Page 37

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Zolya stood in disbelief at what he was witnessing.

The ladies at court had gone mad.

Or at the very least were in their cups to be fighting one another.

“What is going on here?” he boomed, pausing the scene of chaos.

The wind and rain and ice shards dissipated as everyone froze, glancing his way. A lady in the corner gasped with relief as the silken scarf choking her fell to the ground, and the small cyclone of air made by her opponent disappeared.

“Please, carry on, ladies,” urged Princess Azla from the center of the fray before gliding toward where Zolya and Osko stood by the front of the glass atrium. “Sire.” She bowed. “Kidar Terz,” she acknowledged. “What an honor it is for you both to visit us.”

“ Azla ,” hissed Zolya, brows furrowed. “What is the meaning of this?”

“What?” She glanced to the view of her ladies, who had slowly resumed their fighting, though with less vigor now that they had an audience of the prince and Kidar Terz. “We are practicing our delicate magic, as we are meant to each afternoon.”

“There is nothing delicate about what is taking place in this room,” he admonished.

“Of course there is,” she argued. “We have our painting corner over there.” She gestured to where a group of women were working together to make razor-sharp shards of ice from a combination of their rain and freeze before the third woman flicked out a gust of wind, sending the shards to puncture a large stretched canvas. The collection of holes was making an impressive image of a flower. “Then we have Lady Beatrice and Lady Esme practicing their sculpting.” She pointed to where the two women were heating up balls of wax and lobbing the pellets at an ice block, the creation a sizzling, melting monstrosity. “Their style is quite avant-garde, wouldn’t you agree?”

Zolya lifted a brow sardonically. “And what is happening there, then?” He inclined his head to where one woman was commanding her wind to send strips of silk to tie another to a column.

“Fashion designing,” offered the princess.

Osko barked a laugh beside Zolya, not helping matters.

“Oh, come now, Zol,” said Osko, catching his disapproving glare. “This is all rather cute, is it not?”

“Cute?” managed the princess, eyes narrowing at how not cute she found such a comment.

“Yes,” said Osko. “You ladies attempting to do combat.”

“Attempting?” Azla’s brows shot up this time, along with her voice.

“There’s no need for you to learn to defend yourselves, Princess,” he placated. “That’s what we are for.”

“But then, pray tell, Kidar Terz,” Azla managed through a tight smile. “Who is there to defend us against you?”

Osko blinked, confused, before Zolya stepped in.

“Azla,” he tried again, though softer. “Do you think it wise to be practicing such ... different uses of your magic so publicly? Lord Drumel rushed to inform me the princess and her ladies had gone round the twist. Evidently, he was almost hit by a rogue splattering of hot wax?”

“Then I suppose he should have had a kidet present to protect him, right, Kidar Terz?” She grinned sweetly at his friend.

Osko’s cheeks reddened, his evident rising indignation soon to leave his lips, but Zolya tugged Azla away before the two could start a proper row like the rest in the room.

“What has gotten into you?” Zolya asked, bringing his sister-cousin to a secluded corner. The afternoon sun streamed through the glass panes at their side, adding warmth to her white hair and brown complexion.

She crossed her arms over her chest, a defiant posture she had often taken as a child whenever she found herself chastised by Zolya. “I’m merely spending my final days as I wish,” she argued.

The fight left Zolya in a whoosh.

“Azla,” he managed as an unfurling of pain filled his chest.

“Don’t,” she warned, sensing his changed mood, his pity. “This marriage merely has me realizing how much I haven’t learned, haven’t lived , despite my age. I am in my sixties yet have never been off this island. Did you know that? I have never actually seen Cādra besides what I can view through a telescope. Ever since I was a child, Alys has told me stories of the Pelk Forest, of her life and family in her clan, and yet I have never been allowed to see it. I have no real sense of where our staff come from or why they might want to live up here with us.”

“Alys should never have discussed her home with you,” said Zolya, frowning.

Azla glared at him, incredulous. “ That is what you took from all that I’ve said?” She tried to shove past him, but he snagged her arm.

“Wait,” he said. “I apologize. I did not know you wished to see Cādra,” he reasoned. “I can organize an outing for you and I to—”

“That’s not my point,” she shot back. “No Volari women have been allowed to leave this island.”

Zolya absorbed this information, his brows drawing together with discomfort. “That cannot be true.”

“It is.” Azla lifted her chin. “And if any have been, it’s only with a walled entourage of soldiers. While the men are allowed to fly wherever they wish whenever they wish, unaccompanied .”

“That is because it isn’t safe.”

“Isn’t safe for who?”

“For you, of course,” he snapped.

Her gaze was pure flame. “And why do you suppose that is?” she challenged. “Perhaps because we have never been taught to defend ourselves.”

Zolya let out an impatient breath. “You are the princess of Galia. The ladies at court the blessed descendants of High Gods. You are born into privilege to not need such training.”

“Privilege has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it.”

“Then why, sire , would you, the very definition of born privilege as the direct descendant of our king and queen and next in line for the throne, have been raised with sword in hand?”

“Because to hold a throne is only made possible by one’s ability to defend it,” argued Zolya. “If I couldn’t protect myself, how could I protect my kingdom? I have no other choice but to be who I was born and to obey my inherited responsibilities. Same as you and same as all in this room.”

