She swung back to look at it and then heard the voices of children. She looked back to find the courtyard as it once would have been, bright and fresh and filled with veiled children. The hidden princesses. She moved unseen between them, and they continued as though she weren’t there. She studied each one, looking for herself again, but she couldn’t determine which she was.
Children disappeared and reappeared in random patterns throughout the courtyard. One rubbed her hand together like she was making a fist but moved her fingertips over the heel of her thumb. The skin on skin made an odd, dry crackle sound, and then she held fire in her hand. Another swirled a finger to make the wind blow up around her. It pulled at her dress and lifted her long sleeves into the air. Her hair didn’t move at all, and Lis stopped to watch in wonder. Another held out her hand, and rain fell from her palm to the stone below.
A fourth child stepped forward. When she held out her hand, a lone stem pushed its way between the stones and up towards her, where a flower opened. The one making it rain stopped and turned to her with a disappointed look.
‘Another flower,’ she said.
‘I like flowers,’ the first child responded, and Lis felt a familiarity.
‘You won’t be any good,’ the child with the rain said.
‘I am good,’ she retorted.
‘You can’t do anything for the Empire with flowers.’ The child’s voice carried a singsong element to it, but Lis could hear the cruel intention behind it. The eyes of little Lis narrowed as the flower grew taller, branching out, its stems becoming thicker and darker.
The rain child poked her tongue out, and the vine suddenly reached out to wrap around her wrist, holding her tight. It wound tighter and tighter, working its way along her arm, and her hand began to turn blue.
‘Enough,’ a woman called across the courtyard, and silence descended. Lis turned to see a woman in white walking quickly towards them. She might have been a priestess, given the white, although she was nothing like the priestesses Lis knew.
‘I said enough,’ she said again, raising a finger and pointing it towards them. The vine withered and disappeared, and the girl grabbed at her arm where it had held her.
The other girl sighed, blowing out her veil. The woman pointed at her, and she dropped to her knees. She screamed, and Lis screamed with her, feeling the constricting power pull through her body. The child smacked her hands together, trying desperately to hide, but it wouldn’t work. The constriction grew tighter until Lis thought she couldn’t breathe, the scream dying in her throat. The child smacked ineffectually until she appeared to run out of air, at which point she dropped to the stone.
‘You are all different,’ the woman said. ‘Embrace it. You must learn to work with others or there will be none of you left.’
The girl with the sore hand nodded slowly, still cradling her arm.
‘Back to work,’ the woman snapped, and the girl let her hand drop to her side, making rain fall from the other.
Lis stepped towards the child lying on the stone.
‘Leave her,’ the woman said, and Lis looked back towards her. She didn’t appear to be looking at anyone but the child. Then she turned and left.
Another child across the yard waved her hand and a small cloud appeared above her, blocking out the sun. When she moved her hand slowly, the cloud floated across the sky to a point above the child lying on the stones, shielding her from the hot sun.
‘She will punish you for disobeying,’ the rainmaker said.
‘I don’t care. You shouldn’t pick on her.’
‘She is an easy target. She will never be anything of value. How can she protect the Empire with that skill?’
‘There are rumours about her. You need to be careful.’
‘I don’t believe in rumours, only what I see. And I have far more power than she will ever have.’
The cloud-maker sighed. The other one clicked her fingers, wincing at the movement, and the little cloud rained on the unconscious girl. She didn’t move. Lis stepped forward and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, and she sat up screaming. Lis screamed in surprise, then found herself back in her own bed.
The room was quiet and still. She had expected to find Yang curled on the end of the bed, but he wasn’t there. Her chest tightened. Did he no longer have the energy to watch over her? She was so difficult, trying to be strong when she really wanted to leave this world behind. She thought she had found a direction again, but then the magics were free and the prince…
She stopped. She didn’t know what to think of the prince. In some ways, it was a comfort that there was something so familiar about him. That they shared this skill and it put them at the same risk. But he didn’t know what he had. She didn’t either. And it might cause her more harm than good when he worked it out.
She threw her legs around and then realised there was something on the floor. She pulled her legs back up and reached down carefully in the dark to find someone lying on the floor. Yang murmured in his sleep, still watching over her, and she sighed with relief. She rolled back onto her back and stared up at the ceiling above her. Despite the darkness, she could trace the pattern of the wood and the fabric she knew so well.
Somewhere on this island was a place no one knew of. A place where the hidden princesses were trained. But they weren’t just hidden—they were magic. Lis wondered if that was where the Hidden had started. Perhaps the training had been more than just for the Empire. Perhaps it had been to see who was stronger. Maybe they killed each other in their pursuit for the honour of Empress.
Who was the woman in white? Lis sat up again and then waited, hoping she hadn’t woken anyone. She needed to find the black gate—she needed to find what was hidden inside. She might be able to learn just who these girls were and what they were taught. She might still be able to learn from them.
