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Aliya

T HERE WAS ONLY ONE thing worse than realizing you were alone in this world, and that was knowing that fact would never change. I was the last of my line. The final princess of my kingdom.

But was it really a kingdom without people? Without staff, without villagers?

I got up from my plush seat in the library and wandered over to the window that looked out over our once vibrant town.

If I closed my eyes and focused really hard, I could still see my people out there in the streets.

Mothers carrying their babies as they walked along the cobblestone streets.

Market stall vendors bartering their wares.

They’d all died when the plague came. First, the old and sick had left us. But then the healthy and young too. Then my parents. My strong, healthy, beloved king and queen.

I’d waited for my own death to arrive as everyone I loved crumpled around me.

They’d all died of that terrible sickness.

Everyone but me.

The brush of a fluffy tail against my leg had me looking down, happiness filling my heart. “Everyone except you, my dear one.”

I picked up my closest friend, my only companion. Willow, my cat. She cuddled into my arms, nestling in and purring loudly.

“But you’ll leave me too one day, won’t you?” I asked aloud, scratching her head and pressing my cheek to hers. The idea of losing Willow also made my heart fill with dread.

Then the thought struck me... Did she really have to die also?

My jaw dropped open in shock as the question resonated inside my head. Well, did she?

None of my parents’ money nor their power had saved them.

I’d been told we’d been Wielders, once upon a time.

Magic users that could tap into the ether and channel it into the world.

But once we had succeeded in vanquishing our enemies of the past—the black wolves—my forefathers had let their magic fall into obscurity.

By the time my parents were born, magic was a thing of the past. No one had practiced or taught the knowledge of the Wielders for a hundred years.

I had no skills, no powers. Though my father had always said that my intuition skills were strong, and I’d always been taught to follow the nudge of what my mother called “the spirits”. My guides.

My gaze slid to the top of the bookshelves, where dust gathered on the ancient leather spines untouched for so long. I wasn’t even sure they were written in a language I’d be able to understand.

I couldn’t study magic, could I? Learn those things that had been left behind by my ancestors? If I could extend Willow’s life, or change my future in some way, wouldn’t it be worth the effort and trouble?

And if I didn’t succeed and failed miserably, what had I lost? Nothing but time. The only thing I had in abundance.

The words were out of my mouth before I’d decided to say them. “What else have I got to do?”

I kissed the top of my cat’s head and put her down on the red carpet beneath our feet. She stretched, arching her back, then jumped up onto the seat I’d just vacated, circled the area and curled up onto a pillow.

I put a hand on my hip and mock-glared at her. “Don’t suppose you want to climb to the top shelf and grab those books for me?”

The cat closed her eyes and made a contented snuff as she fell asleep.

“Great. Okay. No help there. Okay... I can do this.”

I walked across to the ladder that extended to the top of the twenty-foot-tall bookshelf and tugged it across the railings until it was lined up with the stack of books my intuition was pulling me toward.

I grabbed hold of the ladder railing and shook my head, calling myself all types of a fool. If I fell, there was no one around to help me. I’d lie crippled on the floor and die even slower than the plague would’ve taken me.

“You won’t fall. Just get up there.” I shook myself and started climbing.

When I was younger, I would have scaled this ladder in moments, then ridden it down like a slide. But my fears had increased with each passing day that I’d been alone. And there were too many to count now.

“Who are you kidding?” I told myself, having a two-way conversation with my thoughts. Another silly habit I’d picked up. “You know exactly how many days it’s been. Four hundred and twenty-two.”

I lifted my legs slowly, climbing higher and higher. My heart banged in my chest as an unreasonable amount of fear pulsed through me.

I got right to the top and didn’t look down. I took some steadying breaths and stared at the dusty shelves of books. Huge books, in fact. I’d never seen such thick, leather-bound tomes before, or at least had never looked up at these to notice their size.

I had no way of truly knowing if any of their pages held the history or secrets of wielding magic. But I’d scour through every single one until I found out. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

I reached out, letting my intuition guide me.

At first, I went to grab one with gold writing on the spine, but at the last minute, I grabbed the book next to it. That one was slightly thinner and had no writing on the spine at all.

I pulled it out, then gripped it hard.

Now it was time to get down. “Shit. I didn’t think this through properly.”

I didn’t want to throw the book down to the floor. It was old and probably wouldn’t survive the fall. But neither would I. How the hell was I going to get down in one piece now?

Feeling defeated, I went to put the book back on the shelf, but my intuition began to sing. I couldn’t push it back in. Everything in me tingled and told me to take the book. Hold it. Read it.

Don’t put it back.

“Okay, okay,” I hissed at the voice in my head.

So how the hell was I going to get down with it?

I decided to try descending one-handed, clutching the book tightly to my chest with my left hand. That idea worked surprisingly well, and after a short minute or two of shaky, hesitant steps, I had my feet back on solid ground.

“Oh, thank God.” My knees wobbled, and happily, with no one around to witness my ridiculousness, I sank onto the plush carpet at my feet. “Whoa, that was intense.”

I knew that talking to myself was strange and probably a sign that I was losing my mind.

But with not a single human for company for over a year, I’d go insane without some noise to break the incessant silence.

On the bright side, I hadn’t begun imagining that Willow talked back, and I took that as a good sign.

I crossed my legs and pulled the book closer to me, studying the front cover. There was no image, only large cursive letters embossed with gold paint.

“Wow. That’s so pretty.”

