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She sounded so anxious and frightened for me that I hastened to reassure her. Yes, I have friends. I have others to help me.

Good, I don’t want you to come near here. Stay a thousand miles away. Or more.

I can’t help from a thousand miles away, I pointed out. Things are a mess here at Bloodwing and in the city. We’re recovering from the plague and from Blake’s dragon attack …

She gasped. Dragon attack?

It’s a long story, I said hastily. But Blake … Don’t worry, he’ll be all right. Why was it so much easier to lie to her than to myself? She was quiet for a moment. Orcades?

Yes?

If the Veil falls, what then? My voice was small in my ears. Will it … destroy worlds? This one? Both of them?

A long pause. Then, I don’t know, my love. But I have no wish to find out.

Chapter 13

REGAN

I was dreaming of home. Not Bloodwing. This was the large and sprawling manor house I’d grown up in when I was young. Located along the eastern coast of Sangratha, I’d lived there until I was twelve. After that I was sent to a private academy for girls—but I still returned home every summer. Once I graduated from the girls’ school, then came Bloodwing, of course.

The lush cream carpets were thick beneath my feet as I walked down the hall. My mother had complained she was tired of Drakharrow colors—all that oppressive red and black. She’d re-decorated that spring, insisting on a lighter palette of golds and creams. My father had accused her of sleeping with someone from House Orphos, and she’d called him insane. Father’s other consort had defended her. They’d all fought. A lot.

I only knew this because Persis had told me as soon as I’d returned home. I’d reassured him, told him that our parents’ triad was forever. That they’d made vows in the temple. So no matter how much Father might not like Mother’s redecorating, Persis needn’t worry. They were our family.

I was sixteen and beautiful, and I thought I knew everything back then. I thought being a highblood meant I would always be safe and protected.

In the dream, I drifted down the hall. Raised voices carried into the hall from a half-open door.

“I don’t care if that’s what the history book says,” a high-pitched boy’s voice whined. “It’s stupid, Amina.”

I walked toward the sound, peeking through a doorway into a room that had been set up as Persis’s classroom. My brother sat behind a desk, his legs swinging, his face flushed with indignation.

Standing at the front of the room by a blackboard, looking down her hawkish nose with an exceedingly disapproving expression, was his tutor, Amina Hassan. I hid a smile. Amina had been my tutor before I’d left for school. Now she’d been assigned to instruct Persis. I knew my parents approved of her methods, even though I’d noticed she was harsher with Persis than she’d ever been with me.

I watched as Amina tapped her cane along the floor and moved toward Persis’s desk. She’d always been a stern woman. She might have married and had her own family, but she’d rejected all offers, deeming them unworthy of her. I knew she preferred life in a highblood family—believing the company she kept here and the lifestyle both superior to any life she might have had with her fellow blightborns. The other house staff disliked her. Amina didn’t care. Mother said Amina was goddesssent, the perfect instructor in all ways and an ideal example of blightborn humility.

“Superiority is not a curse, nor is it cruelty,” she now told Persis impatiently. “It is simply the divinely ordained order of the world.”

“I don’t want to be superior,” Persis said, crossing his arms and trying to stand firm. “Being superior is stupid. We should all be the same.”

Amina narrowed her eyes and tapped her cane against his desk. “I believe you are misunderstanding the nature of the lesson I am teaching you, young Master Pansera. Highblood superiority is not a request. It may not be rejected. It is your birthright.”

“I don’t care,” Persis said stubbornly. “I don’t want to rule over anyone. The blightborn aren’t inferior to us. That’s a lie. Look at you—you’re a blightborn. You’re smarter than me, Amina.”

The yardstick swept down, smacking Persis’s exposed hands.

He yelped, then started to cry. “Why did you do that?” he wailed. “I was paying you a compliment.”

I pushed open the door. Persis caught sight of me and slid out of his chair, running over and wrapping his arms around my knees. I put my hand on his head, my gaze lifting to Amina. I shrugged apologetically. She gave a terse nod.

“Come now, Persis, you’re being very rude to your tutor,” I said gently, trying to turn him around to face Hassan. “She’s simply reminding you of what every highblood child already knows and accepts. Why, you go to the temple just as I do, Persis. Don’t you remember what the priestesses tell us?”

“The blightborn serve,” my little brother mumbled quietly.

I nodded encouragingly. “That’s right. They serve and we lead. It’s for their own good.” I looked down at him. “Now, what’s gotten into you today?”

Persis hesitated, then blurted out, “Shanny’s father fixes ships, and she’s smarter than Papa. And she’s smarter than me at lots of things, like sums and figures. And she’s blightborn. So …” he said and scrunched up his little face “ … so it doesn’t make any sense.”