She was still tired from her outing the night before and the trouble it had caused. But she couldn’t remain here any longer. She needed to know the secret, and she couldn’t tell anyone she was going.
She touched her hands together and crawled to the end of the bed, where she carefully climbed over the edge so as not to disturb Yang. She twirled once to change into something more fitting for running through the night, thankful she could remain hidden. If something went wrong and she was discovered, she would be dressed in black and appear more like a young man.
Once in the yard, she paused as she realised she hadn’t thought this through enough. But someone had placed a stool against the wall, so she ran towards it. Standing on it, she could reach the top of the wall. And despite the fact that she hadn’t climbed anything since she was a child, she managed to pull and drag herself up and onto the narrow wall. Just as she did, a soldier sat on the stool, and she sighed with relief. She looked down into the dark street on the other side to find it was a little further than she’d thought.
Carefully climbing to her feet, she looked out over the world. She could only see a small part of it where the lanterns lit small fragments. She sat back down, took a deep breath and pushed herself off the wall.
Lis thought she made too much noise when she landed, but no one came running, and there was no sound from the soldiers inside her walled garden. She didn’t know where she was, but she guessed it was towards the far northeast corner of the island. Far from the main crowds and possibly closer to where the original hidden princesses had been housed. She looked towards the direction where the prince was staying only briefly before heading the other way.
As a Hidden, she would see others if they were around, but they would be able to see her as well. She stopped suddenly, remembering the prince. He hadn’t seen her when she was hidden, and she wondered again just what he was.
She shook her head and started along the narrow street, surrounded by the high walls. Now that she knew they weren’t as thick as she had first thought and there were some lights glowing on the other side them, she realised she wasn’t as isolated as she had thought. Although
perhaps it was the tutors or the like that had been moved closer. Or more guards.
She stopped at a gate that looked dark in the night, but she was sure it was red when she drew closer. She placed her hand on it gently and felt the warmth of the wood. She continued on, running her hand over the rough stone walls and the dark gates that were dotted along them. And then there seemed to be nothing but stone wall. She looked around, wondering if she had reached the end of the street, but it stretched on ahead of her.
Then, on the left, she found an old gate. The paint was peeling away from the wood, and there was no plaque despite the grandeur of the gate. When she tried to push on it, it appeared to be stuck. She rattled the latch, but it turned loose in her hand. She stood back and looked up, wondering if there was a way to get over the wall, but she saw nothing. What could have been in such a place that they no longer allowed others inside?
She backed up again and stepped into the hard wall. After letting out a groan, she covered her mouth, then decided to move further along the wall to see if there was another gate or way in. It wasn’t the black gate that she had been looking for, but it was something, and she felt a desperation to get inside.
She had reached the end of the street when she found another gate straight ahead of her. She looked up at the wall that surrounded the island and wondered if this was one of the exits to the walkway beneath it. Waiting quietly at the gate, she listened for soldiers or anything similar on the other side before she pushed it open. The moon appeared from behind a cloud, lighting the world around Lis to reveal the world she had seen in her dream. She quietly pushed the gate closed behind her. It was a different angle from what she had seen in her dream, but the world was just as it had been before the children appeared.
She moved slowly and carefully across the uneven stones, looking for any sign of life. There was none, and no sign or sense of magic. She wondered why this hadn’t been turned into something else, such as a palace for some minister or advisor, or the like. There were no buildings within the large open space, and Lis wondered just what had been done here.
At the end of the courtyard stood a single gate, propped ajar. She walked quickly towards it. It was only once her hand was on the edge of it that she realised it was black. She gripped the wood hard and pulled the gate towards her.
The young priestess walked comfortably in the feet of her ancestor. Unlike her other dreams and visions, she was a part of this one, experiencing life as one of those in it rather than watching from a distance. But she knew it was something that had occurred long ago.
Her dress hung differently, the material heavier than what she usually wore. She felt pulled down and rooted in the unknown world. She walked amongst magical children, all of them with different powers, each determined to be the strongest.
They focused on their exercises, pushing flames from their hands or making it rain. The skills were as diverse as the children. She watched as one made a flower grow from between the stones, and the others laughed at her.
But there was something else about this child, something stronger than any of them realised.
As the taunting continued, the little flower turned into something much darker. It grew stronger, and the priestess could see the strength of the child in it as it wrapped around another child’s arm. She wanted to watch what happened, to see if the child would go as far as the priestess felt she would. But her host stepped in and ended the situation.
There was so much more the priestess wanted to see, but she had no control here. She needed to find the hidden princess and what she was doing with her time. They were both linked to this place. They had a shared history, and the high priestess wondered if this view into the past was a way of seeing into the future.
