“You are free to decorate as you wish,” he told me. He pointed to a door. “In your dressing room, on the dresser, you’ll find your first month’s stipend.”
I took in the room again. How much more could a noble own?
Orrik went to the shelves and began tugging on books so their spines jutted out. “I suggest you spend all of your spare time reading. Tomorrow, a courier will deliver a schedule for your lessons. Any questions?”
Thousands. Thousands upon thousands, all in a tangle. But there were some I wanted to ask the most, the ones that burned in my heart… “How long did he know?”
Orrik tilted his head as he moved two more books.
Don’t question your betters, Lily said in my mind. But that wasn’t my life anymore. Nobles questioned each other. “The Dragonmaster. All of this—my false life, this furniture, the teachers. It had to take time to prepare. He must have known about me.”
Orrik tugged on a spine, tapped it, pushed it back so it was even with the others. “I notified Merram the moment I learned of your manifestation. Arranging everything has been difficult, especially in secrecy, but he deemed it… necessary.”
Hope still burned in my chest, stupid but stubborn. The way Orrik had studied me the day we’d met, it had seemed like he was searching for a trace of someone. Could Merram be helping me because he had known my father?
I shoved hope away for the obvious. “Necessary because I’m a blue.”
Orrik’s finger lingered on the spine a heartbeat longer. Two. It fell away. “Yes.”
Tears stung my eyes. I sat on the sofa. The cushions were harder than the bench in the carriage. “Well. When do I see him?”
Orrik turned, his expression gentle. “The Dragonmaster is on the front. He will meet with all of the trainees when he returns.”
You’re not special. You’re a trainee like the rest.
Which was good, right? The Dragonmaster risked so much by bringing me to the Kyer. If he treated me special, people might notice.
“I myself leave tomorrow,” Orrik added, still gentle.
“Oh.” I was going to cry, dammit.
“Adara.” Orrik’s hand raised, just a little, as if he wanted to reach out. Warmth I’d never heard from him before filled his voice. “If you remember your story, all will be fine.”
Story. A kinder word than lie. When Orrik left the Kyer, the only person who knew the truth left as well. Adara of Threepines, age sixteen, daughter of Baronettess Juliana and Baronet Wilhelm… First One above, can I do this alone?
Maybe there was an altar somewhere. I’d always gone to the First One when I felt upset. Praying would be familiar… but I would remember that day again, praying then Garth’s hut burning when he told me no, there would be no adoption. If I went to the Kyer’s altar, I feared I wouldn’t be asking for guidance but instead screaming why, why, why?
That seemed a bit childish.
“You will find a place here,” Orrik said at my silence. “It will be difficult. There is a lot to learn. But the Kyer is made of good men and women, and they are more accepting of… eccentricity than the rest of Drageria. And don’t forget the dragons.”
That made me laugh, the thought of forgetting dragons.
Orrik gave me a rare smile. He lit some candles before leaving with his Light hovering above him.
The orange glow of real fire made my eyes ache after living with Orrik’s Light for so long. I curled on the sofa and rubbed my eyes so tears wouldn’t spill. I couldn’t allow myself to be upset. That’s what had happened the day of my manifestation. So I held in my tears and wished for the millionth time that Mother had never died.
Mother.
I blinked, hard. Hadn’t Krysta left all she’d ever known? A lady’s maid had comfort and elegance and food. Mother had left that life, left it for me. She’d became a seamstress, living in the corner of a too-full room, sewing by moonlight for money to buy food. Then, when that life fell apart, she’d dragged a six-year-old across fields in hope to escape the Sickness.
In all my memories of Mother, except her last few days, she’d smiled and sang.
For me.
Krysta’s daughter will not cry. Not in her very own rooms full of clothes and tables and books. I scrambled off the sofa to grab one of the jutting titles on the bookshelves.
The bedroom was the farthest back, its walls bare. A wooden chair sat beside a bed covered by a simple moss-green quilt. I set a candle on the nightstand and crawled up. The mattress squished. It wasn’t full of straw but of feathers.
“Introduction to Fire Magic,” I read. I opened the pages and read until I fell asleep.
Chapter Four
The Time Spheres lurking in the corner of the practice room did nothing to ease my anxiety over my very first lesson—a magic lesson at that. Sliver after sliver of the latest orb formed. There was nothing else to stare at. Stone walls, stone floors, stone ceiling. Even the two chairs—stone. As for the Lights… they didn’t move. Like snails. Like Time. Spheres.
Every room in the Kyer had the spell. Always glowing, always forming. It took forever for each orb to complete, until suddenly it was time for me to fool my first noble.
“You can do this,” I whispered to myself for the hundredth time. I fiddled with the embroidery on my cuff—tiny vines of green on gray fabric. Like colored threads of crystal in gray stone. “First convince Zoland, and then the others. By… not talking. If you don’t talk, you can’t make mistakes.”
Trust your story, Orrik would suggest instead of silence. He had promised the Kyer would accept my ignorance. Why should a family waste money on the sixth child? She wouldn’t inherit. She wouldn’t marry well.
“But she would still be a noble,” I argued with my imaginary Orrik. Perhaps the Baronettess wouldn’t teach her sixth child dancing or music or even
