The resplendent Quartz Island, an hour's sail from the harbor, was the private playground of Oran's grown royal children. Shielded from duty and the expectations of their elders, here they were free to splash naked in the warm lagoon and make love on pink beaches and in shady coves with partners forbidden within Oran's walls.

Breathing in lungfuls of salty air, Starlex Illymium climbed the island's highest rock. The pink promontory jutting into the azure sky had been used as a lookout tower in times of strife. But Oran had been peaceful for many moons under Davadas rule.

Starlex's cousin, Rigel Illymium, and Princess Tylla cavorted in the cove below with their respective lovers. But their joyous laughter rankled her, reminding her that she was again the wobbly fifth wheel on the pleasure cart. Distracting herself from the keen sting of loneliness she often felt during these afternoon outings, Starlex stretched belly-down on the slanted slab, baked warm in the sun, and adjusted the ring on her spyglass. From her vantage point, she swept the scope over the choppy blue water to the coastline, where the red coral reefs from which the sea derived its name shimmered beneath the surface.

"Don't drop it," Rigel called up to her.

She fumbled with the spyglass for a moment before regaining her grip with a sigh of relief. To lose her prized possession to the maw of the sea would be a calamity. An ancient artifact from the Mynimium treasury, the instrument was capable of bringing into sharp focus myriad stars invisible to the naked eye. Passed down from generations, it bore the worn Illymium crest, the star of Illym encrusted with diamonds and sapphires.

Rigel laughed as he clambered up the rock behind her, loosening a shower of pebbles with his bare feet. When he reached his cousin, he gripped her delicate ankles in a way that both teased and supported her. "Now don't you fall," he said.

She lifted a chunk of her long white hair, flipped it over one shoulder, and gazed back at him. Her violet eyes sparkled with gratitude. Rigel, who like Starlex was orphaned during the Mynimium Siege, was someone on whom she could always rely.

From the rock plateau below, Princess Tylla propped her hands on her slender hips and called up, "See anything, Star-ass?"

Starlex bit down on the retort forming on her tongue. Although she and Tylla were close as sisters, to talk back to her niece was forbidden, even here at their idyllic retreat.

Tylla inherited great beauty from her royal parents, as well as intelligence and wit, but her stubborn nature was her own. Standing close to Tylla as if she were her social equal was Carmelle Nazeer. Within the palace walls, red-haired Carmelle was a servant, but here away from the court's prying eyes, she was Tylla's lover.

Carmelle leaned over to whisper conspiringly in Tylla's ear.

Something rude about me? Starlex wondered.

Whatever Tylla said in response caused Carmelle to erupt in a fit of laughter and cannonball into the sea. Tylla dove in after her, and they surfaced in each other's arms. Tylla's brown skin contrasted with Carmelle's pale, freckled complexion common to the Nazeer people. Seeing their naked chests pressed together, the way they filled each other's gaps to form one, made Starlex's heart pound with longing as fathoms-deep as the surrounding sea.

Irked, she brought her attention back to the spyglass, aiming it across the widest part of the sea to the distant Kadaar Mountains. Beyond the jagged ice castles lay a vast land inhabited by wild animals, a few mythical beasts that may or may not exist, and the Skaards, a hardy people eking out an existence beneath no other yoke but nature's.

She gasped when she spotted three warships knifing through the water. The small fleet, traveling half a league north from the island, was headed straight for Oran harbor. From the mast of the first ship fluttered a flag she had only seen in the picture books in the tower library.

"It's the Skaards!" she shouted to her friends below. "I see only men on board, warriors from the looks of them."

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"Are they handsome?" called up a sunny voice. Jabe, the freckled Nazeer scholar, spent less time with his books and more time being idle with young Rigel.

"What do you care if they are?" Rigel let go of Starlex's feet, shuffled down the craggy rock face, and leaped from the lowest boulder to tackle his friend. They scuffled playfully to the plateau's edge and then disappeared over the side with a splash.

Starlex again felt her loneliness rise like a dark tide. Being the queen's sister afforded her some status, but Illymiums were artifacts as ancient as the spyglass she held in her hand, a page moldering in the tomes of the tower library. If any man in Oran's court wanted to marry her, he was either too scared to approach the queen's sister or too repulsed by her pale iridescent skin, slightly pointed ears, and white hair. And now, at twenty-two, it seemed her chance for love and marriage was setting like the sun over Kadaar.

