Chapter 1

Bremi

Vhoig is so beautiful this time of year. 

I turn at the sound of laughter, and my long hair floats behind me. The sunlight dances off my platinum tresses as I turn to see Rina, my friend. 

She walks up to me, her eyes sparkling with happiness, and I lean down to hug her. 

“The gardens are so beautiful this time of year,” Rina says, and her words echo almost exactly what I was thinking mere minutes ago. 

“Well, your father is the head groundskeeper, so, of course, the gardens are looking beautiful,” I tell her as we walk towards the house I grew up in. 

Rina smiles unaffectedly. Her father is a talented zagfer who has always managed to manipulate the gardens to reflect what my mother and father want. 

My parents aren’t gaudy or extravagant with their wealth, even though they’re part of the royal family of Vhoig. Kral and Amelie Ishiraya. The first dark elf and human pair, at least publicly.

 I’m lucky, I know, to have grown up with such a loving family. Like how my mother, instead of ordering Rina’s father to plant the most exotic blooms, asks him to keep things simple so their resources can go to their servants, their people.

But that still doesn’t change the life I grew up with. The pressure. 

I swallow back the emotion building as I enter the living room on the ground floor behind Rina, and we pass the enormous mirrored wall as we walk towards the library. 

I pause for a minute and listen to Rina’s chatter as she disappears into the library, and I look at myself in the mirrored wall. 

A young woman who I am not quite familiar with, but who I grew up with, stares back at me. 

A young woman with long, bright blonde hair and pale gray skin. 

A young woman with bright blue eyes, and a tall, slender frame. 

“I’m coming!” I call distractedly to Rina, who peers at me from around the library door. 

I wait until she disappears before I take a moment to get reacquainted with myself. 

It seems I grew up overnight. I mean, I knew I was growing up. I knew I was becoming an adult. 

But it happened so quickly. There was virtually no time between my childhood and young adulthood. 

Now, when I pass mirrors or reflective surfaces, I turn and look at myself, and I expect to see a child, an adolescent. 

Get used to it, I think to myself almost harshly. 

And then, as I shoulder this new burden of age and adulthood, I go to join Rina in the library. 

Rina and I have been friends since we were both children. Luckily for me, my parents did not insist on me spending all my time with other noble children.

“Are you ready for today’s lesson?” Rina asks me excitedly, and I cannot help but smile at her enthusiasm. 

“I don’t know.” My voice is wry. “I think I’m still quite exhausted from yesterday.” 

Rina pouts and rolls her eyes. 

“We barely did anything yesterday! And besides, the more you practice, the less tiring it will be!”

I know she’s right, and I also know that I need to practice using my magic as much as possible. 

This is part of that burden of adulthood, I think grimly to myself. 

Rina opens the large floor-length windows that line the library walls, and I inhale deeply as fresh, sweet air flows into the room. 

I know that in a way, Rina lives vicariously through me. All dark elves have magic abilities, even zagfers, but she can only wield a very low level of magic.

Unlike me.

My father is the most powerful dark elf, they say. As a child, he had to have his emotions sealed away to protect himself and everyone else.

But that all changed when he met my mother. 

I inhale again and summon the elements to me. I shudder slightly at the rush of power that wells up inside me, and when I exhale, I do so in the direction of the fireplace. 

Rina squeals and claps her hands when a fire bursts into life in the fireplace, even though there wasn’t even a piece of wood in the grate a second ago. 

Starting the fire is just a warm-up, and we move on to more difficult tasks as the afternoon progresses. 

“Your tutors are going to be so happy about the progress you’ve made,” she gushes, and I cannot suppress my smile at the unadulterated joy on her face. 

The thing I love most about Rina is that she doesn’t feel any animosity towards me for being royal or wielding more powerful magic than her. 

Instead, she’s just… happy for me. 

“They aren’t going to be too happy about the fact that I’ve just focused on elemental magic,” I tell her, although that is what we’ve spent so much time focusing on. 

“We can start on the arcane tomorrow,” she reassures. The afternoon passes sweetly, slowly, and ends with Rina and I sitting on the floor with a feast of sandwiches and pastries spread out in front of us. 

Practicing my magic always exhausts me, and right now there is a pit in my stomach from all the exertion, so I shovel the delicious food down until I lean back, finally full. 

