“Ahh!” Rhea screamed futilely. “Work! Blasted work!”

She stood so quickly that she threw the chair she had been seated in back against the wall. It clattered and dropped to the floor. She didn’t even care. Once, she might have. But considering the work her Master Caro Barca should have been doing—that she was now tasked with doing—wasn’t functional, she just couldn’t find it in her to care.

She hadn’t seen Eren in over a week. The Eos holiday was today, and she couldn’t even leave her stuffy quarters in the Nit Decus castle.

Her master had been relocated to Byern when court returned from procession, and she had been forced to come with him. They had been set up in a nice, rather secluded part of the castle. In fact, she didn’t think anyone had been in this part of the castle in hundreds of years.

It was a large, open circular room with a glass ceiling that made no sense with the rest of the dark stone construction. The walkways to and from the corridors were so large that she could have fit boats through them, if need be. It was absurd. The rest of the castle had these neat, slim corridors with artwork and gorgeous vines in the molding. But these quarters looked as if someone had wanted them to be fireproof.

It was punishment. She was sure of it. She just didn’t know what for.

Captain Merrick had claimed the King had specially given them these quarters, but she doubted it. It was Captain Merrick who was a plague on the King and the country, as far as she was concerned. He had done this out of spite. No more, no less.

And she couldn’t do anything to change her lot.

Tonight, Master Barca would be setting off a spectacular display of Bursts fireworks that were unlike anything anyone had seen before. They had spent the last week making sure they would have enough space set up outside of the castle grounds so that they were ready to fire. The only thing left to do was light them tonight after dusk. She should have been thrilled that she could even help him create these contraptions that she had once thought were magic.

But no…Cyrene had magic.

And this was…pure science.

Similar in so many ways. Yet, completely different in others. At this point, she wasn’t particularly fond of either—magic or science.

All she had to do was make the mechanism for the fireworks into some kind of contained explosion. She had seen Master Barca do it time and again with Bursts. He just hadn’t figured out how to perfectly replicate it. And he had stopped caring about what court demanded of him. He cared much more about his own pursuits.

For what felt like the thousandth time, she wondered what her genius Receiver had been thinking when he created the formula for Bursts.

“I have it!” Master Barca said, stepping eagerly into the vast cavern.

“Have what?” Rhea asked irritably.

“The exact formula!” he said triumphantly.

Rhea warily looked at him. He had said that several hundred times since being in Byern, and every time, it was about something ludicrous that had nothing to do with her work on making explosives.

“What formula?”

“The only one that matters!”

“Master Barca, you’re not making sense again.”

“What we all search for. What we all want to discover. The ultimate power.”

“Whatever are you talking about? Have you figured out how to make your Bursts contain that explosive power? Have you figured out how I can report this to Captain Merrick?”

Master Barca looked at her as if she had sprouted horns. “Why ever would I want to militarize my Bursts?”

“What?” she stammered.

He seemed completely lucid in that moment, and she had been unprepared for it.

“My Bursts are for a merry festival occasion. You’ll see them tonight. Putting that power in the hands of the guards would be catastrophic. Did you believe I had not thought of it? Imagine what they could do if they had that knowledge.”

Rhea could imagine it. They could conquer the world if they wanted. But she wasn’t here for judgments. She was here to advance their society. What would be the point of all my work if I couldn’t even move forward?

“No, child. This is much more important.”

“What is it?”

“The means to attain immortality.”

Rhea’s eyes widened. “Immortality. Are you sure? I mean…how could you know that?”

“It is not in the knowing. It is in the believing,” he said. Then, he muttered to himself, practically speaking in tongues for all Rhea could decipher.

Master Barca disappeared from the door from which he had entered, but Rhea had lost the fire for her quest. She had been trained better than what her current pursuits required. She had been trained to ask why. But the pressure coming from Captain Merrick and the King himself was enough to make her quake in her slippers.

What exactly would be the consequences of creating firepower? And how different would that discovery be from magic itself?

Sure, she wasn’t creating it outright from physical prowess of her own body…from something that had been born into her bloodline. But she could mix powders and chemicals together and create an explosion. If she harnessed that, it could be deadly…beyond deadly.

Discovering it for the sake of discovering it was one thing. That was what her master had always done. Pursuit of knowledge was her forte. But should all knowledge be pursued? When that knowledge could have catastrophic consequences, should it be given to people who would manipulate it for their own purposes?

No.

Maybe Master Barca was right.

His Bursts were enough.

No need to finalize the formula for the blast powder.

She would just try it one more time with a clear head and then get ready for the Eos holiday celebrations.

With a resigned sigh, she returned to her work room. Leaning over the various powders she had been working with, she started mixing them together.

Earlier that week, she had pilfered a few Bursts from the festival celebration and deconstructed them to get a better look at what her master had done. But it was difficult to determine when all the powders were already mixed in certain amounts for the Bursts. Not to mention, the blast powder she wanted to create needed to be much more highly concentrated.

She mixed together the ingredients that were used in the Bursts and decided to light it in a closed compartment. The Bursts seemed to pop open in the tightly concealed space. She fitted the powder into a small metal contraption that Master Barca had left on the table. He had a million different such objects floating around that she was sure he wouldn’t miss this one.

