Chapter Thirteen

When I wake up the next morning, the sleeping area next to mine is empty. I’d thought it was going to be difficult with Roshan sharing the same space as me, but it’d been extraordinarily comfortable. Thank the maker I was too exhausted to have any intimate dreams, because that would have been awkward as fuck. Please excuse any noises I might make while dreaming of you naked, Your Highness.

A low growl that comes from nowhere and everywhere at once makes the hairs on my neck lift, and I blink. What in Droon was that?

Perhaps it had come from the other room. Or maybe it was my stomach, as an ominous, very loud rumble of hunger makes me snort.

Rising, I dress and perform my morning ablutions before making my way to the shared living space. Roshan is there, moving through a series of complex calisthenics. I almost swallow my tongue as I take in his shirtless body on display, his limbs moving in precise, powerful motions that are impossibly graceful. His muscles undulate beneath the sheen of his brown skin.

I clear my throat. “Good morning.”

“You’re awake,”

he says, glancing my way. “Sleep well?”

“Yes.”

Nodding, I make my way over to the counter, where I choose a yellow starfruit and bite into it. I watch him while I eat as he continues to move in and out of those slow, flowing formations, every muscle flexing and rippling. It takes almost all my concentration to keep chewing.

“Where did you learn to do all this? And to fight?”

I ask, finally breaking the silence.

“Javed and I had tutors when we were children,” he says.

“Show me how to do some of it,”

I say to Roshan when he strolls toward me and reaches for a glass of water on the table.

His brow creases. “What?”

“I nearly got pummeled by that Dahaka soldier. Teach me your style of boxing. I’m going to need some new skills to defend myself.”

He shoots me a look and empties the cup. “You can defend yourself plenty.”

That shuts me up. Annoyed, I clasp my nightmare hands behind my back. “I don’t want to use that. I don’t even know how to use it. And the last thing I want is for more people to get hurt.”

Those brown eyes of his bore into mine. I’m worried that he’ll be afraid of me, but that’s not the dominant emotion in those warm depths. He looks more afraid of himself, as if he doesn’t trust himself around me. Could he be feeling as affected as I am? For a moment, it seems as though he’s going to refuse, and I open my mouth to beg, but then he releases a breath and nods.

I resist the urge to fist pump in victory when he crooks a finger at me to join him at the center of the room.

“Start with putting your hands up like this.”

He throws his fists up in front of his chin, and I mimic his stance. “Rule one, always protect your face and throat. Spread your legs apart so your weight is centered. You want to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses and give your opponent the smallest target possible. You’re small, so you have an advantage.”

“I’m not that small,”

I say, drawing myself up to my full height. I barely reach the top of his chest.

Roshan smiles, and I savor the rush of satisfaction. “You’re so tiny, I could put you in my pocket. Carry you around like a little pint-sized pocket princess.”

“Not a princess, either.”

With a mock offended growl, I jab outward, catching him in the stomach—and then wince at the ache radiating up my forearm. His abdomen is like a ridged slab of steel. Before I can recover, Roshan grabs my extended arm and pulls me past him. I stumble, immediately off-kilter.

He grins at my disgruntled expression. “So, as I was saying about stance, you want to make sure your weight is on both feet so that you’re centered but you still have mobility. Stay on the ball of your back foot so you’re ready to move. That way, if I pull you off-balance like that, you can recover or stay upright. Turn your body side-on. Less surface area to defend. Not bad. Here, like this.”

Squinting critically at my position, Roshan steps over to me, his hands falling to my waist and deftly modifying my stance. A burst of warmth blooms beneath his hands, and I set my jaw, trying to think of anything at all but Roshan’s nearness or his strong, long-fingered hands gripping my hips with purpose. Heat unravels in my core at the pressure of his palms.

“Are we going to fight or do boxing charades all day?”

I grit out as he crouches to shift my ankle and then adjust my lower leg, a light graze on the inside of my knee nearly scrambling my brain.

“Fighting stance is important.”

“I work in a tavern. You think I don’t know how to stop some overzealous customer from getting too friendly after a few pints? Especially when I’m carrying a tray of glasses?”

