Arabessa’s gaze softened. “Yes, I’m sure. But remember, to appreciate what we have, be reminded why we do what we do, we must experience the alternative. It is important to practice restraint in our gifts, for most are not as lucky as we.”
Her sisters had each gone through their own Lierenfasts a month before their Eumar Journés. It was a test no other noble family went through or knew the Bassettes practiced, but they had their own reasons for such things. As they often did.
“You sound like Father,” snorted Larkyra.
“Which is the highest of compliments,” said Arabessa. “Speaking of which, have you talked with him?”
A flutter erupted in Larkyra’s belly. “No, he hasn’t called me in yet.”
“He will soon.”
Behind them, the door burst open.
The girl looked like crashing waves at sunset as she poured into the room, unstoppable beauty. And though shorter, what she lacked in height she made up for in the curves and sway of her hips as her creamy peach dress bubbled up like agitated froth with each of her steps. Whether she liked it or not, her moods were always readable through her movements—an effect of her hypnotic gift of dance.
“Dear sister,” greeted Niya, her light tone contradicting her needle-pointed gaze as she stopped before them. “How fortunate this day is to see you returned home. Happiest of Eumar Journés.”
“Thank you, Niya.” Larkyra eyed her sister with both hidden amusement and wary defensiveness. “And happy day of birth to you as well.”
“Yes, quite.” Niya brushed back a loose red curl. “Is that why you maimed your hand? As a gift to me?”
Larkyra strained to keep the levity in her features, the phantom limb of her missing finger twitching in agitation. “Why, yes. Do you like it?” She displayed her nub more prominently.
Niya shrugged. “It’s rather small.”
Larkyra pursed her lips.
Niya raised one manicured brow.
And then a grin curled its way onto each of their faces.
“Come here, you old toad.” Niya tugged Larkyra into a hug. “I’m happy you are home. But I do hope you practiced sleeping with one eye open during your Lierenfast,” she said softly into Larkyra’s ear. “For I will return the loving sentiments you left on my bed. Perhaps I’ll make you symmetrical by taking your other ring finger.”
“I look forward to your attempts.” Larkyra tightened her arms around Niya.
“Let the games begin.”
“I thought they already had.”
“How much longer are the two of you going to hold each other in a creepy, whispering embrace?” asked Arabessa. “For I’ll gladly tell Cook to push back tonight’s dinner a sand fall or two. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to oblige.”
“Feeling left out?” Niya stepped back, regarding their eldest sister.
“Never have a day in my life.”
Niya snorted. “Well, that’s the largest load of—”
“I thought I’d find you all here,” said a deep, familiar rumble that sent memories of their shared childhood flying through Larkyra’s mind.
A dashing black man stood by the open door.
“Zimri!” Larkyra ran to him, throwing herself into his arms.
He stumbled a step, and it took Zimri a moment to wrap her in a similar embrace as he let out a low laugh. “I’m glad none of your spirit has dulled after your time away.”
“If anything”—Larkyra settled into his arms—“my time away has only made me shine brighter.”
“Indeed,” said Zimri warmly.
Zimri D’Enieu was the son of their father’s oldest ally, Halson D’Enieu, and upon his and his wife’s tragic death, which had left Zimri with no living relatives, their father had taken him in and raised him as his own. He’d started as a skinny, quiet lad, but thanks to the curious and often-overbearing nature of the Bassette daughters and their father’s wisdom and fortitude, he had grown into quite a strapping, independent man. It was only natural that Zimri would step into the role of their father’s right-hand man—something he had taken on with great honor and seriousness. Sometimes too much seriousness.
“May I put you down now?” asked Zimri.
“Only if you must,” sighed Larkyra.
Once back on her feet, Larkyra took him in properly. Zimri’s dashing grin and penetrating gaze had brought many women and men to a weak-in-the-knees sigh. And as usual, he was dressed impeccably in a gold-embroidered three-piece gray suit. The threads matched his startling hazel eyes. “Is it just me,” asked Larkyra, “or have you gotten more handsome since I left?”
