Laha endured the feast in the Great Hall…but only just. Other than Mary and Bertie, no one at court had any interest in speaking to her – and the feeling was reciprocated.

Laha scowled at Alfred, Mary and even Bertie as they danced and laughed the night away, like they didn’t have any cares in the world. Bertie, it seemed, had completely forgotten what had happened in the tent and hadn’t wasted any time slotting back into his princely life. Laha was alone in her discontent and spent much of the night sneaking food to Chaos under the table while smiling sweetly at the Governess, whose eyes were never far from her. All the while, the parchment with the prophecy written on it called to her from where she’d stashed it in her tunic.

She examined it again by candlelight before going to bed, marvelling at the lack of burn marks and wondering whether the words were in fact a real prophecy. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Kengian woman, and tossed and turned for most of the night, impatient to find her.

The next morning Laha was up and dressed before the sun had fully risen. A sleepy Chaos rubbed his eyes from his custom-made bed on the floor and squeaked a question about Laha’s early rising.

Laha bent down to address the monkey. ‘Are you ready for an adventure?’

Chaos leapt from his bed and scampered up Laha’s arm, settling on her shoulder.

‘You never disappoint me.’ Chaos saluted her and she rewarded him with a grape. ‘Now, this adventure must be our little secret, you understand?’

Chaos mimed buttoning his mouth closed and she nodded her approval.

Together they slipped from Laha’s room and out to the castle’s central courtyard, which was a hive of activity with servants and groomsmen going about their duties – a stark contrast to the sleeping elite inside the great stone walls. No one paid Laha any attention until she reached the gatehouse at the main keep.

The guards recognised her as Princess Mary’s companion and asked what her business was. She told them she was searching for medicinal herbs and plants in the woodland – for the Governess. The guards immediately ushered her through the gate, aware that the Governess practised Kengian magic and no doubt scared of being on the receiving end of one of the gruff woman’s famous tongue-lashings.

Laha crossed the moat and took a path around the tiltyard, heading toward the woodland, as she and Bertie had done the previous day. The silver sun had emerged from the Kyprian Sea to her right, dusting the landscape with pearly shades of rose, peach and lilac. The Nymoi Alps winked back at her in the distance. The morning sun warmed her body, burrowing through her skin all the way to the darkness. The sensation of light and dark dancing inside her returned.

She tramped up the hillside, pausing just before she reached the top. ‘Do you think she will be there?’ she asked Chaos.

The monkey shrugged.

‘I suppose there’s only one way to find out.’ Laha sucked in a great lungful of air and strode purposefully to the top of the hill.

She blinked once. Twice. A further three times before she convinced herself she wasn’t seeing things.

The tent was back. But now what? The last time she had seen the woman, Laha had nearly set her on fire. Would the stranger be angry with her? What kind of reception would she get?

Laha would get her answers sooner than expected, because Chaos jumped to the ground and ran straight down the hill toward the tent.

‘Chaos! Come back!’ she called futilely as the monkey disappeared through the tent’s entrance. ‘I should have come alone,’ Laha grumbled before running after him.

On reaching the tent, Laha tentatively grasped the canvas. She froze for a moment, thinking it wasn’t too late to turn around…but a tinkling voice called from within.

‘Come in, Laha. I’ve been expecting you.’

Laha stepped inside the tent, toward the voice. The beautiful Kengian woman, dressed all in black and raven feathers, was sitting at the same table as yesterday. She smiled at Laha as she fed a delighted-looking Chaos a handful of red berries, their blood-coloured juice ringing the monkey’s mouth.

‘You know who I am?’ It was the only thing Laha could think of to say.

‘Of course. You are the reason I am here.’

‘Me?’

The woman stood up in one graceful movement and appeared to glide toward Laha. A voice in Laha’s head told her to run, but the sparks of life stirring in her belly kept her stuck to the spot.

The woman clutched Laha’s chin in her hand. Bursts of energy jolted from her fingers, flooding Laha’s entire body. She scrutinised Laha’s face, looking for something. The finest lines creased her perfect forehead. She tilted Laha’s chin one way, then the other. Then she gave a knowing smile before releasing Laha, who stumbled backward in shock as the woman’s energy was sucked from her.

‘Who are you?’ Laha panted, clutching her hands to her stomach. She felt like she was going to vomit.

‘You can call me Zayaka,’ the woman said, returning to her chair. ‘Please sit.’

Laha shook her head vehemently. ‘Come on, Chaos. We’re going.’

But Chaos was unmoving. Only then did Laha notice the monkey’s glazed eyes, which had changed from brown to silver.