An eyebrow launches. “Good then, champ, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Champ? I scowl, stifling my unholy glee at the chance of payback and cracking that princely poise of his. “Pretend I’ve served you some ale and try to grab my ass.”

“What? No.”

Roshan’s jaw drops. “Do your customers actually do that?”

Biting back my laughter at his expression, I nod. “Some drunk ones try to but usually fail. Seriously, let me prove it to you.”

“Not a chance.”

Wickedly enjoying myself at his royal expense, I shoot him a look. “It’s just hypothetical. Pretend to reach out.”

After a moment, Roshan obeys half-heartedly, the backs of his knuckles grazing the flare of my hip, and I grab him by the little finger, pressing it backward until he bellows a foul curse and drops to his knees with a yelp.

“You scream like a toddler,”

I tell him. “Now yield.”

“I yield!”

he bursts out, cradling his bruised finger. “And I’ll have you know that I scream like a man. That was a very manly scream you heard. Anyway, where’d you learn that?”

“A little trick my aunt taught me,”

I say. “Fingers are the easiest things to break, and that maneuver can deter the largest, most aggressive person.”

Roshan stands. His face is still flushed, but a smile is threatening to break through nearly two decades of ingrained royal etiquette as his sense of humor kicks in. “You have a mean streak, Sura.”

I stare at him, my chest suddenly tight. “That’s what my best friend, Laleh, calls me.”

His face falls. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be familiar—”

“No, it’s all right. You just took me by surprise.”

I smile, pleasure bursting through me at the sound of my nickname on his lips. “Plus, we’re way beyond formality now, don’t you think? I mean, you did try to cop a feel.”

His jaw slackens. “You told me to!”

I purse my lips in fake disapproval and stare down the length of my nose, mimicking Queen Morvarid’s superior, arrogant expression. “You know, Prince Roshan, the palace floggers may need to have a chat with you on the decorum expected of a royal. We do not conduct our splendid selves thus. After all, this is a—”

With a devious grin, Roshan darts toward me. I sidestep him easily, twisting to face him as he comes head-on once more in the small space. Adrenaline shoots through me. I watch his hips, not his face, and at the last second, when he shifts to the right, I mirror the movement. Grabbing his arm to pull him hard, I pivot my body into his, simultaneously thrusting my hips back into his thighs and hauling with all my might on his shoulder. The forward momentum makes him pitch forward, and I straighten my legs. Roshan goes over and down like a sack of potatoes.

His incredulous expression will stay with me until the end of time.

Panting, I throw him a victorious look. “How’s that, champ? Impressed yet?”

“Not bad,”

he agrees, and then with a roguish grin, he yanks on my hand, still latched to his forearm. Tumbling forward, I go sprawling right on top of him. With a swift roll, he flips us both over so his body is covering mine and effectively pinning me to the floor with his much heavier weight. “Rule two: always release your opponent and get as far away as you can.”

His voice is husky, feathering over my face. “Finish what you start. And don’t gloat—that’s just asking for trouble.”

Instantly breathless, I can only stare up at him, my heart pounding a wild tempo as he stares down at me with amused golden-brown eyes.

“What are you going to do now?”

he teases me, and pushes up onto his elbows. “You’re at my mercy.”

Butterflies wreak havoc in my gut, undermining my ability to think, as a slow, insistent burn spreads through me like thickened molasses at the press of his hips on the tops of my thighs. Stars on fire, he’s right there . . . and I can feel every hard inch of him. My nipples tighten beneath my shirt, and I resist the urge to widen my knees and roll my pelvis up against his, letting him know exactly what I want.

Him.

Sands, but I’m in all kinds of trouble.

“No one likes a show-off,”

I say primly, holding myself so still that I’m barely breathing. Any friction and I’ll be done for.

His smirk deepens. “Yield.”

“Never.”

Without warning, I thrust upward, but he’s much too heavy for me to shrug off that easily. He lifts a haughty eyebrow, the challenge in his eyes clear. I’m torn between kissing him and kicking him.

But after my previous failed effort, I’m too much of a coward for the first.

