I’m tired of being a monster.
Great change is coming.
I flinch from the small, knowing voice inside me. Light stipples my vision again, the silver tapestry thicker this time.
I don’t see the woman crossing my path until it’s too late.
A shrill cry slips her throat as our bodies collide. She skates on the ice-slicked cobblestones, tumbling back with a heavy thud. On instinct, I lift my gaze, blinking the threads of light away. Still no sign of the Watchers, thank the Stars, but the other Meissans dotting my path to the wall crane their necks, start swarming towards us.
Exactly the kind of attention I hoped to avoid.
Remembering whose cloak I’m wearing, I mumble an apology, humbly drop my gaze as I reach out to the fallen woman to help her to her feet.
‘Keep your filthy mitts to yourself,’ she snaps, batting my fingers away as if they’re soiled. One hand reaches for her pomander, the other drops to her belly. I stiffen. It’s peaked, almost spherical, straining hard against her sapphire-coloured gown, like she’s swallowed one of the moons. My own stomach tightens as I step back. What if I’ve hurt her? Hurt the precious babe she’s carrying?
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to face a pregnant woman. They’re kept from the palace, an unspoken rule to spare my parents. Stars know, they’ve suffered enough. And this close to term, expectant mothers are usually confined to their beds – a precaution to guard against the rising tide of neverborns. I make the sign of the Star and pray the Dawn Sister protects her child, whisper a second prayer that I’ll be spared from sharing this woman’s fate – at least, until I’m purged.
There’s a reason my kind have been subject to a law of celibacy since the Sickening; it protects the Estelian people. My father may have rescinded it to allow this binding to take place, to secure his precious lineage, but I can’t – I won’t – birth a monster. I won’t condemn another living soul to my half-life. I have to find the Book of Mysteries. Perhaps with my curse, the First Runes will speak to me as they once did to Noelani. It might contain an incantation to purge the brandmagic away. To purify me. Perhaps then, my father will deem me worthy to bind to an equal rather than some bastard-born pretender. I could conceive untainted heirs, ensure the Stellarion succession continues unblemished.
‘You ought to be more careful, peakscrub.’ A balding man with a long silver beard jabs me in the ribs, elbows me out of the way to help the pregnant woman. I fight to keep my balance on the glassy cobbles, but as I stagger from the blow, my hood slips to my shoulders.
There’s a collective gasp. The growing throng of Meissans checking the woman and her precious cargo are unharmed shuffle back. My name carries in whispers on the breeze.
I hunch over, tugging the hood back in place. But it’s too late. They’ve seen me.
I look to the wall. I’ll have to make a run for it.
‘Princess?’
My breath catches low in my throat and I snap round. I recognise that voice, my liegemaid’s accent still sharp and craggy, despite Elvi having lived in Meissa for most of her twenty sunrings.
Elvi’s colouring singles her out too. Among a sea of silver-haired courtiers, hers is pearl-white – marking her as a peasant interloper from the abandoned peak territories. The ghost cities. Neither of us fits in; perhaps that’s why we’ve always understood each other. But she’s not the last of her kind. And while she might be scorned for her low-blood, she’s not feared.
Elvi’s silver cheeks are flushed pink with cold, her charcoal eyes unusually bright as she calls over her shoulder to someone and points at me.
No!
She’s led the Watchers right to me.
SPOKEN FOR
LEILANI
IREELBACKFROMthe Watchers, searching for an escape path. Swathed in thick white cloaks, with a staring silver oculus emblazoned on their backs, my father’s trusted henchmen, chosen as much for their stature as their loyalty to the Throne, are a formidable sight. A dozen of them now cloud the horizon, looming towards me like an ominous bank of fog.
Elvi grasps my hands. ‘Thank the Sister, you’re safe. I’ve been out of my mind with worry. No one knew where you were.’
Several of the Watchers flinch. Few will risk touching me unless ordered to, but Elvi has served as my liegemaid since she came to the Crystal City as a girl, her family driven from the higher territories by the tainted air and plummeting temperatures. She knows touching me doesn’t bring bad luck.
She’s searching my face. Few look so long. Aside from my mother and Izarius, Elvi is the only other person who’s never shrunk from me, or side-eyed me like an aberration. In public, I wear a full veil and trailing sleeves to conceal my strangeness, but in the privacy of my rooms, when I dispense with such armour, Elvi hardly seems to notice the opal hair and lilac eyes, the muted shimmer of my silver skin. Even my brand, the seven-pointed Seer Star on my right wrist, doesn’t faze her. I’ve never once had to worry about keeping it covered in front of her.
Elvi has never looked away, but she’s also never stared. Not till now.
As the initial shock at discovering me dissipates, thin eyebrows wing upwards as Elvi registers my borrowed garb, the hefty pack slung over my shoulders. Understanding dawns in her eyes.
I was never lost. Never stolen away. I was running. And she’s just ruined my chances of escape.
Tears prick again as I look to the city wall, to the hills and mountains beyond.
