2. Saoirse

Saoirse

T he tray clattered to the ground, tarts flying everywhere as my skin burned for the second time today.

"Daer be damned!" I shouted, muttering curse after curse under my breath as I sucked a thumb into my mouth, attempting to cool the searing sensation of the angry mark. Remnants of my oven mitt lay on the ground, the old rag finally deciding to give out under my abuse of its heat-resistant talents.

"Ow," I whined to no one in particular, given I was all alone in my bakery. I'd locked up shortly after Vane had left, triple checking the bolt was securely fastened. I'd made a grave error letting Jephyr get so close, and I wouldn't let it happen again. Reporting him would do nothing, as it had every other time I'd tried in the past.

He showed up occasionally, usually too busy with whatever the guard did all day long. The moss green pin on his uniform lapel marked his status as an elite, responsible for guarding the castle and the royal family, where our best fighters were positioned. Not that it was needed. It had been hundreds of years since the Lightlace had been at war. Our king and queen were perfectly safe behind their own gilded walls.

Once, gods had roamed the earth, overseeing humanity for millennia in blissful peace, segregating the world into five different kingdoms, each ruled by a separate god with powers beyond our wildest imagination. All was well, until one of them fell for a human girl, and gave her his gifts, forever altering her genetic makeup to become something different, something more. Stronger, with an extended lifespan, she was a cross between a mortal and a god.

When the others caught on, all hell broke loose, spilling out into the world as their powers waged over the humans. The fighting only ceased when the god, his lover, and their entire kingdom had been destroyed.

But war showed no mercy, and innocents always suffered in the process.

Magic began to manifest, each kingdom bestowed with different abilities and traits depending on the god whose power they had inherited. Soon, only few humans remained. With the gods now united at the helm, the brokered a new era of peace.

Until five centuries ago, when all the gods disappeared, leaving the rest of the world to squander without the divine leaders they had always known.

And no one knows why.

At first, the kingdoms tried to stay united. But human motivations were stronger than the word of a soon forgotten deity. Lust for power corrupted even the most well-meaning ruler, eventually. What resulted was the Four Kingdoms—Sol, Ocea, Draug, and Feral.

And all of them now kept their borders closed tightly to the others, only allowing the occasional trade or communication when absolutely necessary.

Fury rose inside of me at my run-in with Jephyr. And then a different, more confusing emotion as I considered Vane. He wasn't like any of the Lightlace I had ever met. They all had a way about them, an inner spark. Even in a soul as rotten as Jephyr, there was fire and passion, hot enough to burn down a forest. But there was something different about Vane. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Maybe he wasn't a Lightlace at all. He had too much life in his face to be a Nightstalker, our closest neighbors to the north, who preferred night over anything else. Not many Lightlace had traveled that far North, but those that did spoke of a society that drank blood to survive and could manipulate your emotions with just a look.

I yearned to experience what true darkness felt like. In the Sol Kingdom, once ruled by the goddess Daer, the sun never fully set, only dimmed to that spot when the sun was lowest in the sky, a haze of purples and gold, but it was great for our crops and plants we used for potions. It saddened me that I'd never get to experience it.

In a world of blazing sun, I longed for the shadows.

Cleaning up my mess would set me back at least an hour, having to remake all the ruined food if I was to have enough stock for tomorrow's business. Maeve rarely came around, only once or twice a week to check up on things, so it was up to me to do all the baking. I didn't mind it. Maeve would most certainly be at the Awakening ceremony. Maybe she was already there, along with everyone else.

Except for me.

The black cloud that always appeared when I thought about my family crept in, its suffocating weight clinging to my lungs, threatening to squeeze them until they burst. Deep breaths , I told myself, willing my thoughts away from where I couldn't allow them to go.

It had taken me six long years to put myself back together again, and one night wasn't going to jeopardize that.

Six years . Since I'd moved out of the castle where I'd spent my childhood, sometimes it felt like no time had passed at all .

I would never set foot in there again, not after everything. Finally, I had the freedom I had always craved, and no one would take that away from me again.

If I died before ever seeing our parents again, I'd be happy. They hadn't let me leave so much as I'd run away, but still, they could have come for me and didn't. That had been a clear dismissal, all on its own.

Starting over in the city with nothing had been hard, but I'd made it work. I was happy now. It wasn't a glamorous or easy, but it was my life.

A shiver ran down my spine, heat burning my eyes as I blinked rapidly. It irritated me how easily I cried, every strong feeling immediately summoning the tsunami inside me, but I couldn't help it. I was a raw nerve, always one strum away from fizzling into madness.

I pushed my thoughts away, looking at the ruined tarts, their perfectly golden-brown edges now coated with floor seasoning, only suitable for the rats. This was the wrong choice, and hot tears dripped down my face as I let a self-pitying wail escape me.

"Saoirse?" A timid voice interrupted from behind me, and a choked gasp left me as I tried to catch my breath. I swiped my hands desperately over my cheeks, trying my best to discreetly wipe away the evidence of my weakness.