Azla’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell as his words settled around them. A look of disappointment weighed on her features.

“And that is precisely my point, brother,” she said.

Brother.

The title pierced Zolya’s heart, pressed against his ever-present childhood longing to have been free to be more of a brother to Azla, for her to be more of a sister.

“What point?” he dared to ask.

“Choice,” she answered. “What good is privilege if having a choice is not included?”

Zolya remained silent, the question causing a suffocating panic to encircle his neck. Because the answer would not release either of them from the realities of their lives or their destined paths.

“You above all must see the truth in what I say,” implored Azla. “Both of us have been constrained by the laws of society, of titles and bloodlines. My whole life I have desperately followed those rules, Zolya, foolishly hoping that my obedience would grant me freedoms, grant me acceptance from our father—and perhaps even his love. But despite my efforts to be a ‘good princess,’ I merely remained his property, remained Galia ’s property.” She blinked quickly as if to eradicate the building of her tears. “And there lies the difference between us. You are meant to own, and I am meant to be sold. Just as every woman in this room is meant to be. We are property , Zolya. Property in that men can dictate who we are allowed to spend our time with, how we spend it, and who we marry. We may have been born with wings, same as you, but we have been grounded our whole lives. Even our magic is clipped and controlled. It is forever meant to remain delicate , unintrusive, a gentle spectacle. It might have taken me being sentenced to the sea to realize this, but I am over living by others’ rules or opinions of how I should behave to please and benefit others. I will not take these final days topside in vain. I am going to fly, Zolya,” she declared, her features pinched in determination. “Before my wings can no longer catch air, and there’s nothing you, or anyone, can say to change that. After all, I’ve already been given a death sentence—what more could I possibly lose?”

Zolya was pressed against the wall by Azla’s speech, her words pinning him like daggers, a searing sharp pain. He knew there were injustices in their world, but never had he realized just how oppressive they could be for some, for them . His attention fell to the women in the room, the scene unfolding in a new light.

The ladies were not fighting; they were flexing, stretching after being forced for decades, if not centuries, into a tight, contained box of decorum. Their skin was flushed, gazes exuberant, smiles wide, wings rustling as they learned just how capable they were by exploring a new use for their delicate magic. Zolya’s soldier sense noted how utterly terrifying and impressive their precision was, more so than many of his kidets.

Perhaps then you will learn how dangerous delicate can be. The words of Naru rose, taunting, in his mind.

Zolya looked back at Azla then, at the fire burning in her gaze, her radiating resolve.

Jealousy flooded him.

Not at her forced marriage, of course, but that she found herself in a unique position where she could confidently do whatever she bloody well pleased, and everyone else could go hang.

“You are right,” said Zolya.

Azla drew back, brows slamming down. “What?”

“You are right,” he repeated.

“About which part?”

“All of it.”

“I—” She stopped herself, clearly not having expected Zolya’s reaction.

“While I know I cannot begin to make up for the decades which you, or any of our ladies, have suffered through,” he began, “I hope you know you have an advocate in myself. If you wish to invite more ladies from the Isle and Sun Courts to these lessons, I will not stop you,” he explained. “Though I’m sure you’ll be hearing from many displeased parents soon,” he added sardonically. “As for seeing Cādra, I will work on organizing routine trips for whoever wishes to visit. I cannot promise them to be unchaperoned, but the biggest changes—”

“Thank you!” Azla surprised him with a hug.

He stood there for a moment, arms awkwardly at his sides, before he wrapped them around her waist. For as far back as he could recollect, never once had he or Azla ever embraced. A cold, forgotten part of his heart thawed as he breathed in her calming scent of cherry blossoms.

“You have no idea what having your support means to me,” Azla whispered close to his ear. “What it can mean for the future of Galia.” She stepped back, keeping her hands on his shoulders. “You will be a great king, Zolya.”

Pain filled his lungs on a quick inhale, Azla’s decree a well-aimed arrow piercing a lifetime of longing. It might not have been said by his father, but it still resonated deeply when said by his sister-cousin. His sister.

Zolya cleared his throat. “Yes, well,” he began, forcing a neutral tone. “There’s a long way yet until I sit on the throne.”

Something sharp danced through Azla’s gaze. “Perhaps,” she said as she turned back to take in the room.

Zolya frowned, a chill of unease stroking down his wings.

“Ms. Coster will be excited to learn she was right,” said Azla with a smile, quickly distracting him.

“Ms. Coster?” he asked, ignoring how his pulse began to race.

“Oh!” Azla glanced at him with chagrin. “You mustn’t punish her, Zolya.”

Punish? Now he was beginning to worry. “That wholly depends on what she did,” he replied.

“She didn’t do anything, really,” Azla backtracked. “She only suggested that my skills in delicate magic could hold purpose beyond making art.”

“Did she now?” His gaze narrowed.

“Yes, but it was I who experimented with what that purpose could be,” explained Azla. “And isn’t it marvelous what I found?”

Zolya regarded the room, taking in the madness.

“Marvelous,” he echoed sardonically.

Here was more evidence of Ms. Coster’s influence. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it.

The fact that she wasn’t even presently on Galia and yet had been able to fundamentally disrupt its centuries-old way of life was impressive if not terrifying.

Zolya dared to wonder what would happen when she returned.