SINDRED

Ezebel assigns me a teacher, a man named Aurelius. I follow him deep underground, in a wing of the palace I've never been to. We go through a maze of halls, and I carefully memorized the route, knowing Ezebel would check my memory of it later. There are no torches on the walls on this level, so we make the entire journey by light of a single candle Aurelius holds before him as he leads the way. The room is through a small door in an unassuming alcove. It is locked with a complex mechanism I've never seen the like of before, about the size of one of Aurelius' long-fingered hands. It is made of a mysterious dark-grayish metal that shimmers blue in the candlelight, and has many tiny gears and levers, as well as countless little nubs that may or may not be buttons.

Aurelius does not let me watch as he presses and turns pieces of the lock in a seemingly random pattern. When he's done, there is an audible thunk and the door swings inward, far heavier than I would have assumed it to be. It is lined with sheets of that same strange metal on the inside. There is a matching lock on the other side of the door, as well as a place for a bar to be placed across, barricading the occupants of the room within.

There is no furniture, but there is light. It comes from odd glass orbs that hang from the ceiling above, a soft yellow glow. Near the far side of the room, a spring burbles along the ground, coming from an opening low in the wall and exiting in a similar way at the other side. It has eroded a winding pathway in the dark marble floor, and is lined with smooth pebbles that glint in the light. Even more confusing than this is the garden on the other side of the spring. Plants I've never seen before grow tall along the back wall, types of ferns and various patches of herbs and fungus, along with a couple bigger bushes that are dotted with berries or tiny flower buds. There is every shade of green imaginable, and splashes of other more unusual colors that instantly draw the eye. There are more of the dangling orbs of light in that section of the room than anywhere else, but in addition to that there are dozens of twinkling lights within the plants themselves, like fireflies in a twilit glen.

Aurelius ignores the garden and takes a seat on a cushion in the center of the room. There are a number of them scattered about, big squares with soft dark gray covers and stuffed with down. They are more comfortable than the mattress I sleep on every night. The only other thing in the large room is a pitcher of water, and a stack of small wooden cups.

Tearing my eyes away from the beautiful garden, I sit across from Aurelius, clasping my hands nervously together in my lap.

"Glamour is their weakness," Aurelius begins.

Glamour. The word sounds strange coming from his mouth. It is something I've heard the staff whisper of in their faerie stories, but Aurelius is always so serious and proper. Before, I would have never imagined him speaking such a distasteful and fanciful word. Now, in the safety of Ezebel's training room, it's like he's a character stepping out of one of the legends, bringing a whole new world to life with one simple sentence.

He continues, "For the Ironborn, magic is mainly spells. It has rules, ways of being detected and studied and controlled. They have their own types of illusions, ways of tricking the mind, of warping what is perceived. But glamour is something alien to them. It is like… another sense the fae have. Your body can see, feel, taste, hear, smell. Right?"

It's the first time he's looked at me, checked to make sure I am following. I nod.

"For one of the fae, glamour is like that. And the Ironborn are, for the most part, powerless against it. This is why they fear us so much. It is not faeries shapeshifting, or calling down storms, or growing beanstalks the size of castles that scares the Ironborn. It is glamour."

I've always known I'm different, that I have to hide what I am with hair dye and never meet a stranger's eyes. I know what they call those like me: demons and monsters. But it's hard for me to comprehend someone actually fearing me. I feel powerless and small. Oh-so small.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But for the first time, I wonder if there is a reason to fear me. Something in me I don't understand yet. I am absolutely certain the idea of that scares me more than it could ever scare them, but a part of me craves it nonetheless.

"Can you show me?" I ask.

He sighs, showing a bit of his usual impatience. "I use glamour every day to blend in, to hide what I am. Look more closely, and you'll see."

I stare at him, his long brown hair pulled back and neatly tied, his eyes a soft shade of blue. He looks as he always does. Maybe a bit less imperious, out of the formal jacket and boots he wears as the king's manservant, sitting cross-legged with his white shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

"I don't see it." I admit, after a long moment.

"Close your eyes."

I follow his command.

"Imagine that I'm standing in a cloud of fog. It's so thick you can barely see the outline of my body. Put yourself so solidly in that place that you can feel the mist's moisture on your skin, smell it in the air. Tell me what it smells like."

I think about it. "It smells like mud and wet grass. And like sleeping. Like right before dawn, when everything's quiet and fuzzy."

"Hmm. Interesting." He seems surprised by my imaginative response. "Right. Now, take a deep breath in. Fill your whole diaphragm with air. Hold it there for a moment. When you let it out, blow the fog away, and open your eyes."

I do as he says. When I first open my eyes, I could swear I see a small swirl of white fog being swept away, drifting towards the garden. Aurelius sits before me, as before, but now he seems to radiate a dim light, like there is sunshine trapped somewhere within. His hair is shimmering silver, and where it is tucked back I can see that his ears come to a point. All of his features seem sharper, more angular. His bones seem to push against his skin in an irregular sort of way. Yet he's somehow beautiful in a way he never was before. Captivating. And he's staring back at me with eyes like ice crystals, his expression as astonished and unnerved as I feel.

"Child, I think that's enough of a lesson for today."

.

"Aurelius said you did well. What did you learn?" Ezebel asks, rinsing some kind of green goo from her hands in the basin by the window.

"I learned how to blow away the fog and see what's behind it."

Ezebel glances at me with a raised eyebrow, then goes back to her measuring of herbs. "Elaborate."

"Is it safe?" My attention keeps darting to the window, the door. Her apothecary is in a fairly busy wing of the palace, and plenty of people come here without an appointment to ask the White Witch for a remedy or tincture.

"Another lesson: Explain what you learned without saying anything that would be dangerous if overheard. You will often need to pass on information with enemy eyes and ears around. Always assume someone is listening."

I open my mouth, then close it again. To me, it seems Ezebel is untouchable, protected by the king, and possibly by some other mysterious means. But me? I am nobody. One wrong word and I'm in chains, being tortured with iron spikes. My stomach is tight with a ball of anxiety that has been growing ever since Aurelius first said the word "glamour," and now my head spins sickeningly as I try to think of a way to explain what I learned in that secret room.

"Are you going to vomit, Child?"

I blink out of my daze to find Ezebel staring at me, eyebrows raised.

"Sit down, concentrate on your breathing."

I follow her instructions, keeping my head down and taking long slow breaths.

She goes back to her work, giving me time to pull myself together. When I start to feel less nauseated and lift my head she says, "It is wise to be afraid, little Sin. But like all emotions, it is unwise to let it take control. Fear most of all."

I nod, still unable to find any words.

"Our enemies are powerful, and their desire for more power is what drives them. But beneath all of that, what drives them is fear. Fear of what they can't control, of their power being taken from them, of becoming weak and irrelevant. Fear of you. Others like you. If you let your fear control you, you are no better than them. You let them win."

I think about this, letting it sink in. I've always thought of Ezebel as fearless, but maybe she's not. Maybe she's just as afraid as I am beneath her unbendable force of will.

"Go," she says, dismissing me. "Rest. We will talk more later."