“Can I ask you something, Princess?” Felaf prompted. Irritated as I was with her, I was grateful for the break of silence. Our shoes scuffing along the dusty path had been the only noise exchanged between us.
“Of course,” I answered somewhat cautiously.
“Apologies, but it’s impossible for me not to hear conversations throughout the palace. I overheard Raithe talking to you one night not long ago.”
I racked my brain for anything inappropriate Raithe and I could have said. There had never been anything overtly wrong with our words—only the underlying tension that blossomed beneath the exchange. “Talking about what?”
“How did you get him to tell you about Hector?”
“I didn’t get him to do anything. I might have coaxed him a little.” Our steps slowed beneath the shade of a palm tree. “Why do you ask?”
“Raithe doesn’t tell people anything about himself. Alekko warned me that’s his nature, but I fear he resents me for the lashes. How could he not?” Her voice faltered, a touch of vulnerability seeping through.
“I don’t think he resents you,” I said. “Your approaches to being a guardian are different. As are your life experiences, I imagine.”
“Everyone compares me to Hector. I hear the whispers of how I’ll never live up to his reputation. Stars, even Maryn respected him enough to address him by his name. And Raithe is talented in his own right. I mean, the youngest guardian to be Chosenandwin an Elemental Tournament?” Felaf kicked a loose cobble. “He has a plethora of knowledge and skills that he keeps all to himself. When he’s not bending rules to his whims, why can’t he see that he’smyHector?”
“You should tell him.” It never occurred to me that Felaf felt so inferior. Raithe wouldn’t know what to do with suchan admission, but vulnerability had a strange way of mending friction.
Felaf huffed a laugh. “I’ve tried. But I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think I’m worthy enough. My father certainly didn’t.” She hesitated. “My father was once a general on the Isles. Fierce and loyal, hailing from a family of soldiers. He wanted a son so badly. ‘You should have been born a boy,’he’d grumble. I did everything I could, followed every rule, to prove I was worthy of him. It was never enough.”
I cast a glance at her. I couldn’t see beneath her hood, but I sensed her sadness. “A parent’s love shouldn’t be conditional,” I said. “I’m sorry you felt that way. I understand what it’s like to disappoint your family and live with the regrets of what might have been. It’s a heavy thing to carry alone. I’m glad you told me.” I glanced skyward. “I wonder what has become of my grandparents.”
Air territories believe that our souls became stars—but each elemental territory had its own belief. I found it difficult for anyone to declare what was right if only the Astrals knew the truth.
“How have you been since her—their deaths?” Felaf probed tentatively.
I mulled over a response that would accurately depict the state of my heart and mind. “Better. Letti was right. Time… it helps. But the pain of their loss has stained me forever. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”
“No,” Felaf agreed. “Death changes us all.”
I pictured Raithe’s gentle, earnest gaze during those nights when sorrow robbed me of sleep, of breath. He’d beheld me with such a fierce gentility—a dichotomy I’d never experienced before.
“Well, wherever she—I mean,they—are, I’m sure she…theyare at peace,” Felaf sputtered. “Bothof your grandparents and your brother, that is.”
I peered at her questioningly. “You okay?”
“Never better!”
Her deflection struck me as odd, but I didn’t press her. Not after she shared a part of her story that helped me to understand her a bit more.
I resumed a quicker, perturbed pace down the path carved into the bedrock of the skyland.
“On a separate note, I think you’re finally winning over the servants,” Felaf quipped.
“I find that surprising, given the distrustful stares I’ve continued to garner throughout the palace.” I supposed snapping at them didn’t help, even if they’d deserved it for leering at Raithe. I suppressed the blooming flutters in my belly as I recalled his nearly naked figure, honed from years of practice and mindfulness.
“Your dinner with Maryn is the talk of the palace,” Felaf added.
“I thought everyone was loyal to Maryn?”
“Servants want to be treated like humans, not animals, and your standoff with Maryn proved you believe the same.”
Treating others with basic respect was common sense to me. “Anything else I should know to win them over?”
“They live for all sorts of currency. Gossip, rare foods from the kitchens, special tonics from Gertah’s supply. Everyone wants something.”
“And what sort of currency have you dealt with?”