Gritting my teeth, I shimmy sideways until I have leverage to move my right knee, and then I jerk it in sharply beneath him, wedging into the vulnerable area between his thighs. It’s not a hard stroke by any means, but it’s enough for him to roll off me with a muffled curse. I immediately miss his warmth and his weight on me. Nothing like telling a man you mean business by kneeing him square in the groin, I think, a bit ruefully.

“Touché,”

he grunts, clutching himself between his legs and reeling to the side.

“I’m sorry, but you didn’t give me much choice. I fight to win.”

I stand and reach down a hand to him. Roshan hesitates before accepting and wobbles gingerly to his feet. I swallow my guilt. “Come on, buttercup, I didn’t knee you that hard.”

“Try telling them that,”

he says wryly with a downward glance to his crotch. “How about we carry on with the lesson later?”

he grumbles. “I might need to find some ice.”

“I really am sorry.”

He smiles weakly. “Don’t worry, I’ll live. And never be sorry about winning, even if you have to fight dirty.”

Roshan’s mouth twists. “My brother isn’t going to be honorable.”

That immediately sobers me.

He’s right, though. Sometimes, fighting dirty is the only thing that can keep you alive.

* * *

“I hate reading,”

I grouse, and slump back in my chair.

As delighted as I was to discover that Nyriell has a tiny circulating library, this is not what I had in mind when Aran suggested some “light”

research to prepare myself for our runic lessons. I’d much rather be with Roshan working in the forge.

Normally, the tightly packed aisles would feel like a place of wonder, the feel of the clothbound spines and the scent of the pages filling me with comfort, with a sense of home. But right now, this one feels like a prison.

“Why do I have to learn about ancient history?”

I grumble. “Everyone knows the stories about akasha and the myths of the old gods. Also, this is all heresy.”

On the other side of the table, Aran looks amused by my outburst. “Who says? The monarchy?”

I flush at the clear judgment of my ingrained way of thinking and scowl harder.

“I thought you said you love reading,” he adds.

I glower at the pile of books on the table in front of me—all the size of bricks and weighing just as much, nary a spicy romance in sight, to my chagrin. “Not exactly what I was hoping for.”

“It’s important to understand where you come from to know where you need to go,”

he says. “Much of history was both recorded and erased by those in power, so it’s especially important to bolster your thinking with a wide variety of books . . . particularly ones forbidden by the Oryndhrian crown.”

He slides a thick tome over to me that looks older than dirt and gently cracks the spine open. “Try this one.”

Resigned to my fate for the next few hours, I prop my elbows on the table and gently pull the book closer. “‘Akasha is the infinite ether of the universe. Its rivers are the webs between the realms and the source of all magic,’”

I intone. “‘Those rivers—sometimes called ley lines or jādū threads—can be amplified by runes, specifically the runes of power.’”

I groan out loud. “I know all this, Aran,”

I complain, lifting my gaze to my companion, who is watching me with a smile on his face. “Why are you staring at me with that look? Did you expect me not to be able to read?”

He flips to another chapter and taps. “Try this page. Here.”

I roll my eyes but acquiesce, reading from where his finger rests. “‘The place where jādū threads, also called leylines, intersect is called an astrological vertex and contains the most concentrated amounts of akasha.’”

I’ve never heard of a vertex, but I suppose the logic of connecting leylines and concentrated magic makes sense. I perk up with interest at the next line. “‘The astrological vertex in a person’s birth chart can also point to karmic encounters and soul-fated bonds.’”

There’s a strange, hard tug deep in my center, and I gasp.

“What’s wrong?”

Aran asks.

With a frown, I rub my abdomen—which then makes an obnoxious gurgle. Embarrassed, I wrinkle my nose. “Nothing. I’m just . . . a little hungry. What’s a vertex exactly?”

“It represents destiny or events outside of your control. It can be activated in many ways. For example, by coming into contact with the right person.”

“Like my running into the prince?”

He nods matter-of-factly. “Yes, a fated encounter.”

That strange tug deepens again, and I pat my stomach. “Can we take a quick break? I need to eat something.”

“Of course.”

His lips quirk in a way that reminds me of Roshan. “You know, this book is written in the old language, in a runic dialect,”

Aran says, steepling his fingers under his chin. “The language of the gods.”

Hunger forgotten, I stare down at the page. “No, it’s not.”

