Everything would be so different if I were better at using my ability. If I could master my power like I was supposed to, maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a failure.
Lucas’s gaze was downcast while he waited for another sparring round. His finger traced the hilt of his knife in small circles, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. He brushed his dark hair out of his eyes, and when he gazed out across the sea, I couldn’t help but admire his profile, sharp as glass, and his expression, just as cold. I hoped he would say something. The silence was slowly killing me. A part of me wanted to stay mad at him, but another part of me still wanted to kiss him. Lucas had that effect, infuriating to no end.
I missed him, and I still didn’t know why he lied.
He’d told me that he and Amador weren’t romantically involved, that she was just saying that at school to get under my skin. But once the announcement was released, he never denied it.
He’d used me, hurt me, lied to me. I refused to let him think all was forgiven. One thing was for sure: I was not going to be hung up on a cheater. He could rot for all I cared.
I diverted my gaze out across the water. I wanted him to know how he made me feel, but I also didn’t know what to say. And then I thought, maybe he didn’t, either.
I was going to be the bigger person, even if he didn’t deserve it.
“I shouldn’t have snapped earlier,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shift, turning to me. “You beat me, fair and square.”
“You’re getting better,” he said softly. “You almost had me.”
I kept my gaze on the water, my heart sinking.Almost.
I was about to stoop down and pick up the dagger that Lucas had knocked from my hand, but he beat me to it. He held it out to me, handle first. “Thank you,” I said automatically. I took it and wiped it clean on my shirt before putting it back in the sheath at my hip. Our eyes met, and I could almost trick myself into thinking he looked sorry. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. And that was all I needed to know.
“Well done, Datu Lucas,” a voice called from the pier above us. Don Elias, my godfather and councilor to the throne, gazed down at us, a hint of disappointment on his face. “That is enough for today.”
We jumped away from each other, startled, but Lucas regained his composure quickly. He snapped his heels together and bowed slightly to Don Elias, then to me, before he crossed the beach and disappeared into the jungle between the shoreline and the palace.
Elias waited for me as I joined him on the pier, and we walked together up the dirt path leading through the grounds.
“He caught you again,” Elias said, like I hadn’t been there.
“It’s not fair. Lucas’s power is sensing danger. It’s like he has Spidey-sense.”
Elias frowned at me. “Spidey-sense?”
Of course that would go over his head. He hadn’t grown up in the human world like I had. I figured it wasn’t worth explaining and just sighed.
“You must learn to control your power,” Elias said. “Your alchemy is your greatest advantage. Do not rely on physical strength alone.”
“I know,” I said with a groan. “It’s just not…working.”
“You were able to summon your power to accept the scepter during your coronation.”
“That was different. That was all adrenaline and—”
“You have used your power once. You can do it again.”
The memory of that day, of the bugs and the hag called a mambabarang, came rushing back. My grand-auntie Elowina, who had wanted to claim the throne for herself, had almost killed half the court for it. I’d managed to use my father’s protective amulet—an anting-anting—to create salt water to kill her. I’d been desperate then, and I was starting to think it had all been a fluke. But Elias sounded a lot more confident in me than I felt. Either he believed orwantedto believe in me, and I wasn’t sure which put more pressure on me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would let everyone down.
Elias escorted me in the same direction that Lucas had disappeared in, through the jungle and up a narrow stone staircase cut into the cliffside toward Sirena Palace. My body ached, my joints swollen and stiff from sparring, but I followed Elias without complaint. If he knew how hard I’d trained with Lucas, he’d probably call for a palanquin. Elias had become protective of me, especially after learning that his best friend—my father—had been murdered. But I was determined not to give him any more reason to fear for my well-being.
“We will do everything we can to protect you, but you must be able to protect yourself,” Elias said. “Your power is a rare gift, one we haven’t seen in an age, and once you can control it, you will not have to look up at anyone from the flat of your back.”
Granted, most people in the kingdom wouldn’t mind having to look up at Lucas from the flats of their backs. I forced myself to shove away the thought. I didn’t want to be the jealous type. I needed to focus on controlling my talent. Apparently, my grandmother—my father’s mother, the last queen before me—had had my gift too, but she had been able to master it because she had hundreds of years of practice.
According to scholars, magic should be easy for someone with my talent. At my age, I should be able to turn a flower into stone, a palm tree into gold, or sand into sugar. Everyone told me it was alchemy, the ability to turn one thing into another. It was how I’d turned fresh water into salt water to defeat the mambabarang. I was supposed to be able to control the very elements of nature. Emphasis onsupposed to.
Idly, I tried to summon my power on a sampaguita flower jutting out from the cliff. My power burbled and buzzed beneath my skin like soda. But the flower simply shuddered under my command and snapped in half, its petals drifting through the air to land at my feet.
Changing nature felt about as possible as me sprouting wings and taking flight. It was like my power had a mind of its own, operating under someone else’s will. I was never going to get the hang of this.
