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“There you go. Wasn’t so bad, right?” Yelena gave her the last glass lantern. “Apply the same to this.”

This incantation was more complicated than the last—their practice taking up a full two hours before even one person caught a flicker of light within their lanterns.

“Almost there,” Yelena said to the student who’d made this breakthrough. “Keep going.”

By the end of the day, one student completed their task—a bright, white-gold flame contained perfectly inside the lantern between her hands. She beamed from ear to ear .

“Congratulations, Vera.” Yelena took the lantern, then placed it at the front of the training room for everyone to see. “This is what you are all striving to achieve. To the rest of you, go home, eat, sleep, and come back tomorrow, ready to try again.”

The students filed out of the room, but Adelina remained, reluctant to abandon her task. Kira and Lev waved to her as they left.

Yelena crossed her arms. “My dear, you need to give your mind a break. Remember what I said—there are consequences to magic. This will be heightened if you do not regain your strength.”

Adelina scratched the side of her head. “I know, but I don’t want to disappoint Filip or anyone else who is relying on me to get this right.”

“It’s your first day.” Yelena rested her hand on Adelina’s arm and patted. “You have plenty of time to achieve great things.”

“You’re right,” Adelina said. “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yelena guided Adelina outside, locking the wooden doors behind her.

Salma met Adelina in the gardens, then strolled with her back to the palace. “How was your first day?”

“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Adelina said as a bird flew overhead and landed in its nest amongst the aspens. “Perhaps I assumed it would be a little easier seeing as I supposedly have an ancient form of magic no one else has.”

“It takes time. It’s day one, after all,” Salma said. “Let’s go for supper. Then how about we write those letters to your family? Maybe some needlepoint too. ”

Adelina smiled, reassured by her care. “I’d like that.”

∞∞∞

Filip’s fingers curled around a letter addressed to Adelina. Shutting himself in his office, he dug the letter opener from his desk drawer, then slid it through the sealed envelope.

He flattened the parchment against the desk and sat on his chair as he scanned the cursive writing.

“This won’t do,” he muttered to himself, tapping the word Damir scrawled at the end.

A possible suiter for her would place a considerable block onto his plan to wed her himself and secure a line of heirs for the position of emperor.

Wandering over to the hearth, he tossed the parchment into the flames, and watched it burn. The fire crackled and swelled with its new fuel.

The corners blackened, and within moments, the whole thing turned to ash.

He rested his hand on the mantelpiece. Although he could burn the letters from Damir, he couldn’t stop her from writing to him.

Damir had already approached her father to ask her permission to wed her—at least as far as he could tell from the letters he’d read.

There could be another letter on its way—from her parents, providing Adelina with the knowledge.

Crossing the length of the office, he flung open the door and beckoned the nearest servant. “Has any other mail come for Adelina? ”

“No, sir.” She curtsied.

“From now on, any mail comes to me first,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” She dashed off in the direction of the kitchens.

∞∞∞

Two days passed before all the students successfully lit matches and their respective lanterns.

The rest of the week was spent learning combat moves.

Yelena had brought out training dummies made of cloth and stuffed with feathers.

Boxes of batons were positioned close by, and Adelina spent her time getting used to the weight of it in her hands, the force of her blows against the dummies.

Being the rural village girl she was, her muscles were not as defined as they should be.

After an hour of exercise, sweat dripped down her forehead, and by the end of the first day, her muscles screamed in protest.

When Friday came, the students gathered in the gardens. They stood in single file lines, a metre apart, in front of Yelena.

Birds sung nearby and the rising sun warmed Adelina’s cheeks.

“Today, you’ll put into practice what you have learned over the past few days.

The purpose of this exercise is to test your ability to sustain prolonged, substantial physical and mental efforts.

” Yelena’s gaze wandered from one student to the next.

“Your body and mind have been challenged up to this point, preparing you in the event of an emergency. There may arise a situation where you must escape quickly, defend yourself and others, and at worst, engage in combat with an enemy.”