He signals for a boy who is carefully placing books back onto shelves to come over. “Yes, Sri Aran,”

the boy says in deference.

“Read this,”

Aran says, and points to the page in front of me.

Solemnly, the boy stares at the book. “I cannot, Sri Aran. Those are alchemical symbols that only the starblessed can read.”

I frown at the sobriquet as Aran dismisses the boy back to his duties. “I don’t understand. These are words.”

“They are ancient runes, and you can read them because of who you are.”

His gaze is steady and sure.

I look at him in alarm. Sands, does he know more than he’s letting on? Like my devastating secret?

He ignores my expression, reaching for the book and flipping to a new page. He points to a series of intricate symbols.

“Advanced runes of power can be cast to heal, to harm, to control. They can be used to enhance speed, defense, and strength. They can open portals and communicate across realms. They can cause chaos, temper emotion, and shift time.”

He lifts his tunic, and I see an enhanced healing rune tattooed there. “Some amplify, others combine.”

He indicates another complex rune on his rib cage that looks like a combination of two symbols on one axis—one for memory and the other for infinity. “Most magi are limited to casting only as much as the jādū crystals can power.”

He drops his shirt and sighs. “But in the old days, when magi had akasha—the fifth element and the aether of space—in their veins, their power was unfathomable.”

I exhale. No wonder the god-king was so threatened by them that he hunted them to extinction. “Were there bad magi?”

I ask, thinking about the war of the gods and the breaking of the realms in its wake.

“Of course. Balance exists in everything,”

Aran explains. “The light of Saru holds its counterpoint in the darkness of Fero. One cannot exist without the other, but true akasha lives between the two, dependent on the intent of the magi.”

He stretches out on the chair opposite me, propping his legs up on the table, and studies me with a thoughtful look. For a sharp second, I realize that Aran is not as young as I initially guessed him to be. He has a deceptively youthful face, but a wealth of knowledge, of hard-won wisdom, shimmers in his dark eyes. Magical knowledge.

“Are you Elonian?”

“Sometimes.”

He tents a dark eyebrow. “You?”

“Cobanite. House of Aldebaran.”

“We both know you are far more than that,”

he says with a low chuckle, apparently not interested in prevaricating. “You may have been born into your earthly form on Coban, but your soul is ageless, formless, and immortal.”

My stomach dips at the confirmation of my suspicions, but his smile is kind, reassuring.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the legends about the Starkeeper. The one who purges the realm.”

“Is that a magi belief?”

I say, feeling oddly vulnerable. “From the stories of your old gods?”

“They’re your gods, too,”

he says, and stares pointedly at the book in front of me. “You would not be able to read that otherwise.”

I don’t make a clever retort because I can’t. I, more than anyone, understand that just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I slide a finger over one of the nearby volumes, cracking the spine to a drawing of Mithral, the handsome sun god of spirit and fire, and Darrius, the towering, cruel-faced god of shadow and sky on the opposite page. I flip the sheet to Anahima, the beautiful goddess of water and fertility, and the wind gods, Vara and Vati. In truth, magic wouldn’t exist without any of them.

And if the prophecy is true, neither would I.

I gnaw my lip. “Have you ever had visions?”

“Sometimes.”

He smiles, clearly aware he’s being opaque. “I’m a jack-of-all-trades: musician, cleric, philosopher, seer, scholar, mystic, magi. The gods sometimes choose to speak to me. And they’ve spoken to me about you, Suraya.”

I suppress a shiver. “What did they tell you?”

“That your power will split the realms.”

I close my eyes. I’m biting my lip so hard I can taste blood. But I have nothing to lose if he already knows what I am. What I can do. “Then . . . help me. Show me how all this”—I jab at the books—“can teach me to control it.”

“Very well,”

he says easily, as if he had been waiting for me to ask. “Come with me.”

I eye him suspiciously, wondering just what else he’s seen, what else the gods have supposedly told him.

We stand, and he takes me to an annex beside the library. It looks like an old storage room with a few desks on the far end but otherwise empty. Reaching for a crystal sliver of jādū hanging from a necklace inside the collar of his robes, he sketches a triangular rune in the air that I recognize—the symbol for fire—and a small ball of flame appears in his hand. My eyes widen in awe.