Zayaka was inhabiting him, controlling him. It was against all of the Institute’s teachings. It was magic born of darkness.

Laha forced herself to stand fully upright. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘To help you.’

Laha scoffed. ‘I don’t need your kind of help.’ And she meant it. She had worked so hard to fight her dark impulses. To use her magic to ask creatures for their cooperation, to be at one with nature rather than command it. The Governess said mastering the light and the darkness was key to her harnessing her full potential.

‘But you do need my help. I know this because I know you. I understand what it’s like to be you. What it’s like to have the very essence of you suppressed – bottled up like a corset drawn too tight. The feeling of not being able to breathe.’ Zayaka was on her feet again, murmuring to Laha as if her words were a lullaby. ‘I can help you become who you were meant to be…to fulfil your purpose.’

Stolen novel; please report.

Zayaka’s gloved hand was on Laha’s arm then, guiding her to a seat. Laha didn’t struggle against her.

Sitting across from Zayaka, Laha felt inexplicably calm. She noticed that Chaos’s eyes were back to normal.

‘If you still want to leave,’ Zayaka said, ‘you are free to go.’

Laha considered it. She should go. Zayaka’s seemingly mercurial nature and powers were a dangerous mix, but perhaps that was the very reason she should stay. Maybe Zayaka was the only person who did understand her. Maybe she could help Laha master her powers and make sense of the darkness.

‘What do you know of me?’ Laha asked.

Zayaka stroked the top of Chaos’s head, the monkey leaning into her touch. ‘I know you have great potential. I know they are all scared of what you can do.’

‘They?’

‘Everyone at the Institute. Everyone at court.’

Laha shook her head adamantly. ‘Mary isn’t afraid of me. Bertie isn’t…’ Most of the time, she should have added.

Zayaka shrugged. ‘Perhaps not. But they will never understand you. They don’t know what it’s like to be stifled. They don’t know what it’s like to be an outcast.’

Laha jutted out her chin. ‘Bertie does. He—’

‘The younger Lamorian Prince? Come now.’ Zayaka gave Laha a sympathetic look. ‘He will always have a place here. He may be different from his brother, like a yew tree is to stinkweed, but they are still plants.’

‘Hey!’ Laha protested, thinking how upset Bertie would be at the comparison.

Zayaka waved her hand dismissively. ‘As I was saying, you are different. You are special.’ The heady way she said ‘special’ was delicious to Laha – she had never been called that before.

Zayaka placed her hand over Laha’s. She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘You know, I too was exiled from my kind. Sent away from the Institute because they feared what I was capable of.’ Her voice began to rise. ‘I was a threat to them, just because I was different – because I was more powerful than them.’

She snatched her hand away from Laha and dug her fingers into the table.

‘They made me think there was something wrong with me,’ she hissed to herself, her eyes looking somewhere beyond Laha’s shoulder. ‘They took everything from me. They wiped away my existence as easily as a puff of smoke – as if I’d never been born. Then banished me across the Kyprian Sea, where my powers were dampened, my essence trapped like a bird in a cage. I lived a shadow of a life.’

A jagged lump caught in Laha’s throat. Was that what would happen to her if she couldn’t master her darkness? Would the Governess banish her?

‘Why did you stay there? Couldn’t you come back? Why did you come back now?’ The questions tumbled from her in a mad rush.

Zayaka looked back at Laha and smiled. A smile that made Laha believe, in that moment, that she was actually special.

‘I stayed there because there was nothing left for me here…at least, that’s what they led me to believe. I stayed there because I believed them when they said if I didn’t go, I would destroy this world.’ Her silver eyes swam with glittering diamonds of tears. Laha caught herself wishing an impossible thing – that she could be as beautiful as Zayaka. That she could be like Zayaka.

‘I believed I was beyond saving…but I was wrong. I didn’t need saving. I just needed to get back what was taken from me. And that is why I’m here.’

‘What did they take from you?’ So many questions. ‘Why is it here in Lamore and not back in Kengia?”

‘Soon I will share everything with you. But first I am going to help you. I’m going to help you unlock your full potential.’ The tears were gone from Zayaka’s eyes, replaced by a fiery anticipation.

Finally someone is really going to help me, Laha thought.

‘You won’t recognise yourself.’

A seed of doubt planted in Laha’s mind. If she wasn’t herself, who then would she be?

Zayaka must have sensed her apprehension. She patted Laha’s hand. ‘I mean you will be the most powerful version of yourself. You will feel things you’ve never felt before.’ She shivered with excitement. ‘And I know this because in the short time I have been back here, I have felt those things. The fulfilment of the magic I was born with – living, breathing, expanding in every part of my body. I want to share this with you.’

