I jolt at the sound of cannons that accompany the final flourish of the Master of Ceremonies’ hands. My jaw drops at the flares of colored light that spark and dance across the night sky. Crimson, amber, gold—they all swirl together, painting the sky with autumnal hues. Each burst illuminates in a brief moment of beauty before fading away into darkness, and when the final burst showers down upon us, the sparks of light solidify and scatter across the marble floor as tiny gemstones. I kneel and pick up a ruby-red stone, rolling it between my fingers and watching as it crumbles to dust, leaving nothing but a powdery residue behind.
I stand as music strikes up from somewhere and a crowd of lords and ladies descend. Throughout the countless conversations, I continue casting glances in the prince’s direction, forcing flirtatious smiles. And once again, Calliope’s spectral voice drifts through my mind.
Always wait for him to come to you. Temptation is a trap. Lay it well.
When the tycheroi of the court grow bored with the foreign princess and ladies in their midst, Nyssa, Myna, and I finally steal a quiet moment for ourselves under a decorative bough laden with glowing lanterns.
“I don’t suppose you’ve been harboring any secret talents over the past seven years, have you?” Nyssa asks as we wander through the tents and dodge performers and courtiers alike.
“I think I might have something.” I’ll need to see if I can discover what the other contestants have planned, but after years of training under royal tutors and Calliope, dancing will be my best option.
“I’m not sure the royal family will appreciate how accurately you can throw a dagger.”
“I don’t know,” Myna muses. “I think that’s something Prince Keres may find intriguing.”
Nyssa laughs, but Myna’s words are distant in my mind as I catch sight of three of the competitors Titaia pointed out earlier moving in our direction—Lydia, Zina, and Helen, if I recall correctly. They present the illusion of camaraderie, but I’d wager they wouldn’t hesitate to turn on one another if it served their purposes.
The sharp curiosity and calculation I noticed in their eyes earlieris not something I’m eager to face so soon. I seize Nyssa and Myna by the arms and steer them into the nearest tent. The canvas flaps fall shut behind us, muffling the chaotic melodies of the celebration outside.
My eyes take a moment to adjust, drawn first to the brazier at the center. Its golden flame burns steadily, casting a warm circle of light on a small wooden stage. Beyond that circle, everything fades into shadow, soft and uncertain.
Rugs and cushions lie scattered across the floor in almost haphazard luxury, each one in rich hues that glimmer when the firelight catches them. Courtiers, I believe, though their relaxed manner is anything but formal, sprawl among the rugs and cushions. Some lean back on their elbows, swirling dark liquids in clay cups. Others lie careless and languid, heads tipped back in hushed laughter. Their murmured conversations drift through the dim tent like music too soft to discern.
Movement on the stage draws my focus, and I watch as a figure emerges from the shadows clinging to its edges, stepping into the brazier’s glow. I freeze, and my gaze fixes on him.
The man on the stage moves like the shadows belong to him. His long black suit clings to his lean, powerful frame with a precision that looks crafted, not accidental. Dark hair spills down his back like a ribbon of black silk, its edges shimmering in the firelight. The flickering flame dances along his face, illuminating his deep-brown skin with a bronze glow. He pauses just at the edge of the spotlight, and I catch myself holding my breath. His presence is magnetic, but there’s something deeper, something ancient.
Nymph blood.
There’s an elegance to the way he moves, a weightless precision in his step that is too striking to be coincidence. But what type? I can’t tell. He lacks the visible markers—the telling colorations or features. Yet the way the atmosphere in this tent bends around him…There’s no mistaking it. He is something more. Something rare.
“Friends,” his voice cuts above the others. It’s low and smooth, yet not loud—conversational, as if he’s speaking to each of us alone. Somehow, though, it fills the tent, reaching into every shadowedcorner and brushing over the murmured conversations like velvet. “Welcome.”
The courtiers go silent at once, their eyes—glimmering even in the dimness—fixed on the stage. He steps forward and continues as if the moment demands it of him. “To wanderers, seekers, and those with nowhere else to go—you are welcome here. Ours is a place of truths wrapped in riddles, of lies told so sweetly they carve your dreams into shapes more beautiful than reality. For your history, your heart, and your mind”—a smooth pause, his gaze flickering across the room, stopping…just for a moment…where we stand veiled in shadow—“will all become stories tonight.”
He paces, hands left loose at his sides, yet there’s a deliberate precision to his movements, a coiled grace that makes it impossible to look away.
My skin prickles, though I force myself still. Nyssa shifts beside me—I place a gentle hand on her shoulder, signaling for her to stay quiet.
“Some of you have come to listen. Others, I suspect, have come to witness. And a few…” His smile curves, the brazier’s glow catching the faint impression of sharpness in his gaze. “…have come to see themselves reflected in the mirror we hold.”
There’s a pause, heavy and deliberate. Something about his words makes my chest tighten in the strange twilight of his voice.
He finally extends his hands over the brazier in front of him, and the smoke that was drifting toward a hole in the tent’s ceiling begins to curl and coil around his spread fingers. It glimmers for a moment, then, with a surreal certainty, weaves itself into forms. The shapes start as gliding, amorphous clouds before sharpening into distinct figures—winged men locked within a dark, windowless room. They move, almost alive, as if replaying something that truly happened.
For the barest of moments, I believe he’s a fire nymphai, but my eyes narrow on his hands. Although the act of holding them over the smoke almost fooled me, I notice shadow pooling around his open palms and sliding effortlessly from his fingertips like a second skin.
My earlier suspicions were right. The man has nymph blood in hisveins—shadow nymph blood.Which should be impossible, since everyone believes they died out during the God War.
I bite my tongue, holding back the questions forcing their way up my throat, and watch in awe as the man’s magnetic voice tells a tale.
The histories say the Anemoi came from a land far away. They were lesser gods among their kind, held captive by another who sought to use them for their powers. They were kept in an enchanted tower with no windows so they could not fly away. Until one day, their captor left the tower door unlocked.
Yet getting out of their tower was but the first trial they faced. The Anemoi hurried down the stairs until they reached the bottom, only to find another locked door.
They pulled and heaved, twisting the handle this way and that. They tried blasting it with wind, freezing it with the ice of winter, burning it with the fire of the summer sun, and rumbling the earth.
All to no avail.
