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RYN

It was a sin to be an Adriel.

Ryn learned this the hard way more than once.

The first time was the day her father had purchased false identity cards and told them they were changing their names and their religion.

Ryn’s mother had protested—she’d loved their Adriel names, and she’d loved the Adriel God.

She insisted there were still places in Per-Siana where Adriels could go without being persecuted.

But Ryn’s father didn’t want that; he wanted to be like everybody else—like the Weylin people.

Like those who ruled the kingdom and served the seven primary Celestial Divinities.

Like the royal family, and the famous warriors, and the renowned magicians.

It was an alluring lifestyle, but it was one Ryn’s mother had never wanted.

After all his arguments for why he needed a better life than the beautiful, simple one Ryn’s mother had built, Ryn didn’t miss her father after he left.

She was, perhaps, the reason he left. She did ask him to find her a type of rose that didn’t exist, after all. He was simply too dull to realize it, or maybe he knew and only pretended to take the task seriously the day he vanished. It made no difference to Ryn.

It wasn’t long after that her mother was arrested for an act of thievery she didn’t commit.

Even under the pressure of interrogation with the Folke, Ryn’s mother never admitted she had an Adriel daughter.

The day she was dragged out the front door of their house, she shoved Ryn into a cupboard and said, “Adassah! Go find your cousin Mordekai in the Mother City! He’ll keep you safe! ”

Adassah Cahana. Her Adriel name. Her birth name. Her mother had used it by accident in the heat of the moment even though local persecution had driven them to start using the false Weylin names her father had purchased a year and a half before.

Her mother had closed the cupboard door, and Ryn listened as the Folke took her mother away. Her mother never returned.

The journey to hunt for Kai in the Mother City had been dreadful and frightening that week, but Ryn finally found him after eight days of living on the streets.

She was nearly starved to death when Kai scooped her up off the roadside and carried her home with his friends from the Priesthood.

Kai was the one who’d investigated and discovered that Ryn’s mother had died after contracting the cinder plague in prison.

She’d died alone. All because she was an Adriel, and their Weylin neighbours discovered it and thought it would be funny to accuse her of thievery.

Weylins had killed Ryn’s mother and laughed about it.

For years after Kai had taken Ryn into his care, he spent his evenings teaching Ryn the scriptures and the ways of the Priesthood.

Ryn wasn’t that interested in learning, but she let him talk for hours anyway.

She let him teach her Adriel songs from the hymnary.

She let him guide her through the basic customary prayers.

His voice was a familiar comfort, and even though he was only two years older than Ryn, he was more of a father than her real one had ever been.

Ryn’s room in the palace was cooler in the morning.

The window had been left open for most of the night, even after she and Heva climbed back inside.

It wasn’t an easy task to get back over the outer wall, to navigate the gardens, and to climb the side of the palace to Ryn’s room without anyone noticing.

Both girls had barely made a sound during the journey, giving each other glances and signals about when to move and when to wait.

But it was much easier travelling in a pair than when Ryn had tried to do it on her own.

Maids brought hot tea, unleavened bread sprinkled with sugar, and fresh pomegranate seeds on a silver tray at dawn.

Ryn nibbled on the bread, but found it had no taste.

After a while, her stomach rolled with queasiness and she gave up trying to eat.

Even as the warm sun spilled gold over the Mother City, Ryn’s fingers were stiff and cold.

Whatever promises she’d made to the Priesthood the night before sat heavily now.

She’d never be Queen because she couldn’t steal a heart from a king who didn’t have one.

So, how could a frail, antisocial Adriel girl assassinate a powerful, murderous King?

Never mind that she had no chance of outsmarting the Intelligentsia who surrounded him at all times.

Ryn nearly dropped her teacup when Marcan barged in; the large doors swung around and slapped the walls with a thud . “I was up all night,” he announced. Two assistants trailed in behind him carrying a delicate tapestry studded with thousands of tiny, navy gems.

“That makes three of us,” Heva mumbled, too quiet for Marcan to hear. She stole the rest of Ryn’s bread and took a bite. Sugar spilled down her chin and she swiped at it with her fingers.

When Marcan lifted the jeweled fabric from the assistants, Ryn realized it wasn’t a tapestry at all.

She leapt to her feet. “What is that?” she demanded.

A smile broke across her artist’s face. “It’s your introduction dress, Lady Estheryn. It’s a mosaic, like you suggested.”

