“What are you doing, Katasavana? You shouldn’t be seen by the royalty.”
Katasavana let’s go of my arm. “Miss,” she says, dipping her eyes like a good little servant girl, remembering that I am also royalty. “Fincher says he has to talk with yeh before yeh leave and he told me to come find yeh and I said, ‘Fincher, I can’t attend the royal ball’, but he said ‘It’s important’, so I rushed out here and waited in the dark for yeh to tell yeh just this and I was worried for yeh because I didn’t see yeh at all and now, yeh soaking wet, miss. What happened? Are yeh okay? Should I go fetch Fincher? Yeh know he always worries about yeh.”
I think I’ve sighed four times while she talked. The fifth sigh has words carried on it. “Thank you and no, don’t get Fincher, and I’m fine. Could you help me with changing into dry clothes?”
“Miss,” Katasavana says. “But what happened?”
Another sigh and a gentle nudge to turn her around and push her towards the side door and then we step inside. I didn’t realize how chilly the air was inside compared to outside but it makes my dress feel like ice while goosebumps travel across my arms. My room is the first on the right, exactly seven steps after the stairwell. Fincher said it was just seven and I argued until he said, “Go see for yourself,” so I did and he was right. The memory dances before my eyes while my dark room greets Katasavana and I.
“I’m going to fetch yeh some more bread and weave a new hair piece for yeh for the formal proposal tomorrow and then the only thing yeh going to need after that is a dry dress and then powers. The only thing you really need after all that is powers because yeh got everything else in the world, yeh know? I have powers. I don’t know how but Fincher says it seems like the Helvede kind of craft. I could light yeh candles with a snap of my fingers just like Fincher, if yeh wanted. He taught me the trick. And I could light them all if the king granted permission. Come by every night, to every room of the Yleensa. Snap, foof, yeh candles lit.”
A sconce holds a candle on the outside of each Yleensa door. “Just light the match please, Katasavana. I’ll set the candles afire afterwards.”
Katasavana rolls her eyes and normally, someone like me or father or mother should care but none of us really do. I think it’s because every wet nurse died for baby Katasavana after mother and father adopted her into the servant family. So mother herself fed her from the bottle. Then mother herself read her stories for bedtime because little Katasavana was too much for the servant caretakers. And the list goes on for Katasavana, the Helvede baby adopted because she has no powers yet here she is, twelve or so years later, as powerful as Fincher and growing in strength everyday according to him.
Katasavana takes a hot rock from her pocket and sets it in her hand. She blows on it and a spark travels to the candle, my personal match ready to light the huge candles inside my room.
“I love these little pebbles. They’re supposed to be from the old volcano top. That’s why all anyone with powers has to do is blow on them because they still have a spark of flame inside. Did yeh know Fincher says the fire from them isn’t a true flame? They’re neither hot or cold. A light with no flame. A light with no heat. Heard it’s stolen from a whole nother world too. That’s why it doesn’t have any heat or nothing like a fire should have ‘cause it’s stolen.”
The sweet taste of pink lemonade sits against my lip or maybe it’s the taste of Fincher’s kiss I never knew I wanted so badly. I force a rehearsed closed-lip smile to my face. “Katasavana. Please don’t tell anyone about me being wet or me changing or anything about this moment at all. And especially keep it a secret that Fincher even sent you to me.”
She bows and leaves with a skip and then she sprints up the stairs to her room on the third floor.
I close my door and let the light of the flickering candle lead the way to the first corner of my room. The candle-match sets the corner candle aflame. It dances like the guests outside, moving back and forth. But instead of the Tello’s music, it moves to a song all its own. There are just so many things about my world I don’t know. I only know how to be a princess. Decorum and the like. Because the more a gray-eyed Yleensa knows about the world around them, the scarier it will be. That’s what mother said and father didn’t disagree with her. That was a night when mother used to read bedtime stories to me. A year or so before Katasavana came to our palace. My hand, for the first time in my life, takes a life of its own as I move it over the dancing flame. I’ve never even thought about touching fire – to see if it’s real or fake. But Katasavana was right. Nothing. I feel absolutely nothing from the flame I’ve always been weary to be near.
A change of clothes. Another dress but this one island blue. A piece of bread from Katasavana and a new hairpiece – a frilliary coral – pinned to my hair. Another breathless monologue from her where in sum she says, “I steal bread but Fincher says if I don’t tell anyone but him, it’ll be just fine,” and a sigh from me and then I stand in front of my mirror and finally, my mind thinks. It thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks about what happened at the wharf. The fear that stung my heart, like a spear through the middle of it. The grip of water, freezing cold against my skin. The apathy in Romulus’s eyes. The plunk of the barnacle too afraid to be near the prince. And then my own compliance. My willing compliance. Here I stand, staring at myself, considering why I obeyed so easily. Why I haven’t told anyone what happened at the wharf though I could’ve told Katasavana, Fincher even. Could have ran to my parents and told them. And I know, in my heart, anyone of those people would’ve hugged me and swept me away from the sociopath dancing and mingling with my people outside. But even as I think about it, my feet seem to have a mind of their own. And just like my hand to the flame, my feet seem to not be weary of the man outside though I tell myself, “You should be.”
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The night is no longer young. The Neresians linger about. Some leave and head towards the wharf, presumably to slip into the water and come back tomorrow. A few stay in the town and the royals take residence on the opposite side of the palace. Thankfully, in halls and places I’ve yet to even explore. And my bed, it lets me find comfort within the sheets. My walls have always been bare but when I shut my eyes, I swear I can see Fincher’s room as he feverishly paints and finishes his mural. That’s what I imagine with the corner candles blown out – this time without a blow of my breath but instead my hand – that I’m in Fincher’s room.