My voice was a little high and chirpy today, which was a welcome change. After my parents died last year, I’d sunk into a pit of despair that I never thought I’d climb from. If I hadn’t needed to get out of bed to feed Willow, I wasn’t sure I would have eaten myself.

It had taken a lot of conscious energy to stay alive and awake. I’d had to maintain the vegetable garden after going through most of the food stores, and though I had yet to attempt slaughtering one of the chickens in the royal coop, I kept them fed and watered and collected their eggs every day.

It would have been so easy to just let myself go. Not get up to eat or drink water. Hope and pray for the moment I could join my family in death.

Why I’d survived the plague, I still didn’t know. Before they died, the elders had said I was blessed. Immune. Strong.

Special.

Alone in a huge castle filled with nothing but memories and empty rooms wasn’t what I considered blessed.

I shook myself, pushing away all the horrible feelings that threatened to drag me down. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

I began to read the book in front of me. The first few pages seemed to be mostly about the history of Varinya, our once great kingdom. About the black wolves, our enemy. How they’d torn through the woods and attacked our home, again and again for generations.

I’d heard those tales since I was a small child. My bedtime stories hadn’t been of princesses falling in love, but instead of kings and queens beating the black wolves back from the borders of Varinya.

Quite literally. My great-grandparents had been warriors. They’d been magical and powerful and had hunted the wolves to extinction. It seemed so strange to me that after all their efforts and sacrifice, the greatest threat had come from an organism that was so much smaller.

I sighed as I picked the book up and walked over to a corner couch. I shook the dust off a pillow and flopped down onto the cushions. Time to get reading.

After the preface on the history, the book turned into a magical guide. Each page revealed a new spell, ranging from trivial and mundane tasks to complicated and deadly spells.

The details and instructions were written in the modern tongue, but the incantations were in the old language. Some words were complete gibberish to me, while others glowed and sang to me in a strange way. Almost like reading music, if notes jumped off the page.

Could I actually attempt one of these? Even if I could work out the pronunciation of the ancient words, did I have it in me to perform this sort of magic?

Some of the spells also involved complex arm and hand choreography, like movements to a dance. Others required specific ingredients, most of which I’d never even heard of.

If I was going to try any of them, it needed to be something simple and basic, just to test if I had any magical aptitude at all. No sense in memorizing dance moves if I turned out to be a dud.

I flipped through page after page, searching for a spell I’d be brave enough to tackle while also pawing over those that were much more difficult and wondrous.

So many possibilities in this precious book. Spells for healing, spells for harming. Spells to help you remember or make you forget. Spells for bringing luck and spells for cursing. Sleeping spells, elemental spells, combat spells. There were so many!

At last, I found one that not only seemed fairly simple but would also help me with a current predicament—if it worked.

Filled with a mixture of excitement, curiosity, and foolishness, I hopped off the couch and took the book through the castle and out the kitchen exit to the garden. The damp earth felt nice on my bare feet, and I didn’t care that I’d track in clumped dirt when I went back inside.

I made my way through the various vegetable plots until I reached the rather pitiful looking tomato plants. Despite my best efforts, the thick bushes wouldn’t bear fruit. I had trimmed them and watered them carefully all spring, but the stalks would just fill out with more leaves.

Considering that tomatoes were a major component to most Varinyan recipes I knew, they were a vital food source to me. Sure, I could survive on potatoes, carrots and leafy greens, but tomatoes offered such rich flavor, and I really craved that small comfort.

I knelt beside the garden bed and looked down at the open book in my lap. The spell was called Fruit of the Earth , intended to tap into the magic in plants to help them thrive and bring forth fruit. It was a simple incantation.

Aste brennum vuarte.

I had no idea what the actual words meant, but I didn’t think that mattered.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” I said.

I looked at my tomato plants and concentrated on that place inside me where I felt the tug of intuition. Then I spoke the words aloud.

“Aste brennum vuarte.”

I waited, holding my breath and staring at the plants, but nothing happened.

Sighing in disappointment, I hung my head and looked down at the page. Something tugged inside me, guiding my gaze to the instructions.

“Ugh! Idiot,” I mumbled.

I was supposed to be touching the plant while I spoke. I took a long breath and flung out my fingers before putting both hands on the base of the stalk in front of me, then repeated the words, concentrating again.

A soothing yet exhilarating warmth pooled in my belly, then trickled up my chest, across my shoulders, and down my arms. I could see the faintest golden glow radiating from my hands as the warmth transferred into the stalk.

When the warmth left me, I felt oddly cold and drained.

But I ignored those sensations as I stared open-mouthed at the ends of the branches, which all at once sprouted little yellow flowers, then green bulbs.

To my amazement, right in front of my eyes, the bulbs grew and turned from green to vibrant red as they became plump, juicy tomatoes.

Holy shit! I actually did it! I can wield!

So many possibilities were now open to me. I could change my life for the better, could ensure that Willow and I stayed healthy and lived long lives.

Maybe I could even find a spell to help me locate survivors, if there were any. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be alone for the rest of my life!

I reached up and wrapped my hand around a fat tomato, then plucked it off the stem. It felt so delightfully firm. Bringing it to my lips, I took a big bite.

Oh, sweet heavens! I couldn’t remember the last time I’d tasted something so delicious. I devoured the whole thing, letting the juices run down either side of my mouth and soak into the fabric of my thin slip.

I was a Wielder, and I was going to study every inch of this book, memorize every word, and make my ancestors proud.