Chapter One
In the darkness,a bitter smile crossed her lips.
It’s just a candle, Vi told herself. One single candle in the holder at the edge of her bedside table. Vi took a deep breath, trying to quell her nerves. It was ridiculous, laughable even; she was aSolarisfor the Mother’s sake. Yet she was more daunted by this one candle than she would have been facing down a beast in the jungle.
Most Firebearers could light it with a thought. She should have been able to do the same. Vi’s hands balled into fists, clutching her bed sheets over her knees. Deep within her was an insurmountable wall. She was on one side, barely able to do more than dredge up a spark of magic. On the other was the power of her forefathers.
Her fingers relaxed, and she reached out. The burnt wick drew a dark line of soot across her hands, nearly invisible in the night.
“It’s just a candle,” Vi repeated aloud, searching for a sliver of magic. “A tiny spark, that’s it.”
White lightning flashed in the darkness between her fingers. The wick caught the heat, ignited, and she breathed a sigh of relief. For a brief second, Vi watched the fire dance around her fingertips and imagined the stable little flame was her own.
Vi pulled her hand away quickly, pushing aside the thinly woven blanket covering her bed along with the thought.
She didn’t have time to spend on fantasies. There were things she wanted to do and not much time to do it. Her obligations as the Crown Princess would begin all too early.
The air was heavy with the aroma of fresh wood, sap, and the damp tang of morning. Vi had smelled this perfume her whole life. Her chambers were cut into the trunk of one of the massive trees of Soricium—capital of the North. The wooden walls of her room were sleek, polished. They contrasted with the gnarled ceiling of decorative roots and branches that spilled down, weaving into each of the four corners of her bed, all crafted by the magic hand of a Groundbreaker.
As she moved beyond the foot of her bed, the halo of light from her candle glinted off gilded frames lined on the dresser opposite. There were several, but they all contained carefully painted portraits of the same three people—her mother, father, and brother.
The family she should have been reunited with three years ago. The family that lived far to the south in the Empire’s capital, Solarin. The family that had traded her away in a political deal.
“Another year,” she murmured to the pictures. Her eyes landed on the flaxen tresses of her brother—a direct contrast to her own dark locks. No one would guess they were twins by looking at them. Vi tried to swallow the lump that grew larger in her throat the longer she looked at the portrait. “Happy birthday to you, too, brother.”
Vi turned away from the painted, staring eyes of her family and toward the small pile of supplies stacked in the corner between the dresser and her window.
Everything was as she’d left it the night before, and the night before that. Her quiver hung on its peg, bow attached, the fletching of half a dozen arrows peeking out from the top. A metallic sun—the Solaris sigil—glinted as the candlelight moved over it before illuminating the clothing she’d neatly folded on a chair underneath the quiver.
She would only be gone for three days. Not much was needed. But Vi took stock of every article of clothing and ration as though her life depended on it.
Three precious days of freedom were all she got every year.
It was the best thing her birthday had ever brought her.
“One more thing and I should be set,” Vi muttered to herself, straightening away from her packing. Grabbing her candle, she strode out of her bedroom.
The living space of her quarters held a table and two couches for her use—though Vi rarely used them when she was alone.
Which meant she rarely used them at all.
The main entry had four doors; the bedroom Vi just left was one. Clockwise, the next door led to her personal study, after that was her classroom, and then the main door which led to an outer balcony that connected to the rest of Soricium’s fortress by rope bridges and wide branches alike.
She’d always thought of her chambers like a daisy. The sitting room was its yellow center and everything else spun out around it like petals in the trunk of a giant tree.
Vi ventured to her study.
In the daytime, the room would be illuminated by the window above the drafting table sandwiched between the bookshelves that lined the walls. Now, her candlelight fell on every hanging map and book spine. But it also revealed something that shouldn’t be there.
Candle wax dribbled over the edge of the holder and onto her fingers, but Vi didn’t notice. Her breath caught in her throat as she engaged in a staring contest with five foreign objects. It wasn’t the first time presents had been left for her, but it caught her off guard every year.
Some wicked little corner of her mind would always tell her thatthiswould be the year her family would give up on her. That they had never wanted her to come home to begin with—never wantedherto begin with. The doubts would compound into stories about how her parents had been eager to make the deal with Sehra, now Chieftain of the North. That the peace assured by Vi spending her first fourteen years of life as a ward was only a fringe benefit, and not the main goal.
She knew better. The deal had been struck well before Vi was conceived. Before her parents were even wed. Had it not been for it, she may not even exist, as her father was originally betrothed to Sehra… But every time her birthday approached, Vi seemed subconsciously keen to avoid logic, and the doubts grew louder.
And every time she saw the stack of presents, the doubts were silenced for a blissful second. Vi crossed the room, resting her fingers lightly on the ribbon of one of the packages.
“When did he stash you in here?”