She looked across the courtyard before she turned and headed away from the children. The black lacquered gate glinted in the hot sun, and she smiled. There was such a gate where she had trained on the Sacred Isle. In a little garden, tucked far away from the pilgrims.
Chapter 14
Lis could see nothing in the darkness beyond the black gate, and she stepped slowly through the opened gateway. The moon had disappeared again, and she could only make out dark shapes against darker shapes. She knew that her little palace had once housed a hidden princess, but were her dreams a window to the past? Had they all lived together at some point? Or was there something else about the hidden princesses she didn’t understand?
She tripped on something and stopped. Holding out her hands before her, she crept towards the closest large shadow, which she hoped was a building. She could feel no magic and yet, as in her dream, she could sense something. She knew it was there, but she couldn’t feel it.
She reached a step as her hand found the round, smooth wooden edge of the building. Had anyone else been here? Did others assume that workers or the like lived in these far reaches of the island? She looked up to the wall that surrounded the island and wondered who watched from the watch towers and what they might have seen. She had been inside part of the wall, but she wondered if she would ever have the chance to walk the entire distance of it. And just what she might see from there.
In the shadows, she felt her way up the steps that appeared to run the length of the building. She ran her hand over the stonework until she reached another rounded pillar, which edged an opening. Sucking in a deep breath, she stepped inside, where the air was thick with dust and something else. A sadness washed over her, and she wondered if it was a remnant of the girls who had lived there.
Stepping forward slowly, and with her hand still on the post, Lis turned into the room and felt along the wall. The stone was the same as she had felt on the outside of the building. She bumped into a bench or table, the edge sharp in her thigh. It scraped across the floor, causing her to cringe, worried it might alert someone to her presence.
Feeling across the table, she found a candle sitting in a round holder. She felt around again but couldn’t find anything else on the table. She picked up the candle and held the end up to her face, then breathed slowly onto it. When nothing happened, she shook her head. She hadn’t really thought anything would. She had breathed life into coals before, but only when there was already heat there. She tried to visualise the flames that danced across the prince’s knuckles and then breathed across the candle again. As she leaned back, the flame sparked to life and lit a small part of the world around her.
She was tempted to put it down for a moment, unsure whether she had managed to bring it to life. As she looked around, she realised she was no longer hidden, and she wasn’t sure if she had done that herself or if using her skills to light the candle had changed something.
It didn’t matter. If she found anyone else in the building, she would only have to blow out the candle to be hidden. She took a deep breath and turned to face the room. It was a long dormitory-style space with beds along the walls, each one heavily curtained with a wide step up to it. Before each bed was a small table. Lis looked down the room, which was much longer than she had first imagined. At least forty beds were lined along the wall. Did that mean there had been forty hidden princesses at any one time?
She closed her eyes and tried to remember how many girls she had seen in the courtyard in her dream, but she wasn’t sure. Then she remembered looking along the line during her own Choosing. There had only been fifteen girls lined up before the royal family that day. There had been closer to forty when her sister had lined up as a child. If Lis had moved with the other young women into such a place to train for the crown prince, it may have been a very different life.
Spiderwebs and dust coated the once-fine fabrics on the beds and the surface of every table. Could this really have been what she thought it was? Had it been so long since it had been used? Was that why the gate was locked? Or was it only stuck?
So many little girls. Lis wondered if their families knew the truth of what they were and what had happened to them. Or had they been told stories of how they had somehow gone into service for t
he royal family? This was after the years of the concubines, so they wouldn’t have provided any heirs for the royal line. Lis wondered absently if the laws might change if an empress could not produce a son.
She sighed. She was likely to be the first in a very long time. The room overwhelmed her, so she took the small candle and headed outside. The candle didn’t light much beyond the steps on which she stood, and she wondered if she would have to walk every inch of this compound to discover its secrets.
She headed down the steps and across the rough-paved path. Weeds pushed up between the stones; the gravel had been lost to the ground long ago. A branch caught her unawares, and she jumped as it appeared out of the darkness. She put her hand to her chest. It was only a tree. If there had been a garden here, it had likely tried to take over. But then, Lis liked gardens and she had not been able to sit in her own. Not that it was hers. Mu-Phi had once mentioned that the whole of the Empire belonged to her—or at least it would when she was Empress—and Lis had laughed at the notion, certain the crown prince would not let it get to that stage. But she liked the idea of being free enough to travel wherever she wanted.
The path met more steps, and she found herself in a gazebo, surprisingly free of dust and cobwebs, overlooking dark water. She looked around more closely, worried there was someone here and she would soon be discovered walking through their garden.
She couldn’t sense anything around her. Even in the water, there was no sign of fish or life. She turned and squinted back the way she had come. She had seen the grasses growing, and the tree, but now that she reached out, she couldn’t sense any life.
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 38