Though my bed is comfortable, I toss and turn in bed. The blankets never seem to land the right way. Sometime, I think the Good Spirit talks to us during those hours where our souls can’t rest and neither can our bodies. Its tentacles reach for us, asking us to set our foot to the ground so it can say, Wake up. The floor is cold under my foot but a pair of socks and a shawl keep the chill away. Wake up, wake up, wake, up. For what? I sneak out of my room and listen for any hints as to why the Good Spirit would tell me such words. The staircase to Fincher’s room? My chest feels void of feeling when I think of that so I move in the opposite direction towards the parlor. It’s empty, cleaned, spick and span. To the courtyard because I think I should tell my parents about the wharf and what happened. That’s where they spend their time, in the courtyard, if not retired to their bedroom.
Voices muffled, mother and father’s. A single corner candle lights the room, casting its glow through the doorway and across the floor where it just licks my socks. I slip to the side of the light, staying in the shadow. Inch and inch and soundlessly slide across the floor until the muffled voices turns into distinguishable words.
“King Konadel,” mother says quietly, “we are happy to exchange for this gift and-”
Father adds, “we expect this to extend our lives for another few years.”
King Konadel chuckles. “At least.” The stifled laughter of mother and father raises hair on the back of my arms. “The untold magic your daughter will bring us is worth this corral. The Corral of Life. If I were you, grind it into a powder and blend into a little milk or make a tea with a dash of honey and drink it immediately for it will kill you if it goes rancid.”
“I do remember from what seems like only a few years ago,” mother says. “We best retire. Tomorrow will be the event of the century. The Century Moon will most definitely shine on both of our people’s blessings. It is only a miracle the Good Spirit delivered a crystal to your people as we are nearing the end of our last blessing. We must maintain the concept of immortality for our family lineage to keep unrest and unease amongst the Yleensa weak. But King Konadel, our daughter is unaware of the blessing she will bring to our people, understand?” she says.
“Of course. Your secret is only mine and no other of the Neresians.”
A moment passes and then mother says, “Alessia is quite excited to take on such an important role for your people.”
A pause and a quiet cough from father. “My son says she believes she will be the next Yazata,” King Konadel says. The tone tells me maybe he’s aware that it’s just a single string of hope that I truly believe that. Like the ignorance is bliss sort of phrase. Like that Katasavana was never orphaned but stolen after the Helevde discovered that she was the most powerful child to ever be born and is now being raised to be the puppet who will eventually overthrow their leaders and act on behalf of father. And I’m to never know just as much as Katasavana should never know. Guess who told me that secret?
“Yes,” mother says, voice cracked. “Yes, I suppose she does believe. But we must all believe, shouldn’t we? She is,” she says, “our baby girl and-”
“It never becomes easier,” father says. The emotion in the room is palpable, even from my spot in the dark but father won’t let it linger long. “Until the morn, King Kondel,” father says.
“Until the morn, King Yleensa Nafar.”
Chairs squeak and move and they grunt the way old people do when they stand. And there’s only one way into the courtyard and only one way out. And I’m a single toe away from the light that pours towards the rest of the palace. I press my back against the wall and let go of my breath quietly. If the Good Spirit is real, then it should hear me when I think, Don’t let them see me. Maybe I should say something else like, What was that about? or Why didn’t I ruin their meeting and tell them the bad news that I refuse to marry Romulus? My breath wants to tremble. My voice wants to squeak with the pressure of staying silent. My body tries to quake with the rush of adrenaline. I can control it all, thanks to learning decorum and the like. But my heartbeat, I’ve never been able to master the quell of a heartbeat as that is what will give your tell away. The beating of your chest, demanding that the rest of your body falls in line with the shallow breathing, the squeal of stress, and the shaking of rush. The opposite, is how I’ve done it and maybe one day as the Yazata, I’ll have the heartbeat part down too.
Father said, no matter how hard you want to press your eyes shut when you’re scared, to never ever do so because that is when your enemy will kill you. So though, I don’t think I’m in danger of death, I force my eyes to stay open and I can’t help but stare at the shoulders, then the backs of the three as they leave the courtyard for the night. The candle stays lit though father and mother carry their own light and so does King Konadel. Why wake up? What was the point? To watch my parents exchange my life to extend theirs? To shatter the immortal beliefs of my family?
I step into the light and into the courtyard. Fincher’s portrait splayed skillfully across the floor brings tears to my eyes. He was so, so right about the way my aunt looked. Every detail. Every freckle. Every pock. Even the way one side of her cheeks sits lower than the other by just a fingernail. If he was right about her, must he be right about everything else he’s ever uttered? “You still believe you and your family are immortal?” he said. The only reason to not believe in my parents is for his words paired with theirs I just heard.
But the Seer under my feet lays cards. Its picture just as captivating as my aunts. It takes my attention off of what pangs around inside my head, We’re not immortal? One card, and another. It’s the only reason I have that string of hope – to become the Yazata. I’m immortal so I should be the Yazata instead of dying from bonding with the crystal. Four cards, she has on the table. Their backs are down as I suppose that’s how the readings should go. But Fincher painted one card face up, in the hand of the Seer, who I swear for just a moment, her eyes move to mine. I kneel and press my fingers against the brown pupils. Just paint. But the picture she holds is of pink and beige and white tentacles. Countless tentacles seemingly reaching towards the Seer. Begging her to see. Begging her to listen. Demanding it, really. Demanding she listen to those words exactly. Wake Up and I did. Wake up and I went. Wake Up and I heard. Wake Up for the words I was commanded to hear.