Adelina glanced at the boxes positioned beside them—wooden swords and batons were stacked inside. Every muscle ached and she longed for a hot bath, but she wasn’t about to waste the strenuous efforts she’d put into learning combat skills.

“Once you’re in your pairs, you will fight each other with a melee weapon in the boxes nearby. Use what you’ve learned, parry, and your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.. After lunchtime, you will embark on a unique challenge in the prism world.”

Adelina frowned. Prism world? What in the realm was that? Several of the other students also shared puzzled expressions.

Yelena divided the students into pairs—Adelina and Lev stood opposite each other, both wielding a baton about two metres long.

“Ready?” Lev said.

“As I’ll ever be.” Adelina bit the inside of her cheek.

In one swift moment, Lev swung his baton towards her head, which she quickly parried, but his brute force sent her stumbling backwards. She teetered on the verge of losing balance. Of course, he was stronger than her.

Sweeping the stray strands of hair from her face, she lifted her baton and sucked in a deep breath.

They danced around the gardens—their weapons colliding, making mild clomping noises, which disturbed the nestling birds.

Lev’s next strike caught her in the rib. She hunched over, wheezing from the pain .

“Sorry,” he said.

A mixture of adrenaline and agitation pumped through her. She refused to yield.

Yelena observed nearby. “Remember what I said—learn your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. He is strong and considerably taller than you are. You are small and light on your feet. Time your blocks, dart out of the way when you can, and aim for his exposed spots.”

Adelina nodded, her cheeks and lungs burning from exertion.

As Lev swung for her, she leapt aside, leading him on a chase around the bushes. When he came close, she parried his attacks. He panted, and his movements grew sloppier with each swing.

Ducking under an incoming blow, Adelina slid out of the way, raised her baton, then whacked it against his back, which sent him hurtling into a bush.

“Good,” Yelena said. “You’re learning.”

They continued their training for another hour, until they were breathless and bruised from the baton’s impact.

Sitting side by side on the stone bench beneath the aspens, Lev and Adelina gulped fresh water from their flasks. Once they were refreshed, they resumed their dance-like fight around the garden until noon, when they left for lunch.

Afterwards, they reconvened in the training room at the far end of the palace grounds.

“Now it is time to test your mind in the prism world.” Yelena’s steady gaze travelled from one student to another.

“Why do we need to use this prism world?” Kira asked. “We produced magic right here the other day. ”

“You did, but they were simple spells,” Yelena said. “The prism world is a place where you can practise more complex magic. No collateral damage means no innocent civilians will be impacted by your errors. Consequences of failed and uncontrolled magic will affect you and you, alone.”

“How do we access it?” Lev asked.

“I will create a passageway for each of you to walk through. It’ll take you to a dimension that is a prism in essence, displaying your world identically on two shapes facing each other.

This mirror reflection of your behaviour will educate you in better ways than I can.

Learn from the consequences your actions create.

” Yelena stepped out from behind her desk at the front of the training room and lifted her sleeves.

She flexed her fingers, and with her right index finger pointed, drew it through the air in a large, circular motion.

The hairs on the back of Adelina’s neck stood on end. A sparkling golden hoop zapped into existence beside Yelena.

“Go on through, one at a time. You’ll each be taken to your own layer of the prism world,” Yelena said. “When you are due return, another passageway will appear.”

The students were hesitant at first, lingering behind their desks, until Lev led the way. Kira followed in afterwards, and so did the others, until Adelina was left in the room with Yelena.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “You’ll do fine.

Everything you’ll learn will be for good and practical reasons.

Take the match, for example—you might need this to light a fire, and once you can produce bigger flames, you can light a hearth or several camps if you’re out in the wild with civilians. You can keep people warm.”

Adelina nodded once, ignored the tense knots forming in her stomach, and edged closer to the flickering portal. She wiped her clammy hands against her breeches, then lifted her foot and stepped through the passageway.

On the other side, she appeared in the gardens of the palace, and as Yelena had described, the garden was mirrored on both parallel sides of the prism. Adelina could see her own reflection. There were three of her.

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and wandered along the grass—the space in between the two shapes.