“For not dying today.”
I graduate my Sunling training, and, for the first time, Enya and I are about to be separated. She’ll stay on Sun Isle and continue studies there. I’ll move on to the next realm in my rotation—Moonling.
“It was always going to happen,” my mother tells us over tea.
Enya’s mom laughs. “Remember how they would count with their fingers the years they had left together before she had to leave for training? How old were they? Six?” She shakes her head. “Remember we caught them trying to run away? They made it, to what? The abbey?”
They both laugh, leaning into each other the way friends tend to, while Enya and I glare at them.
“You are supposed to be kind to us,” Enya says to her mother. “We’re your children. You are supposed to be nice, no matter what, and that includes not bringing up embarrassing stories that do nothing to prove the intelligence and capability of the royal line.”
Enya’s mother shakes her head, lips still curled in amusement. “No. I’m your mother, and that just means I’ll tell you thetruth. And the truth is often not kind at all.”
Enya and I share a look.
“Our mothers are like harpies when they get together,” she says as we leave the room, their laughter echoing behind us.
I smile. “They probably say the same thing about us.”
Enya shakes her head. “No. You’re not that funny.”
I pinch her side, and she swats my hand away. “Write to me?”
I nod. I’m not allowed to leave Moon Isle for the first few months of training. The only way to communicate will be through letters. If I can find anyone willing to deliver them, that is. “Of course.”
“I’ll try not to talk too much about the warmth of my room’s hearth, or honeyed tea, or the sun caressing my skin.” She grins at me.
I sigh. The comfort and heat of Sunling is about to be traded for harsh, brutal cold.
In their last years, Moonling warriors train near the Vinderland, far north, in temperatures that even my now-mastered flames can hardly breach.
“I’m sure they have hearths,” I say, though I’m actually not sure. I’ve never been on Moon Isle before.
FROST
The rooms don’t have hearths.
There are just two narrow beds, with barely enough room to walk between them, and a single window frosted over in a layer of ice. Only the smallest sliver of sunlight peeks through.
This will be a very comfortable next few years, I can feel it.
I set down my pack and try to imagine how long Enya is going to laugh when I tell her my breath is coming out in clouds, even indoors.
My roommate hasn’t arrived yet. I choose a bed, then open my pack with frozen fingers. Agnes, my brother’s guardian, surprised me with a hand-knitted blanket. She isn’t supposed to dote on me, but that’s never stopped her from treating me like I’m just as important as my brother. I fold it carefully onto the bed, then form a fire in my fist. The warmth melts the chill from my skin, feeling like home.
The door slams open behind me.
I turn, expecting my roommate. Instead, I find a tall woman with long white hair. She glares at me.
Her hand shoots forward, and the fire in my fist hardens into ice. I startle, then drop it onto the floor, where it shatters against the stone.
“Your fire isn’t allowed here,” she snaps. “Come with me.”
I reluctantly leave my bedding behind and follow her down the stairs. Other Moonlings in my training group stare at us, wide-eyed. They begin to whisper.
The Moonling doesn’t stop at the castle doors. She slips past them and down the stairs, until she reaches a patch of snow.
She points. “That will be your bed for the night, Sunling. If I catch you using fire again, you’ll be out of my training.”
