him. It was a sweet, quiet hurt, and she didn’t mind it. The feeling reminded her of being home in her safe, warm bedroom, watching her father’s face as he told a story about her mother.
The silver bell rang at the door, and Eliana whirled to see that Zahra had come to bring her home—but she was not alone. Her father had come with her, all the way down from the castle! Even though he had told Eliana he would most likely have to sit in boring meetings for the entire afternoon, there he was with his broad smile and his dark eyes like hers, holding out his arms to catch her.
Eliana nearly tumbled off the stool in her haste to run to him. She shrieked his name in greeting as she jumped at his chest, and he caught her and swung her high and kissed her hair. And there was his voice, so dear and warm, asking her if she would like to eat lunch with him at Odo’s today, and maybe sit on Odo’s terrace with the ferns and the flowers, and Odo himself would join them, which meant stories. Strange, wild stories brought to him by all the people who worked for him, the wraiths who spied for him, the merchants who sold to him.
Eliana felt dizzy. An entire afternoon sitting at her father’s feet while Odo spun stories for them!
She kissed his cheek, which was scratchy from his old burns and because he really needed to shave. She wrinkled her nose and told him so, and he laughed, and tall, wonderful Zahra swooped down to touch her forehead—a cold brush of air like the beginning of winter, when the air smelled of snow.
Eliana turned in her father’s arms. “Are we finished, Garver? Can I go?”
Garver’s mouth twitched. “No, child, I forbid you to go with your father, the king. Instead, you must stay here for the rest of the day and sweep the dust from my floors.”
She gaped at him, a feeling of absolute horror crawling up her arms, and then Garver, chuckling, returned to his work.
“Good day to you, my king, and thank you,” he said with a little bow and a wave. “As always, your daughter was very helpful today.”
Eliana blew out a sharp breath. She looked at her father, indignant. “You mean he was joking?” She looked back at Garver, even more indignant. “You were joking?”
They left the shop, Garver’s laughter in their ears and Simon at their heels. He was quiet at her father’s side and held open the garden gate for them.
“You’ll bring her back next week, won’t you?” Simon said hopefully as they started walking up the road. “It’s less boring to cut leaves and things when she’s here.” He paused, his face carefully blank. “You know. Because I have to watch her constantly. Make sure she doesn’t cut off her fingers. Teach her how to use her learning knives.”
Eliana stuck out her tongue at him, but she knew he wasn’t really angry, because he was already smiling, and her father was laughing his big warm beautiful laugh that she so loved. Atheria was flying in great lazy circles through the bright spring sky. Zahra drifted alongside them, telling Eliana about the wildcats she had seen in the mountains that morning, and above them, far up the road, Baingarde stood in the hills and pines, waiting for their return. Their home.
As they walked up the road, Eliana snuggled against her father’s shoulder, watching Simon grow smaller and smaller. He always waited at the garden gate until they reached the top of the road. It was only polite, he said, a show of respect for the king. And the princess, Eliana often reminded him, to which he usually responded with a merry-eyed shrug.
As they neared the road’s end, Eliana held her breath, listening to her heart pound. What if he didn’t wait? What if he returned to the shop before he was supposed to? Her eyes watered as she stared, and she refused to breathe, even though she was starting to feel a little dizzy.
Zahra sent her a fond, slightly exasperated thought: Little one, if you don’t breathe soon, I will force you to.
And then—there. Simon raised his hand at last, as he always did, just as he had promised. Eliana’s heart filled with light to see it, and she giggled against her father’s ear, so happy that she couldn’t answer him when he asked her what was funny. Instead, she smiled and waved back at Simon until they turned the corner and the little shop she so loved, and its garden, and the boy standing patiently at its gate, fell quietly out of sight.