I waited an entire week before departing the palace to travel to Castle Hawxfure.After wasting so much life under the sea, the days crawled by, as if every single one were an entire decade.
Even so, for Alonso and Rafaela, it wasn’t enough.I should wait longer.Prepare more.Strengthen more.Rest more, even when all I’d been doing in my personalized sarcophagus was rest.They insisted.
But the hunt for my brother’s murderer coiled beneath my skin, making it itch.No matter how often I scratched, it persisted.There was only one way to rid myself of this particular itch.
In truth, I waited neither to honor my parents’ wishes, nor for my power to undampen—though it did after several days—nor to allow my body to recover.While I surveilled the castle and formulated a plan, I’d train to build back my strength and sharpness.I’d study the centuries of history I’d missed as well, so I would blend in with everyone else.So no one would suspect the young-looking woman with the thin—yet highly recognizable—scar along one side of her face was the infamous princess so long considered dead.
To make the “transition smoother,” Rafaela claimed—without explaining to whichtransitionshe was referring exactly, and inno wayas an indication of any kind of doubt in my abilities—she summoned her current most favored dark sorcerer.He was a human man so shriveled and bent over that the weight of his misdeeds were pushing him down.Whatever force he’d made a deal with to gain his power had to be darker than the abyss that surrounded Castle Hawxfure, said to have no identifiable depth, as if it emptied into a world far beyond our own.
The sorcerer was named Kemuel, a melodic appellation that didn’t suit him.Perhaps it once had, before his faithum had exacted a steep price for its power.Thanks toKemuel—and the ruby Rafaela surreptitiously slipped into a pocket of his robes—my scar would be concealed for what remained of the Fuerin Star’s cycle.The star alternated between tracking the sun, following its sweeping arc, and popping up beside the moon to next trail it across the sky.Over the days and nights, the star waned then waxed, waned then waxed again.Based on its current fullness, I had exactly twenty-two days until the spell’s end, then my scar would reappear.
Counting travel time, it would hardly be enough.Castle Hawxfure was on the very opposite end of the Opalese from the palace.If not for some of Isai’s imports, I’d have had no chance of making it there before the spell faded.
Now clean and groomed, with my hunger sated, and the guard well punished for striking me—I’d used him as a sparring partner and held back less than usual—I sat in my favorite courtyard, where the Fuerin Star seemed to appear brightest.
All I wanted was to begin the chase, but for Marina I’d wait.
I’d never admit to Rafaela the true reason I waited a week to depart, or she would lock me up in thecage.It wouldn’t matter that she hadn’t stuffed me in that cage since my power grew to match hers.She’d still try.Maybe force Alonso to help.Then I’d swing in that scorched cage until she believed I’d changed my ways.
Unbidden, memories of clutching those shadole-faithum bars racked through me, and I shuddered.The cage hung from a long chain down the cliffside that edged the palace.Every gust of wind from the ocean below rocked it violently.I’d slide and scurry to hold on, while an inescapable chill would burrow into the marrow of my bones.There could be no sleep in that cage, no rest.Each moment was consumed by the struggle not to break as the waves did, shattering on the jagged teeth of the rocks below.
I would never reform in the ways Rafaela wanted—insistedupon.But I had grown adept at convincing her I had.
So had Teo.
I was about to go off in search of Rodrigo, who had coordinated my reunion with Marina, when I heard the approach of a goblin’s padding dragon feet.
Anxious, I stood.Marina and Rodrigo were similar in age and of the same goblin bloodline, and every one of the many years I’d been locked away had worn at his body.
When Marina finally rounded the corner into the promenade, I fought to school my features, to still my shoulders from sagging.As much as Rafaela had spies planted all over the empire, she had them here too—sheespeciallyhad them here.Little happened at the palace without her knowledge.Secrets were very hard earned.
Marina walked more slowly than when I’d last seen her, chose her steps with care, and her frame was even more slender than usual.Her nose, already large, had grown longer so that its tip nearly met her upper lip.But unlike Rodrigo, her hair was still the same dark green, her face barely more wrinkled than before.The scales of her feet had faded some, but remained a deep violet hue.
As she sauntered closer, my jaw ticced with the effort of not running to her, of not returning her smile.It was wide and brilliant, and perhaps the best thing I’d seen after emerging from the sea to lay eyes on the vast sky.
Goblins were allowed to develop affection for their masters—encouraged, even.Affection meant loyalty.Her eyes brimmed with tears, making their pupil-less depths appear boundless.
“Sora,” she said, her voice a breathy croak.
Then she was standing before me, her head at hip height, so close I could touch her.
My fingers at my sides itched, now for a whole new reason beyond throttling Alobaz.
“Marina,” I whispered, sensing watchful eyes, well hidden from view.
The other goblins would keep our friendship secret—they long had—but they weren’t the only spies.
“How much joy it brings me to see you here in the flesh, alive and well,” she said.
Her own fingers— more gnarled than before—twitched as if she, too, were resisting the desire to embrace.
Even a goblin’s affection was supposed to have limits.
There was nothing Rafaela took more seriously than power and its appropriate balance.
“It’s good to see you too,” I dared to say, knowing Marina was well versed in hearing what I didn’t say as much as what I did.
“Rodrigo tells me that you are to embark on a journey and that I am to attend you on this journey.”