“We should take a walk,” Rina says slightly sleepily. “I will need to get back to my duties soon. I need to get some fresh air before I go back to the kitchens.” 

I nod in agreement. 

I also need the fresh air. I’ll probably be spending the rest of the night pouring over old texts. My tutors are nothing if not thorough in my training and seem to want me to learn every language, every form of magic, and every fighting style. 

We walk languidly onto the terrace, and then down the steps. I see them then. 

My parents. 

Kral and Amelie. 

The Archduke and his wife. 

To everyone else, they are a symbol, either for better or worse. They mean something. To me, they are just my parents. And something I aspire to. 

I want a love like theirs. But sometimes… I don’t know if the gods have planned it for me. 

They stand at the far end of the gardens, underneath a bough of flowers that is always in bloom. 

They are in a half-embrace, and the scene looks like something out of a fairytale. My mother wears a long, pale blue gown and her hair is piled on top of her head. 

My father is bent towards her, wearing his typical tunic and pants. Both pieces are embroidered with a fine thread, the colors the only thing showing his royal status. He’s never been one to flaunt it – just his love with my mother. 

They are surrounded by bushes of rirzed herbs, and the color of the purple-blue flowers is bright and almost harsh in contrast to them. 

I pull Rina to the side quickly, before they can see either of us. My parents are quite aware that if Rina is around, I am close by, and vice versa. 

“They must have been at some kind of royal meeting,” I say to Rina as we hide behind a tall hedgerow. 

“Your mother doesn’t look happy,” Rina comments, and as I glance through the greenery, I think she’s right. 

My mother’s face is twisted unhappily, and it is clear that my father is trying to placate her. 

“I need to know what they’re saying,” I whisper.

Rina looks very uncomfortable about this, but I don’t care. 

Something that I have learned over the past year is that, while I may be an adult now, my parents confide in me less than they did when I was a child. 

I wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t talking about me. But lately, all the private conversations they have are about me. 

And it isn’t fair! 

The anger of my thoughts shocks me. Rina and I walk up close to where my parents are standing. 

We are almost in earshot of them, and I listen closely. 

“…can’t let her keep flirting with everything that walks by…” My father’s voice, trying to be reasonable. 

“…can’t force her either!” My mother’s voice, upset and indignant. 

“…do you expect? She’s beautiful and powerful. We need to get her settled down before every bit of riff-raff comes around…”

The argument continues, but I cannot hear much. 

I inhale deeply and summon the elements to me again. It is time to use my magic. 

I summon the wind towards me and use the air current to push their voices my way. 

But instead of their voices being magnified, my parents go still. 

Shit. 

I forgot that my father can sense my magic if I’m using it close by. 

“Bremi?” he calls, and Rina and I scurry away before he can really catch us in the act. 

“What was that about?” Rina asks me breathlessly when we have reached the kitchens. 

“I don’t know.” I don’t know if I am ready to talk about it yet. “I should get back to work,” I tell Rina and flash her a brief smile before I hurry upstairs. 

So they want to pair me off with someone? Why were they fighting over it? 

I spend the rest of the day and evening mulling over what I overheard between my parents. 

It is true that since my eighteenth birthday, I’ve had many suitors come knocking. None of them have particularly interested me, but I have just been having fun. 

I haven’t taken any of them seriously, but it is clear that my father considers this whole thing a very serious matter. 

I try to stretch out on my bed and focus on the ancient texts that I am supposed to study. 

But no matter how hard I try, I cannot focus on the work in front of me. Instead of the text, all I can see are my parents’ faces. And all I can hear are their voices and the argument they were having. 

About me. 

I love my parents more than anything in this world. And I do not want them to be upset about me. 

But I am also not sure that I want to settle down with a partner just yet. 

Later on, I hear footsteps outside my door. There is a gentle, faint knock, followed by my mother’s voice calling my name. 

I consider getting up to speak to her. But I stay still, staring at the wall. 

After a while, I hear footsteps again, walking away from my bedroom. 

What should I do about this? What should I do? 

Sleep feels impossible, but soon I find myself drifting away. But still, my parents’ conversation remains in my mind, sticking with me in my dreams.