Chapter 9

Chapter 9

FEY

T he sun crested the horizon, bringing a touch of warmth to the chilly morning air. Fey looked out at the Witches gathered before her on the palace lawn and smiled.

Time to begin.

“How many of you hold power over Air?” she asked, letting the wind carry her voice over the grounds. Today, she didn’t need to enchant the words, to call Air to carry them further. The morning was still and crisp and the group watching her was silent as a grave. They were hanging on her every word.

Hands raised in answer—more than she’d expected.

Fey nodded as she stared at those raised hands, as though considering them, one by one.

“And how many of you can fly?” she asked.

Several of the Witches holding their hands up glanced at one another, confused. One by one they lowered their hands, until only one Witch remained, her hand high in the air and a playful smile on her face.

Fey smiled back at Joy from her spot above the crowd. The wreckage of Solare created a perfect stage on the palace lawn for these demonstrations, the terrain creating a natural platform from which she could instruct the Witches gathered below .

Fey had been teaching these classes for over a year, but this morning drew the largest crowd to date. Most of the Witches who attended these lessons were younger, many having just come into their powers. But others here were old enough to be mothers. Some were even grandmothers. These were Witches still learning to embrace their new powers, the ones taken from them during their Awakening on the old queen’s orders. And now that entire crowd watched her, puzzled but excited.

“Joy?” Fey called out to the singular Air Witch still raising her hand. “Why don’t you come up here and give us a demonstration?”

There were whispers in the crowd as Joy bounded up the lawn to join her, blonde hair flowing behind her on a gentle breeze. As the final living Queen’s Blade, she was nearly as famous as Fey, though less recognizable. To see the last of the Queen’s Blades with their own eyes was the sort of thing these Witches would go home and tell their families about. A story they’d pass down to their children.

Joy stepped in front of Fey, smiling at the surrounding crowd. Then, dramatically, she lifted her foot as though ascending a staircase. There was nothing below her as Joy stepped delicately into the air, first with one foot, then the other. But she rose, step by step, into the air above them and stood there, beaming down at everyone, several feet above the ground.

She wasn’t flying, not really. She had merely made a solid block of Air to support herself. With a flourish, Joy took another step, and then another, ascending an invisible staircase above the crowd.

“Now most of you won’t have the skill and control necessary to do what my sister here can do,” Fey said. And hopefully none of you have her flare for the dramatic , she thought with a smirk as Joy spun in the air above them and bowed, smooth as a dancer. “But using concentrated air to slow your fall or even help you balance could mean the difference between life and death. That’s what we’ll be working on today. Air Witches—you’re with me today. Everyone else? Leandra will be taking over your lessons on the Eastern lawn.”

Joy gave one final twirl, then floated gracefully back to the grassy lawn.

Fey tried not to smile. Tried, and failed, her face breaking into a wide grin as Joy met her eyes and laughed .

It was nice to know that hadn’t changed. Sometimes Fey felt like everything in her world was so wildly different now. But this? Her love for her sisters? The happiness they brought her every day? That was still the same.

“I can stay and help for a few hours, if you’d like,” Joy told Fey as the students drifted into groups. Some of them moved across the lawn to join Leandra, the High Priestess of the Fire coven, and others stayed, eagerly awaiting their Air training. “Alice is sleeping anyway—the council meeting went late last night, and she came home exhausted.”

Fey gave her a grateful nod. “Thanks. We’d really appreciate the help. And the students always love your instructions.”

Across the lawn, Leandra had already divided the other Witches into smaller groups, sorting them by their elements and strengths.

Fey had laughed when the High Priestess of the Fire Coven had approached her about this—offering her a salary paid by a tithe from each coven to help instruct Witches in the city on how to use their powers. Fey had known her days of serving the Crown were far behind her, and that chapter of her life was stained with blood.

But Leandra wouldn’t be persuaded to give up, and since the first class had only been four young Witches, Fey had figured what the hell. Why not? It would give her something to do. At least, until Leandra realized what a mistake she’d made and found someone better for the job.

