FIVE YEARS LATER
For years, I don’t use my flair. I pretend it doesn’t exist. But, as we inch closer to the Gauntlet, I start to wonder.
I start to wonder about the edges of the world. About all the stars can see.
Late one night, when everyone is asleep, I reach for that power.
Take hold of it.
I end up in the gardens. It takes hours to go back to my room. I try farther the next night. To the snowy hills just beyond the palace.
Then, to the markets.
I can’t stop. I don’t want to. Every night, I portal. I see an entire world outside my room. Outside the palace. Outside training.
And it is glorious.
There is one store in particular that I visit all the time. A licorice store. The candy stains my tongue deep violet.
Laila notices.
“What is that?” she asks.
“I stole it from the kitchens,” I lie.
She takes one. Chews it. Frowns. “That’s disgusting.”
“Good. More for me.” For months I explore, learning and testing the limits of this power, this gift. Even as my inevitable death gets closer and closer, I’ve never felt freer.
The Gauntlet is in three days. All my siblings are training. They are getting ready to fight to the death. Some have resorted to trying to poison others in advance of the Gauntlet, so Guardian Sorsa, my newest guardian and one who has shown me unusual kindness, tells me not to drink the morning tea. Day by day, I watch my siblings’ bodies being carried out of the castle and buried.
Deceit is celebrated. Any means to the inevitable end. The survival of the most powerful.
Laila visits me that night. She flies through the hole in my room, and lands on her feet.
“I have to ask you something,” she says. I test the air for her emotions and feel none. She is perfectly calm as she says, “How do you want me to do it? Do you have a preference?”
For once, I feel a shudder of sadness at my impending death. Death feels worse now that there is something to live for. “Through the heart,” I say.
She nods. “Good.”
Then, she does something unexpected. She hugs me.
She buries her head against my shoulder. Only then, do I feel a single rush of emotion. One of the first times I’ve felt anything resembling sentimentality from her. “I’m going to miss you,” she says. “I’ve—I’ve enjoyed all our adventures.”
She looks up at me, and her eyes are watery. She’s crying.
“I’ve enjoyed all our adventures too,” I say, meaning it, even though most have ended with punishment. She’s the only one of my siblings that never cast me out for not being able to use my abilities. She’s the only person who has ever invited me to leave this room. Without her, I would never have seen those stars. I would never have yearned for a world beyond these walls. And though I’ll die without seeing most of the wonders of this world, I have seen some, and that is enough.
“You’re going to make a great ruler one day,” I tell her, meaning that too.
She smiles, a single tear escaping and sliding down her dimpled cheek. “I know. I just wish you would be around to see it.”
Laila leaves, and I’m left alone, watching melted snow slide down my room’s icy window.
It’s one of my last nights alive, and I want to see beyond these lands. I want to seemore.
I want to see the other island.