Carefully placing the object on a table away from her papers, she threaded a wick into the container and rolled it out. The powder itself burned pretty well on its own, so she wanted to make sure she was far enough away in case the fire increased. Luckily, the room was basically fireproof.

Rhea cut the wick and then lit it, standing about ten feet away from the table. The wick burned slowly as it traveled across the distance and then into the metal contraption.

BOOM!

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Rhea’s vision was blurry. Her ears were ringing. She placed her hands on them, but that did nothing to stop the ringing. She tried to stand and look around the room, only to realize that she had been thrown all the way across the chamber. Her back had collided with the wall on the opposite side, some thirty feet away from where she had been standing when lighting the fuse.

“What have I done?” she whispered.

But she was shocked to discover she couldn’t hear herself speak.

Everything hurt. She had to find a way to assess her injuries, but standing seemed impossible.

Then, there was Master Barca, leaning down toward her and softly cradling her. He was saying something, but she just shook her head. She couldn’t hear him. He tried to help her to her feet, but that didn’t go so well.

He motioned to her that he was going to go get help, and then he left at a hurried jog, which was really moving for him.

She leaned her head back against the wall and was resigned to her fate when someone else walked into the room.

Kael Dremylon.

An apparition. What would the Prince be doing here? He didn’t come to this side of the castle. He had been back only for a couple of weeks and had been all but locked in his own quarters.

No. There was no prince here.

Just a dream.

Dream Prince Kael said something to her, but she motioned to her ear. The ringing continued. She hoped this wasn’t permanent. What would I do if I lost my hearing completely?

Dream Prince Kael nodded and then unexpectedly bent down and hoisted her into his arms. Am I floating? This couldn’t be reality. She was too weak to protest.

Shouldn’t my Dream Prince know that I can’t move right now?

Apparently not.

Dream Prince Kael carried her from the room, as if she weighed nothing. Perhaps she did weigh nothing; it was a dream after all.

They walked through the corridors and then reached her small quarters a few minutes later. Dream Prince Kael gently placed her down in the bed, and as exhaustion took her over, she passed out on the covers.

Rhea came to again sometime later. She had the distinct feeling of being watched. Her ears were still ringing a little. And her entire body felt like…well, like she had just been blasted thirty feet across a room and into a stone wall.

“Hello?” she croaked into the stillness.

She could hear! Only slightly. Her voice warbled, as if heard through water, but her hearing wasn’t completely gone.

“Hello,” someone called back.

Rhea turned her head and saw Kael Dremylon sitting in the corner of her room. She had been sure that envisioning him was a dream. His presence made no sense to her.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing in her room, but all that came out was, “Water.”

He smiled that charming smile. She was sure that she would have blushed under different circumstances. He was the prince.

He handed her a glass of water. “Here you are. I had a physician attend to you and assured Master Barca that I would fetch him when you were awake.”

“How long was I out?”

“Only an hour or two.”

“And you waited?” she asked in disbelief.

He flashed her another winning smile.

There was something different about him. Rhea couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She didn’t know him that well, but the prince she had seen before he had left for Aurum was…different. Teasing, flirtatious, jovial, conniving for sure, and manipulative. But this was other. He was somehow other. It was like a black shadow had fallen over his body, transforming the man before her. It made her shiver.

“Yes,” he said, folding himself back into the chair.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” she said, not forgetting her manners.

“How are you feeling?”

“Horrible,” she admitted.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve had a tonic prepared for you so that you can get more rest.”

“Thank you,” she repeated.

She was waiting for him to say something else. Surely, he wouldn’t have stayed here that long for nothing.

“How did you do it?” Prince Kael leaned his elbows against his knees and intriguingly looked at her.

“Do what?”

“The explosion. How did you harness the black powder you’ve been working with?”

“You’ve been following my work?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I…I don’t know,” she lied. “It was the first time it had ever succeeded.”

“You are friends with Cyrene, are you not?”

Rhea tried not to react to that question, which was so out of nowhere. “I was. We grew up together.”

“You do not seem to be in despair over her kidnapping.” He gave her a toothy grin that reeked of madness.

“I have been for months, Highness,” she whispered.

“Has anyone else told you that you are a bad liar?”

She swallowed. She was nervous now. She fidgeted under his gaze, wondering what he was getting at. “Yes. I’ve heard that before.”

“I would suggest that you do not continue to lie to me. You and I both know that Cyrene was not kidnapped.”

Rhea gulped.

“But that will be our little secret.”

“Why?” she asked helplessly.

“Because you are going to help me militarize this black powder.”

Rhea’s eyes widened. “I can’t.”

“You will create it and teach me how to use it, and in exchange, I will keep the insufferable Captain from bothering you about it.”

“I can’t,” she repeated helplessly.

“And I will not report you for withholding information from the King during a murder investigation.” He drummed his fingers together and stared at her with his piercing gaze. “I’m not sure your friend Eren would appreciate that either.”

Rhea sank further into the bed. Checkmate. “All right,” she breathed. “But the King and Eren must never know.”

He grinned with victory. “I’m very good at keeping secrets.”