We both freeze at the crest of the hill.
This—this is what we came for.
The sky is ink-black, and a glimmering circle has formed in its center, as if the stars have all been roped together. They’re moving quickly, unnaturally. Beautifully.
It looks like ... it looks like the stars are dancing. Could they be that happy? I envy the stars, for once. I envy them, as they twirl as one, like children playing together, out in the open, the way me and my siblings never could.
“How did you know about this?” I breathe, slowly sinking into the snow.
Laila shrugs as she joins me. “I overheard some of the prophet-followers talking in town. They were going to watch it from their hill. Did you know some of them are allowed to leave their mountain?”
My father hates the prophet, though I don’t know why. I’m surprised he hasn’t already turned their entire mountain to ash.
“They called it something nice. I don’t remember now. They made it sound like it happens on the same day every fifty years.”
Once every fifty years.
I won’t be alive in fifty years.
This is the only time I’ll see the sky look like this.
I study it carefully. I study it so that maybe, I’ll dream of it. Maybe it won’t be the last time I see it.
In my dreams, I don’t have to fight my siblings. In my dreams, I can leave this castle without getting in trouble. In my dreams, I’m not the son of the ruler of Nightshade. I’m no one at all. No responsibility or duty or tradition burdens me. I’m like the stars—free and never alone.
“Are you afraid of dying?” Laila asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. I don’t feel any sadness from her, just curiosity. I look over, and her large brown eyes are studying me just as intently as I’m studying the stars.
I remember seeing those eyes for the first time, years ago, in the hallway. She was the only one of my siblings that ever looked at me in passing. I remember her eyes, because they had a strange gold tint. They reminded me of a cat’s.
That was right around the first time I got in trouble. I was three years old, supposedly intent on finding my mother. Somehow, I snuck into a room in the palace housing Covets, still nursing their heirs. I went around and asked each one if she was my mother, until the guardians found me and hauled me away.
I only know this because Guardian Asa told me that story recently, while slicing my skin in punishment for allowing myself to get hit during training. She must have heard it from her predecessors. She laughed, saying the words. Her twisted amusement felt like a poisoned cloud around me, and it was the first and only time I ever wished someone would die.
“No” I say, honestly. “I’m not afraid of death. Not if you’re the one killing me.” She will make it quick. I trust her. “Are you afraid of being alone?” I counter. When she wins, she will be an only child. She will eventually be ruler. She won’t be allowed to marry. Love, and everything that comes with it, are strictly forbidden.
Laila looks pensive. Her curiosity is like a circling dragonfly. Then, I feel amusement, warm like a rare pocket of sunlight.
“No,” she finally says. “A ruler is meant to be lonely. There’s only room for one on a throne.”
The words could be spoken directly from our father’s mouth. They probably were. He spends more time with Laila than anyone else. The Gauntlet, I think, is just for show this time. All of us—including our father—know who is going to win.
And Laila is right. Rulers are meant to be alone forever.
It’s a relief that I’ll never know what that’s like.
The stars glitter above us. Some shoot away, in spirals. It almost looks like a message from the gods. I wonder what they’re saying.
Some of them rain down, and I wonder if they land somewhere. Laila and I both sit up, watching.
“Do you know where that is? Where they’re going?” she whispers, pointing at the sea.
I can’t see it from here, but I know what she’s talking about. Atlas, a small isle off the northernmost coast, made up of crushed, lustrous rocks. It is a place of mystery. I nod.
“There is a powerful diamond up there,” she says, eyes bright with excitement.
I only overhear through the walls, on occasion, when I sit close enough to the door, and put my ear to the keyhole.
Laila hearseverything. Being able to hide up in the rafters and listen is one of the best parts of her flair, in my opinion.