“Much of magic is intent. When you forge your blades with smelted jādū and etch the runes, what do you feel?”

I narrow my eyes. “How do you know I’m a bladesmith?”

“The commander told me.”

I blink, reminding myself that Aran is the commander’s man. He’s part of the Dahaka—part of the commander’s inner circle according to Roshan—and I’m not naive enough to put all my trust in him, even if he is helping me. “After the blade cools, I draw the elemental runes for fire, ice, earth, or air. They focus the energy and activate the magic in the weapons.”

He points to the other room. “That book you just read said that the runes extend beyond the elemental. Have you ever seen or crafted other runes?”

I think about the unintentional runes on my dagger—the starburst and the moon—as well as the binding ones I’d seen on the azdaha, and give a stiff nod.

“True magic, powered by akasha, is infinite in its uses, though there’s always a cost. Even the magi of old saw depletions in their internal source when they tried to do too much.”

“But I’m not a magi,”

I say stubbornly.

A patient sigh leaves him. “A leaf is a leaf no matter what name you call it. Its purpose remains the same.”

He hands me a crystal on a cord. “Hold this. Close your eyes.”

His instructions are nearly monotone. “Feel the flow of your breathing in and out of your lungs.”

Obediently, my lungs expand and contract. “Feel your heart pumping life through your body. Feel the power of that crystal connecting to you.”

Each pulse of my heartbeat echoes in the sliver of jādū I’m grasping in my palm.

But it’s not enough.

My fingers tighten around the jādū shard, but the more I concentrate, the more my control fragments. “I can’t,”

I gasp, eyes flying open.

“You can. Magic is intent, remember. Now, look at me and focus.”

His voice is mesmeric, his eyes like pools of dark coffee. “Envision the fire rune. You can sketch it in the air, if it helps.”

With my pointer finger, I draw the triangle that I’ve etched a hundred times on different blades for Vasha, but there’s no response from the crystal . . . or any sign of a flame. I exhale, clench my jaw, and try again with the same result. “Maybe I’m a dud,”

I say dejectedly. Or maybe all you can do is randomly incinerate people with starfire.

I swallow hard.

“Magic is also like a muscle,”

Aran says. “It requires diligence, strengthening, and practice. Let’s try a different rune.”

“Magic is a leaf, magic has intent, magic is a muscle—magic sure is an overachiever,”

I grumble. But following his lead, I draw the inverted triangle for water and then a triangle with a line through it for air, but nothing happens with either. We walk through the exercise a dozen times, even switching crystals after I insist that my jādū shard is broken. The effect—or despairing lack of one—is the same.

By the end, I’m exhausted and my body aches as if I’ve just fought in an arena, sweat dripping down my skin. “This is useless,”

I say, flinging the crystal away and slumping to the ground where I lie panting.

Aran, ever patient, studies me. “Perhaps we’re going about this the wrong way. What does your magic feel like to you?”

The simurgh inside of me lifts its head for the first time all day. “It feels like my skin is lifting off my body, like I’m too full to keep whatever it is inside. Like it wants to be free.”

He ponders this for a moment. “And if you reach for it? What does it do?”

I shake my head and half-heartedly dig down into my center. This is ridiculous, this is never going to—

Magic surges up toward me, and I gape. “It . . . wants . . . it wants to fly.”

“Then let it.”

“How?” I ask.

His voice is hypnotic. “Close your eyes and let the light of Saru flow into and through you.”

I don’t know how to feel about invoking the old god of creation, but I reach for the vision of the simurgh I’d seen before. Magic curls toward me as if happy for my touch, and I let myself sink into it. I feel that light is flowing along my veins, my skin tightening, a deepening pressure testing the limits of every fragile organ. It won’t hurt me, but it feels like a flood.

“By the gods, so much akasha,”

Aran whispers in awe, and my eyes fly open. “I can see it.”

Every rune along my arms is lit up, an ephemeral shape bursting beyond the flesh and bone of my body. I don’t have the same view as he does, but I certainly feel . . . something. And out of the corner of my eye, I’m certain I glimpse a hint of iridescent wings.

“What do you see, Aran?”

I ask in wonder.

“The Starkeeper.”