With every word Laha fell deeper under Zayaka’s spell, believing the Kengian woman could actually help…but then she remembered.

‘I lost my powers…All of them.’ An apologetic shrug. ‘Except for that once-off thing with the fire.’

Zayaka tilted her head in question. ‘I don’t understand.’

So Laha told Zayaka the whole story about opening the portal to another world. She told her about the battles, proudly highlighting and perhaps making more of her own achievements. Zayaka was the perfect audience, listening attentively, asking questions, marvelling at what Laha had done. Then Laha explained how, when they’d closed the portal, her powers had disappeared.

At the end of the story, Zayaka sat back in her chair and folded her arms. After a long pause, she spoke. ‘But I don’t understand how I knew nothing of this. Surely the whole of Lamore would still be talking about such a thing?’

Laha shook her head. ‘The Governess cast a powerful spell so that no one in Lamore, other than us – Mary, Bertie, Alfred and me – would remember. Of course, the Kengian King and many back in Kengia know, and were witness to much of it, but that kind of magic isn’t foreign there. Here, they wouldn’t understand…and the Kengian King didn’t want to risk his alliance with Lamore. So the Governess made sure little was remembered.’

‘This Governess you speak of. She sounds very…powerful. I think I would like to meet her.’

Laha screwed up her nose. ‘I don’t think you would. She is as dull as she is powerful. And just as bossy.’

Zayaka laughed, the sweetest tinkle of a sound.

Laha bit her lip, then sighed. ‘So I guess you can’t help me…since I don’t have any powers.’

Zayaka grinned at her. ‘Of course I can help you.’ She stood up and straightened her skirt. ‘Your training starts tomorrow.’

Laha leapt to her feet. ‘Great! I guess…I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Zayaka nodded. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Right. Tomorrow. Did you hear that, Chaos? I’m going to get my powers back.’

Chaos clapped his hands in excitement.

‘I’d better get going then,’ Laha rambled. Her feet caught on her chair legs and she nearly fell over.

Zayaka merely smiled.

‘Come on, Chaos.’ The monkey ran up Laha’s arm onto her shoulder.

Laha half skipped, half stumbled away, only stopping at the doorway of the tent. ‘But what about your tent? People will find you here.’

Zayaka gave a knowing smile. ‘Not people. Just you, thanks to a cloaking spell.’

Laha breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Of course…Till tomorrow, then.’

* * *

Brimming with excitement at the prospect of getting her powers back, Laha raced Chaos from Zayaka’s tent all the way back to the castle’s central courtyard. ‘No fair,’ she panted. ‘You went…before…I said go.' The monkey shrugged and popped a berry in his mouth.

Laha was about to make her way inside when she noticed the approaching figure of the Governess. The woman raised her cane and pointed it at Laha.

Prickles erupted on her arms. Did the Governess know where she’d been? What would she say?

‘Kraa!’ a bird called.

The Governess appeared to freeze mid-step.

‘Kraa!’

The shadow of a bird passed over Laha. In a burst of black feathers, it descended on the Governess.

‘Kraa!’

The raven perched itself on the top of the Governess’s cane. It tilted its head and peered at her, then lifted its beak and cawed.

‘You can’t be here,’ the Governess said in a wobbly version of her usual authoritative voice.

The raven cawed again in response.

‘Shoo!’ The Governess stamped the bottom of her cane on the ground. ‘Shoo!’

The bird flapped its wings and launched itself into the air. It circled above the Governess’s head twice before flying off with one final ‘Kraa!’

The Governess caught Laha’s gaze, her chest heaving. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin, then hobbled toward Laha. ‘Where have you been, young lady?’

Laha’s eyes widened, all innocence. ‘Chaos and I were just taking a turn in the delightful grounds this wondrous place has to offer…enjoying this splendid morning.’

The Governess’s eyes narrowed. Laha never used words like delightful, wondrous or splendid. She would know Laha was hiding something.

Laha flung her hand to her heart. ‘Time seems to have gotten away from me…I must get ready for the archery tournament.’ She desperately wanted to know why the Governess had seemed so upset by the raven, but thought asking about it would only lead to more questions about her own activities. ‘Please excuse me.’

She curtseyed and raced back toward the entrance to the castle, the monkey scampering after her. Laha was beginning to think she would need her own cloaking spell if she had any hope of continuing to meet Zayaka without the Governess finding out – but of course, she would need powers for that.