No. That wasn’t a simple mosaic made to sit at the back of a dining room.

That dress was a centrepiece, the sort of attention-grabbing display that could be featured as the main attraction at a Divinities Museum.

With thin tulle skirts and a bodice of enough gems to make the stars envious, it was the last thing Ryn wanted to be caught dead in.

“Wow. Nice,” Heva remarked. She tried to poke the navy skirt with a sugar covered finger, but Marcan slapped her hand away.

“I can’t wear that!” Ryn exclaimed.

Marcan raised a brow and frowned. “Why ever not?”

“It’s… It’s beautiful!” Ryn said in horror. “There’s real gold in the skirt , and how many gemstones did you use? A thousand?”

“ Several thousand.” Marcan smiled, and Ryn slapped a hand over her eyes. “I had a few assistants help me place them all. This, Maiden, is what I call a diamond painting. Can’t you see how it resembles the starry heavens?”

Ryn swallowed the lump in her throat. The King would notice her in that dress. Everyone would notice her. People would talk about her, look into her background, and discover who she really was.

“I’m sorry, Marcan, but I can’t.” Ryn fanned her hot cheeks. She was supposed to be a quiet spy. She was supposed to hide. She was supposed to never be here in the first place.

Marcan’s smile faded. The wobbly pout that replaced it put a twisting feeling in Ryn’s chest. “Please, Ryn. This will save my reputation,” Marcan rasped. His brows pulled together, and Ryn wished she’d never looked him in his eyes.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Marcan was yanked from his home and ordered to be a part of this Heartstealer period the same way she was.

It wasn’t fair that she could relate to his fear of the unknown to come.

It wasn’t fair that he looked like a helpless mouse caught in a trap when his eyes grew large and misty like that.

“Divinities, Marcan. Fine.” Ryn’s shoulders dropped. “I’ll put it on.”

It wasn’t fair, most of all, that Ryn was the one who had to wear the dress. She glanced at Heva, who was no help.

Marcan’s face lit up. “You’ll be the talk of the introductions this morning, Estheryn. Trust me—this will turn heads.”

Ryn wanted to curse.

It took almost an hour for Marcan to fit Ryn into the dress.

A number of other artists—Marcan’s “friends”—began smearing colours and chalky things onto Ryn’s face after that.

She winced, until Marcan told her to relax so his friends could work.

“I don’t do makeup,” he explained, not that she’d asked.

“But it’s important you look like you belong.

” He stole a repulsed look at where her gardening dress hung over the back of a chair in the sitting room.

Marcan and his assistants left two hours later, and Ryn raced to the mirror the second they were gone.

She didn’t recognize herself when she looked in.

A girl stood in a glittering dress with silk hair, a smooth face, and shimmering powders.

Even Heva’s jaw hung open as she crowded into the mirror space to see better.

The dirty gardener girl had vanished at some point in the last hours, and now a noble lady commanded the room.

“You still have scrapes on your arms,” Heva pointed out. “You’ll have to hide those. They’ll be a dead giveaway you’re not a Weylin noble if people see them.”

“Why? Are Weylin nobles invincible?” Ryn rolled her eyes.

Heva shot her a look. “They don’t hide when the Folke show up at their door, for starters.

They don’t try to fight them, either. And they don’t sneak around at night, they don’t get their clothes dirty, and they don’t look so painfully afraid all the time.

” The guardswoman swatted Ryn’s arm, and Ryn winced.

“Snap out of it. Don’t you want to save your people? ”

“Just because you’re an Adriel doesn’t mean you represent all the Adriel people when you speak to me.” Ryn rubbed her arm.

“I’m not an Adriel.”

Ryn looked Heva up and down, not that Folke armour or her silver-bead hairstyle gave any clues. “You’re not? But the Priesthood…”

“I’m of Weylin blood. I escaped a terrible home when I was little, and I found my way into a priestess’s temple not far from here.

High Priestess Geovani took me in and raised me,” Heva said.

“Speaking of which…” She glanced out the window and eyed the sun.

“We’re going to be late, Maiden.” She headed toward the door, but she paused in the doorway.

“Do you want me to call you Maiden or Ryn ? Or Estheryn ?” she asked.

Then, before Ryn could answer, she decided, “I’ll call you Maiden in front of others, and Ryn when it’s just us. ”

Heva led the way out.