“It’s just you,” said Arabessa from across the room.
Zimri shot her a glare, but Arabessa had returned to practicing with her throwing knives, filling the space with the rhythmic thunk of each hitting her target.
Larkyra exchanged a knowing glance with Niya before turning back to Zimri. “Have you brought me a present?”
“In a way.” He straightened his suit. “He’s asked to see you.”
Larkyra’s stomach twisted tight. Oh dear, she thought. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
After glancing at each of her sisters—reassuring nods were given—Larkyra turned to Zimri once more. “Okay. Lead the way.”
While Larkyra had grown up in this house, she still had not figured out all its secrets, and a week wouldn’t go by that she didn’t discover at least one new room or passage, only to return the following day to find it had moved to a different floor entirely. Zimri effortlessly led her through endless hallways that stretched up to stained glass ceilings; down flights of stairs rimmed with tapestries from far-flung places, the thread dancing with movement; over a small bridge that connected the south wing to the west; to not one but three doors that allowed entry to her father’s chambers, where she finally, thankfully, breathlessly stopped.
Larkyra rubbed her lips together, her magic pacing in her veins at her uneasiness.
Everything with her father was a test, a lesson, in some way. Though more often than not, no sister knew if she’d ever passed or failed, which, as tests went, Larkyra supposed, wasn’t such a bad outcome. Yet it still made every encounter fraught with that potent mix of anxiety and anticipation. Larkyra only ever wanted to please her father, given that she had much to make up for, due to taking away his wife.
Guilt hit Larkyra low in the belly, as it always did when she thought of her mother.
Zimri stepped back, allowing Larkyra to approach the doors, each different in design. One was made of jagged onyx; another plain, worn wood; and the third pure-white marble, bearing no identifying marks to symbolize what lay beyond.
“Your choice,” instructed Zimri, leaning against the adjacent wall. “He’ll be waiting for you no matter which door you choose.”
“You’re not coming with me?” asked Larkyra.
Zimri shook his head. “It is you he’s asked to see.”
“But I’m sure he’d enjoy a surprise visit.”
“Lark.” Zimri raised an unimpressed brow. “Knock.”
Zimri was one of the few who knew the secret the Bassettes held behind spelled walls and hidden cities, given that he came from the very place they kept so carefully guarded.
“And a happy day of birth to you too,” grumbled Larkyra, returning to the choices before her.
A great many things could happen, depending on whether she knocked on one door over another, or nothing at all.
Which, again, was probably some lesson to meditate on. But currently, on a day like her Eumar Journé, Larkyra had no use for such still reflection, so with sure footing she approached to rap once, twice, and then three times on the onyx doorway.
It gave a rather dramatic creak as it opened, an icy wind funneling out, and right before Larkyra stepped through, she had a moment of self-doubt, fearing that perhaps now, more than any other time in her life, she had chosen poorly.
CHAPTER THREE
All was fine.
Or at least, it appeared to be fine, which of course meant it could very well be all wrong.
Larkyra had learned the hard way that calm often camouflaged the most vicious of intent.
The air grew warmer as she approached the orange light at the end of the passage, making her corset ties that much more oppressive. Larkyra’s throat also began to grow tight, like the very air was laced with an allergen, but perhaps all this was in anticipation of what would greet her when she stepped through.
A large figure draped in a fine leather tunic dominated the center of what appeared to be a winter cabin, fitted with fur rugs, low wooden rafters, and a large blazing fire.
Larkyra’s heart beat rapidly in her ears as she waited, with no real patience, for Dolion Bassette, Count of Raveet, of the second house of Jabari, to acknowledge her from where he sat behind a large oak desk, reading over a mountain of parchments. Dolion’s light complexion glowed with a healthy tan, matching his honey-rusted hair, which was long and thick and fed into his beard so seamlessly it very well could have been a lion’s mane. And though he was seated, his formidable size was apparent—he was a hulking muscle of a man who led many to wonder how much he spent on his tailor.
