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I knew Kirwan’s home from the one time Meliora and I followed him back, curious about where he existed outside of our small little hut. He led us to this place with its gold-painted doors; rough, umber sand bricks, and large grand windows that were all shrouded in heavy drapes, giving no hint to the lives of those inside.
Adan led me around the back to the servants’ entrance. The least amount of time and kiruna was given to decorating this part of the home, and it was easily grander than anywhere I’d been.
It struck me that Meliora and Mama could’ve lived here—spending their days in a manor within the richest part of Lyrica, where the floors shone with their reflections and painted hills rolled along the sandstone. This would’ve been their life, if there had been no me.
Kirwan made such an offer when Meliora was two and I five. He would end their poverty and bring Mama and Meliora into the manor, if my mother put me—the child of another man—in an orphanage.
Mama sent me and Meli out of the room to give her hot, shouted reply. After that day, Kirwan hated me all the more. My mother had no trace of love for him, but she had it all for me. I would always be the one she chose over him.
Adan bowed beside a door at the end of a short hallway. I crossed the threshold and found myself in a communal bath.
I bathed myself, giving special attention to my hair. The water ran brown, shaming me. Of course Kirwan wouldn’t let me near the palace as I was. The public baths cost coin, and I saved my share so that Meliora and the little ones were never without a bath. That left the rainwater I collected in buckets behind the hut for me.
Maybe it will be a good thing to have another income to fill the family purse.I sat before the mirror, weaving my shining onyx crown into a web of braids.It’s been hard to find decent work since anything that needs to be done, can easily be completed with magic.
My reflection tried for a smile. “You will get back to your mother and faywens. All they’ve known their whole lives is that everyone will let them down or abandon them... except you. That is a promise you will always keep.”
The words cheered me, even while tears mixed with bathwater ran down my cheeks.
After dressing in the simple dress and slippers Adan set out for me, I went out to wait next to the carriage. The correct carriage that proudly boasted the occupants inside.
Kirwan returned in his finery. Red slippers with threads of gold, satin tunic, and red breeches. Red and gold—the colors of Dawnbreaker. He flapped an irritated hand at me, ordering me inside.
I climbed up, suddenly hit with the nervousness my anger at Kirwan blanketed. It’d be no time at all until we were at the palace. Forbidden to the likes of me, it would become the place where I would sign away my life in service of a king who’d done nothing to serve me or my family.
It was silent during the jostled ride up the hill. For once I wished Kirwan would speak and distract me from my thoughts,but I dare not voice them to him.What were faeriken truly like? Were the stories of their unhinged brutality true?
Letting him know in any way that I was scared would not return compassion or kindness. On the contrary, it would delight him more than the sumptuous feasts and ever-flowing wine on Meya’s Day.
All through the ride I repeated to myself the only thing that mattered. No matter what happened, I would get back to my family. I would not leave them alone withhim.
Lyrica was a monument to fae beauty and advancement in the last two thousand years. Once, we were nothing but slinking, mindless beasts until Mother Meya blessed us and created the fae race. The first pack became a community. Then a small village. Then a bustling town. And finally, a kingdom to rival the human empires in the east.
The stories say the first queen was a traveling farmer. She traveled to different fae settlements, teaching our new species to grow and live off the land. She went far and wide, learning everything there was to know—not just about farming, but about everything needed to prosper. During her travels, she saw how the humans lived. With their frail bodies, stunted lives, and not a trace of magic within them, they built grand cities and made huge advancements with no more than their minds, and many hands willing to turn an idea into reality.
How much more could the fae do? How much more did we deserve?
The not-yet-queen returned from her travels and pleaded to Meya. Begging her to grant her a palace that would be a beacon to fae all over the country. Come and we will build a nation that will last for thousands of years. A shining jewel of this land and the next.
Meya’s response was to grant her this.
I stuck my face against the glass, lips parting in silent awe as we passed through the gates.
Soaring spires pricked the sky, boasting whipping flags too high for me to see, but I knew were the multicolored flags of Lyrica. Laced through the columns, stacks on stacks of sandstone were vining, snaking veins of deep-sea-blue coudarian crystals.
Miles away as I knelt in my vegetable patch, weeding and singing to Savia—my gaze would travel where everyone’s did, seeking the blueish glow in the distance. Every evening and every morning, the traveling sun would hit the crystals just right and create exactly what our first Queen Wren asked for—a beacon.
The carriage stopped before the palace steps—a riot of stone and crystal leading to two grand doors that could welcome an army. I made to stand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Kirwan shoved me back down. “The likes of you do not enter through the main doors. Adan will take the carriage around back. I’ve written instructions for him to give to the steward. You will do everything he says. Go where he tells you. Shut your mouth when he commands. Do you understand?”
Kirwan didn’t wait for me to answer. Which was good because my reply would not have been polite. He always spoke to me like I was stupid, but that was the single thing I was not. I could not claim beauty, grace, humor, or riches, but I taught myself the theories of magic from the old books Mama’s callers once gave her. Well enough that I used to correct the boys from Gutter Galley who did get to go to magic school. Until, of course, they all stopped speaking to the know-it-all kakka.
The carriage door closed, giving me blessed peace. These were my last moments of freedom. The final minutes before nothing, not even my body, could be claimed as my own. Theleast Meya owed me was the mercy of not spending that time in Kirwan’s presence.
The horses encircled the palace, filling my eyes with its wonder. It’s said each fleck of crystal had been filled with power by kings past. If the faeriken ever attacked, the palace guards would draw on a millennium’s worth of stored power and fend them off for decades.
I wondered how effective that strategy was when they were already inside the gates.