"Xan, hey," I said, forcing a smile as I turned to face my sister, my mouth falling open in genuine awe. "Oh, you look beautiful, birdie." She smiled at the praise and the nickname, practically preening before my eyes even though the concern never left her sharp eyes. She'd learned not to ask me too many questions. No matter the horror I faced, I never let Xan get involved. She deserved to have an actual childhood, to be loved and cared for.

Birdie was a name I'd begun calling her after she'd jumped through the second-floor window of the castle one day while I'd been tasked with watching her. I'd warned her, and yet she'd launched herself out anyway, convinced she would sprout wings and fly. She'd been five and I eleven, and the scream she'd rent broke my heart, shattering in just as many places as her arm had.

The punishment I'd received that day still plagued my nightmares.

"You like?" She twirled in the blush pink fabric, an extravagant earth-toned tiara adorning her golden mane, the dim lighting of the bakery doing nothing to dull its sparkle. Or hers, for that matter. Small, glittering pins dotted the intricate updo she sported, accentuating her features in just the right way.

"It's lovely." My heart clenched with a bitterness I didn't pause to acknowledge. It was a peculiar feeling: to love someone with your entire being and be entirely jealous of them at the same time.

"I've come to get you," she said matter-of-factly, pinning me with a stern look, her lips flattening into a thin line that almost looked comical on her delicate face.

"You know I can't." She didn't know everything, but it was obvious even to her how our parents felt about me.

"Only because you won't ," she retorted, calling me out in the way that only she knew how to do. Xan was one of the few good things in my life, and this bakery. Even with the age difference, we'd grown up close, her younger self always trailing after me, much to the dismay of our parents.

"I don't think that would be wise. You know how they are." I busied myself as I spoke, piling the fallen tarts onto the nearest tray, careful not to look at her. Anxiety coated my tongue like a multi-layered poison, threatening to steal my oxygen before I ever got the chance to inhale.

"Not even for me?" she questioned, sugar coating her voice. I cut a glare toward her, which quickly softened into sympathy as she gave me her patented doe-eyed look, the one that always got her out of trouble. We shared the same sky-blue color, but I'd never be able to pull off a look like that. It was the same one that had both men and women falling at her feet to do her bidding, and my sister did not discriminate.

It wouldn't work on me, though .

"It's been years, Xan. Why would I mess that up and break my streak now?"

She frowned, the ugly expression marring her face, making her look older than she was. "Because I asked you to," she said finally. Hurt coated her voice, biting her lip as her arms crisscrossed over her chest, the gesture looking strangely out of place in contrast to the elegant finery she wore.

They made her look like a queen, but she was still just a girl.

"I know you don't get along, but can't you just suck it up for me, if only for a few hours?"

To Xan, my reluctance was confusing. I'd kept her sheltered, disguising her from the parents who had raised me. With her, they were strict, controlling her life with their high expectations and impossible standards. But to me, they were my captors. Jailers.

My abusers.

"I promise it will only be for a few hours," she said, closing the distance between us and locking her arm through mine so I couldn't run away. I stiffened against the physical contact. Uninvited physical touch was never something I welcomed, even when it was from someone I loved.

You can only be touched so many times against your will before you lose the stomach for it.

She didn't even notice, continuing to yammer on in one big run-on sentence, like she was afraid if she stopped talking she'd never get the chance again. "You won't even have to talk to them! Just throw on a dress, do something with your hair, and you can hang out by the refreshment table all night if you want. I just can't imagine a day as big as my Awakening without you there. What if my powers don't manifest?"

I gently slid my arm from hers and stepped back, reclaiming my personal space for myself. "Then you will be absolutely fine, just like I was."

When I was eighteen, I'd had my own ceremony, just as Xan was about to do, and every Lightlace witch before us. The difference was no one had attended mine, or even cared. Not even Xan. There wouldn't have been a point.

Every Lightlace witch Awakened on their eighteenth birthday. When the sun is at its lowest point in the sky, Xan would complete the ritual, the blessings of Daer bestowed upon her. There was no doubt in my mind that her powers would manifest. Lightlace showed signs of magic far before their eighteenth birthday, and Xan would be as powerful as they come.

I still remember the day she'd been born, when she'd come out coated in a shimmering, golden glimmer that seemed to be part of her skin. It was days before it'd faded away.

At seven, she'd flared for the first time, her hands bursting into a light so bright she'd almost singed off her own hair. Just last week, she'd healed a small knife cut I'd given myself, and that was extraordinary .

Having the power to flare was something every Lightlace had, to hold the sun in your hand without getting burned, tiny fireballs of light bursting from within. The sun was the energy source, the number one Lightlace commodity that everyone had. But even more powerful, was a witch with the ability to heal, especially before her Awakening ceremony.

Xan's concern for a lack of power was completely and utterly unnecessary.

"It happened to you," she whispered softly, so low I wasn't sure she'd intended me to hear it in the first place. Bitter flames burned in my gut at the bluntness of her words and the scathing reminders they caused. Here, in my quiet bakery, I could lose myself, to forget about the true circumstances of my life.

But life would never let me forget that I was Saoirse Volari, the oldest daughter of King Erwin Volari, and I had no magic.