‘My lady,’ she whispers.
As expected, I detect a slight telltale lilt to her voice.
‘Blaze,’ I tell her. ‘Just Blaze.’
She dips her head again, busying herself with my jewellery. A thought strikes me. My plans to travel to the Otherlands may have been foiled by the Choosing, but here I have a part of the Otherlands standing right in front of me. Perhaps, if I tread carefully, she’ll tell me about them. I’m sure I could learn far more from this girl than from any book or map.
‘What’s your name?’
The girl looks utterly taken aback, as though she’d never expect me to ask.
‘Elva,’ she says quietly, before peering behind me at the clock on the wall. ‘The First Feast begins in an hour, my lady.’
‘Blaze,’ I correct, glancing towards the windows. The sky is pink, like a blush, and the sun is retreating. ‘Then I suppose I’d better start getting ready.’
Right on cue, Spinner bursts through the door. ‘Only me!’ she calls, as if I somehow can’t see her standing right in front of me. ‘I have a surprise.’
A serf shuffles in behind her pushing a rack of the most extravagant clothes I have ever seen, the fabric all varying shades of blue.
Spinner grins. ‘Storm Girl, you’re going to be the best-dressed Heir in Ostacre.’
She selects a sky-blue dress bejewelled with diamonds the size of fingernails becausewe really ought to keep it low-key on your first night, you know, and Elva paints my eyelids blue and wrestles my curls into the usual two braids down my back.
Twilight has arrived, and the Golden Palace is now awake.
At that moment there’s a knock on the door to my chambers. Elva hastens across the room to answer it, Spinner and I following along in her wake.
My breath catches as the door swings open.
‘Blaze,’ says Prince Haldyn. ‘How glad I am that you’re here.’
9
The prince wears a golden doublet with solid-gold epaulettes, and his dark hair has been neatly combed back from his face. He’s just as handsome as I remember, if not more so. I’d almost forgotten about the way that light always seems to find him, glancing off his face, accentuating the curve of his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his jawline.
On his hand, his brandmark glows brightly, as though it really were a small sun. Beneath his right eye are two white scars that intersect like a cross. I stare at them in alarm, suddenly recalling the blood on his face at the ball.
Behind me, Spinner coughs pointedly.
‘Your Imperial Highness,’ I murmur, sinking into a curtsy.
Prince Haldyn smiles. ‘Would you allow me to escort you to the feast?’
I gape at him. Is he serious? Hecan’tbe. But he must, for he hardly seems the type to play a cruel joke, and his gaze is steady and true, his eyes impossibly dark and yet somehow filled with warmth.
‘Well?’ he prompts, sounding amused. ‘Don’t leave me hanging.’
I take his arm, managing a shaky smile in return, and we emerge from the Aquatori Wing into hallways teeming with Etheri dressed in Imperial gold and the colours of the four Crown Courts. They goggle at us as we pass by.
That’s her.
Are you sure?
Look at her brandmark.
Blaze.
Storm Weaver.