With her friends' laughter fading in her ears, Starlex cleaned the salty fog forming on the spyglass’ lens with the hem of her fluted gown of sapphire silk and returned it to her eye. Turning the ring forged with Illymium magic, she focused on the man standing at the helm of the leading ship.

He looks just like the statue of the warrior in the palace garden, she thought dreamily.

She recalled how when she was a small child, she would speak to the marble figure, curtsying when she imagined him stepping down from the plinth to ask her to dance.

The man onboard the Skaard had golden hair peeking out of his dented bronze helmet. Beneath a fluttering fur caplet, his muscular arms were raked with scars, including a freshly dressed wound seeping blood through a coarse bandage. If he felt any pain from his recent injury, she could not discern it from his eyes. They were as blue as ice and appeared just as cold. The longer Starlex stared at him, the more it seemed he was gazing back at her.

A golden flare showered across the darkening sky, shattering her reverie. She lowered the spyglass and swept her eyes up to the sparks fading in the sky. It was a message from the Tower of Oran. Flenn Illymium was calling the royal children back home.

With one last glance at the advancing fleet of Skaard warships, Starlex fastened her spyglass to her leather belt, and she climbed down the rocky promontory to the plateau below.

She laughed upon seeing Rigel lying naked on the rock, arms cradling the back of his head, his placid face absorbing the last of the afternoon sunshine.

"And this is how you will present yourself at court tonight?" Starlex asked.

He squinted up at her as her shadow crossed him. "The sea swallowed my britches."

"So you say."

"Don't worry, dear cousin. I brought clean clothes with me."

"Illymiums always plan ahead?"

"Jabe was the one who thought ahead." Rigel hopped to his feet and stretched out his slender but muscular limbs. "Nazeers are good for that kind of thing. Practical."

"And what are Illymiums good for?" she asked, a part of her aching to truly know.

"Illymiums are good for one thing only: dreaming," Rigel replied wistfully, "but I needn't tell you that."

Jabe pussyfooted behind Rigel and pounced on him. "You're good for a few other things, as well," he said, laughing.

Rigel started to retaliate with one of his wrestling moves when Tylla appeared, shielding her modesty with her dripping wet gown.

"We need to get back," she said, her expression clouded with worry.

Carmelle was already loading up the skiff.

"Ah, can't we stay here forever?" Jabe said, his pale, freckly arms circling Rigel's neck.

"That's the plan," Rigel said, turning to plant a kiss on Jabe's damp cheek.

"I didn't know there was a plan," Starlex said, stepping down the sharp rock steps to where her skiff was moored.

"Didn't we tell you?" Rigel trailed behind with Jabe. "Tylla and I are going to get married."

Tylla turned to dart a wry look at him.

"Just for show, darling. Why should Mynimium return to dust when it could be turned into our private pleasure palace?" He sighed. "Just like here."

Mynimium formed like a desert mirage in Starlex's imagination as she continued down the path. What little memory she had of her home city had been sketched in by the books in Flenn Illymium's tower library with its etchings of hanging gardens, carved jade porticoes, and rushing waterfalls.

"Can Starlex come, too?" Jabe asked as if reading her mind.

From the bobbing skiff, Carmelle called, "I thought Starlex was joining the Wols?"

Starlex laughed along with others, trying not to show that Carmelle had voiced her greatest fear. The Wol women guarded the sacred God Gate within a barren wasteland known as the Weir. Chosen, usually without their consent, from each of the Four Corners, the ascetic Wols lived lives of poverty and hard labor. They were forbidden to marry or bear children. Starlex knew the Wols, along with other representatives of the Four Corners, would be making a rare pilgrimage to Oran to attend the Zar festival. In her nightmares, she imagined these mice-like women reaching out from behind their gray cloaks to pull her into their dark sisterhood.

Tylla lifted a fresh gown from the skiff and shimmied into it. Carmelle, resuming her role as lady's maid, fastened the silver buttons in the back.

"Hurry up, everyone," Tylla snapped. "Mother will be angry if I’m not there to greet the guests."

Nodding, Starlex stepped into the skiff and hoisted the sail.