But now that class of four was almost two hundred strong. And it was growing every day. Once word got out, Witches had come from all over the city, wanting to learn from her.

From the Queen’s fabled Broken Blade.

Fey and Joy worked together for the morning, demonstrating how to concentrate air in one place to make it into something more solid. They took their time, moving amongst the Witches, offering helpful tips and correcting errors. Fey let Joy do most of the encouraging. Many of the Witches were still frightened of Fey, even those who she had worked with from the beginning. She’d figured out over time that while they might be fine learning from her, most weren’t entirely comfortable speaking to her one on one.

They only stopped when the bell atop the palace bell tower tolled midday, and the group broke for lunch. Dismissing her students and giving Joy a hug goodbye—and a promise to swing by to see her later that day—Fey turned and made her way across the lawn.

Leandra inclined her head in greeting as Fey approached.

“How were they today?” Fey asked.

“They’re doing well,” Leandra told her. “Some of them are picking up on their powers remarkably quickly. Better than I’d ever hoped.”

Fey nodded. She’d noticed that same thing, too. For many of the older Witches, their control over their new elements came naturally, and surprisingly quickly. It was as though a part of them had always known that a path to those powers existed, and now that the gate was unlocked, it was an easy path for them to follow.

Still, when Leandra looked out at the crowd as they relaxed and ate their lunches, she didn’t look proud. She looked worried.

“Something you’re not telling me?” Fey asked, eyes narrowing warily.

Leandra released a heavy breath. She looked tired.

“We’re missing one,” she said simply, with just a hint of sadness coloring her voice.

Fey knew without asking who Leandra meant.

For months after Fey started these lessons, Leandra insisted the princess would come. “Just give her time,” Leandra had said, over and over, day after day.

They had. The coven leaders had given Princess Amalia time, and space, and everything else she could have desired.

And, still, she hadn’t shown up.

Not once, not even for a single session.

Fey didn’t particularly care if the princess ever joined her classes or not. A small part of her was relieved every morning she arrived and didn’t see those familiar brown curls in the crowd waiting for her. Didn’t see the living reminder of the world she’d turned her back on, the code she betrayed.

And who could blame Amalia for staying away, when the class was taught by the very Witch she blamed for her parents’ deaths?

Leandra pursed her lips. “I’m worried about her,” she confided in Fey. “She barely eats anymore. Hardly ever leaves her room. She won’t talk to me, and now that Linh isn’t coming by the palace anymore… I don’t know if she talks to anyone.”

Fey bit her tongue to keep her own opinions in check. It had been a mistake to put Amalia on the council, in her opinion. And a bigger mistake to keep her in the palace locked away from kids her own age. It was no mystery to her at all why the princess was retreating.

“Maybe if you tried to talk to her—” Leandra began.

“No,” Fey said, anger rising in her chest.

Leandra blinked and shut her mouth.

For a moment, Fey pulled back on her rage, ready to leash it once more.

But…

Let them see you.

Fey let it out instead. Let that rage burn against her skin. And when she turned to look Leandra in the eyes, she knew the Priestess could see it burning in her gaze.

“I’m not going to talk to her, Leandra,” Fey said, feeling the strength of that power in her voice. “Because I’m the last person she wants to talk to. Don’t forget that I killed her parents. I’m the reason she’s alone.”

Leandra swallowed and opened her mouth as though to speak, but Fey continued. “You want to give her some support? Let her be a kid. Let her meet new people, let her put some distance between herself and all this pain she’s been put through. Let her grow up. You have her trapped in the same cage she’s been in since she was born, and you’re wondering why she doesn’t sing for you all like a happy little bird. You need to open the cage and let her out. She doesn’t need me, Leandra. What she needs is freedom.”

“I just think a little closure?—”

“No,” Fey insisted. “And I won’t have this conversation with you again. My answer is no. There’s no such thing as closure, Priestess. There’s no putting this behind her and getting over it. There’s no healing. There’s only surviving it, one day at a time. And I can’t help her do that. Only she can.”

Leandra didn’t stop her when she turned to walk away, and Fey let that rage continue to burn, feeling more herself than she had in years.