Larkyra gently cleared her throat. Dolion looked up, glancing around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. But whether he was happy or annoyed to find himself in this room, Larkyra could not tell.
Presently, all she could concentrate on was her magic not flying straight from her chest. The love she had for the man before her was so consuming she truly felt she might burst into flames if no one spoke this very moment.
“Larkyra.” His voice was a deep rumble of stampeding beasts. “My darling girl.” Pushing away from his desk, he opened his arms, allowing her to run into them.
Ensconced in his massive embrace, Larkyra cherished the smell of home on her father, of honeysuckles in sunshine.
“How are you this evening?” He smoothed a comforting hand up and down her back.
Larkyra could have answered in many different ways—tired, overwhelmed, excited to be here with him, anxious to be here with him—but she knew she was meant to say, “Wonderful.”
“And why are you wonderful?”
“Because I’m blessed with my family, my health, and a roof over my head.”
“That you are,” said Dolion, a smile in his voice. “And from your answer, I take it your Lierenfast was successful.”
“Yes, Father.”
“My reports read that you only suffered a mild injury after an incident involving a pawnshop owner, his wife, and an emerald ring?”
Larkyra would not exactly describe her injury as mild, but she wasn’t about to contradict him. She knew Dolion would have intervened if he’d thought the threat deadly. At least . . . she believed that he would have.
“Yes, Father,” she replied again.
“But you got through it.” He raised her bandaged hand, displaying the severed finger. “And I must say, it is very becoming on you.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“Tell me”—Dolion shifted, gesturing for Larkyra to take a seat in a chair opposite his desk—“what are three things of importance that you learned?”
Larkyra’s magic swam, unsettled, as it sensed the buzz of nerves in her belly. This was what she had been both dreading and anticipating, this final part to her Lierenfast. Larkyra took an extra few grain falls to fix her skirts as she planned her next words. She had gathered and noted everything she had experienced to later recall, and now, she struggled to only pick three.
Which was probably the point. There weren’t only three. All of it was important. Every sand fall of each day. Which was what led her to say, “My three are just one.”
Dolion was quiet as he leaned into his high-backed chair, waiting.
“Life favors no one,” said Larkyra.
“Elaborate.”
Larkyra ran a gentle touch over her injured finger. “One may be beautiful,” she began, “rich, poor, young, blessed with magic or not, a sinner or virtuous, and the gift of life is still given to us all, just as death comes for us all.”
Dolion watched her carefully. “Which means what?”
Which means what, indeed, thought Larkyra as images of all those she’d lived beside in the lowers flashed before her: the lady who’d helped clean her wound, the people she’d watched slit a sleeping throat just to acquire a slice of moldy bread, the more established families and shop owners who lived so close to the destitute.
“That no one is worthier of being given life than any other,” said Larkyra eventually.
“Not even the generous over the horrible?” asked Dolion.
“Not even them.” She nodded. “You or I may feel differently, but life certainly doesn’t care enough to change. A hero may die in squalor, a villain in wealth.”
Dolion tapped a pensive finger on his desk. “So with your belief that life is a freely given energy, what keeps everyone from practicing only gluttony and sin? From abusing gifts given?”
“Our souls.”
Dolion’s gaze sparked. “Our souls,” he repeated.
“Yes. Life is made to move in one direction—forward,” continued Larkyra. “It is our souls that act as the winds guiding its course. Life can be given to all, but only our souls decide how we want to live.”
The room fell silent, the crackle and snap of flames beside them the only sign of time passing.
Larkyra waited for her father to speak. And as she sat there staring at the man, she noticed something she hadn’t upon first entering. He had more gray running through his hair and beard than when she’d left. More than would naturally creep through in the weeks that had passed, which meant only one thing—he had gone to see her mother.
Larkyra’s chest tightened, a million questions bursting on her tongue, as they often did when it came to the woman she had met only once, the woman who had slipped away into the Fade the same day Larkyra had come into this world.
She opened her mouth, ready to ask something, anything, but her father sat forward first and said, “You have earned your Eumar Journé, my songbird.”
It was as if the room flooded with sunshine. His words were everything sweet and lovely. Larkyra couldn’t keep the grin from splitting her features, her magic crooning in kind. Her father’s approval, her family’s, was what kept Larkyra holding her powers in check, despite how suffocating it was at times. Every day of her life, she sought to prove why her life was worthy, of value, just as valued as she knew her mother’s had been.
“Thank you, Father.” Her voice came out breathless.
“I’m not surprised, given that you’ve had to learn from a young age what it means to practice restraint, especially with your gifts.”
At the mention of the very subject she had just been thinking about, Larkyra swallowed.
“Yes,” she replied, her throat growing tight once more.
Her magic had always been the most difficult to control among the Bassette sisters’. For how was a child to contain a wail when she skinned a knee or an unconscious hum as she picked flowers? How was a girl to keep her magic in, separate, when it was attached to such natural behavior?
Larkyra’s mind swam with dark memories of the hard lessons Achak had forced upon her growing up, using Arabessa and Niya as targets.
The library was oppressively bright, every candle and candelabra lit, as if so Larkyra could see every consequence of her actions, every ounce of pain she forced into her sisters’ expressions.
“You must fill your intentions fully with your desire,” instructed Achak, standing behind her. “You must overwhelm your magic’s basic instinct to protect you by inflicting injury onto others.”
“I’m trying,” growled Larkyra, which only let loose a lash of yellow from her lips, striking Arabessa in the face.
Her sister hissed in pain but otherwise did not move from the chair she occupied beside Niya. A red thread of blood ran down her cheek.
&nb
sp; Larkyra clamped shut her mouth, guilt overwhelming her as her magic swam hot and frustrated and angry in her throat. Be angry with me! yelled Larkyra silently to her powers. Not them!
“You must find your calm,” said Achak. “You must dig deep to spread it through you. Coax your power gently, as though it is a babe you do not wish to wake.”
Larkyra closed her eyes, trying to find this calm Achak spoke of, but her mind was soaring in every direction, her magic an angry flock of birds. She was meant to merely tie the ribbons on her sisters’ collars with a song, but in her frustration she had only managed to make both bleed.
The vision changed, swam to another, of the same library but a different day.
A scream echoed in the room, Niya gasping as she sat up from where she had been lying on the floor.
In a panic, Larkyra went to run to her, but Achak held her back.
“Again,” they demanded.
Larkyra shook her head. No! she pleaded with her eyes.
“Again,” they said. “Put them to sleep.”
Larkyra looked to her sisters, both panting with the nightmares she had unintentionally spun into their minds.
“If you cannot tame your power even on the ones you love, you have no hope of controlling it on strangers,” explained Achak.
Larkyra cut Achak a glare, very much wanting to set loose her powers on them.
Achak raised a dark brow. “We dare you,” said the sister, seeming to know Larkyra’s thoughts. “But hurting us will not help you hurt them any less.”
Larkyra looked back at her sisters. She was only six, Niya and Arabessa eight and ten, but they kept returning to these horrible sessions, standing stoically in front of her, encouragement and love in their eyes. Larkyra felt like the worst sort of monster. She had to learn control. She had to. It was either that or remain mute forever.
“You should be proud of your accomplishments.” Dolion’s words dashed away the images.
Larkyra sat once more in the firelit room with her father. Nevertheless, her head still swam with the haunting memories, and she took in a few calming breaths, settling her magic. “Achak was a good teacher,” said Larkyra eventually, making sure to keep the bitterness from her tone.
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