He saw a high-flown arched ceiling carved from stone. All around him, silence. He blinked, and the pain came rushing in.
Even as it knocked the breath from him, he knew it was a good pain, a healing pain. His hand went to his ribs, felt clean bandages wrapped taut around his middle. The air smelled sharp and medicinal.
He sat up as slowly as possible, resting heavily on his left side to do so. It took him what felt like an hour to rise, but at long last he pressed his feet to the cold stone floor. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to stand, but he tried it, anyway, and found he could.
He was thirsty, and desperate to make water. He shuffled about the room until he found a chamber pot and relieved himself.
As he cast his eyes about for where he might find drinking water, there was movement in the doorway; a swift, gray blur pushing past the white linen curtain that hung there.
Nok jumped, then flinched in pain. When he looked back, whatever had been there was gone, though the curtain still swayed in its wake.
He took an exploratory step forward. Then another.
Behind the curtain, the hall was empty and massive and gray, so gray. The side of the corridor on which he stood was punctuated with curtained doorways like his, while the other was let with open archways taller than trees. Each had a delicate, spindly banister carved at its base like stone vines.
The ceilings here were higher than they had been in his room, and it struck Nok that they looked not so much made from stone, as cut into it. As though the building in which he stood were carved in relief out of the side of a mountain.
He went to one of the archways. Sticking his head out over the balustrade, he saw he was at least partially correct: the building was embedded in a steeply ridged mountain. Close to the base of the mountain, a manmade section flared out, connecting to a temple erected just below. The temple was blocky and four-sided, with sides that sloped slightly inward toward the top. A tepid breeze tousled his hair, threw it almost playfully over his eyes. He brushed the strands back, flinching at the pain that shot through his side when he moved his arm. The air felt neither cold nor warm, as though it were the exact temperature of his body. He felt light-headed.
He backed away from that dizzy edge, then froze.
At the end of the hallway stood the wolf.
His wolf. He couldn’t say how he knew for certain, but he did, sure as he knew his own name, or the back of his hand, or the sound of his sister’s voice.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The wolf blinked at him, black eyes languid and peaceful, and Nok . . . felt it as though he himself had blinked.
Come to me, he thought.
Footsteps rang out from the other end of the hall, voices bubbling in their wake. Nok whipped his head around just as Nasan turned the corner, followed by a tall young man whose face Nok recognized but could not place. They stopped short, seeing him.
His sister looked him over once and grinned. “Brother,” she said. The young man just inclined his head politely.
Nok looked back to where his wolf had stood, but it was gone.
“You slept long enough,” Nasan said as she and the young man walked toward him.
Nok stepped to meet them. “Where’s Lu? Is she all right? Did—”
“Nokhai.” The young man was smiling as though he hadn’t noticed Nok’s panicked rudeness. “I am Prince Jin of the Yunian Triarch. Princess Lu is fine.”
Relief swept over his body like cool water. “Can I see her?”
Prince Jin’s brow furrowed. “Certainly, at some point, though right now I think it may be difficult to—”
“Why?” Nok demanded, the word emerging harsher than he intended.
Nasan placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ve been with her this whole time. She’s just being dressed by some waiting ladies—”
“Ladies in waiting,” Prince Jin supplied helpfully.
Nasan cast him a wry look. “—or whatnot. Anyway, she’s not wearing clothes, is what the guy’s trying to tell you.”
Prince Jin blushed at her assessment but continued, “Princess Lu has requested to speak in open court before the Triarch.”
Nok frowned. “That’s you, you said.”
“Me,” the prince agreed. “Well, one of three. I’m the Warrior, my sister Vrea, the Oracle, and my brother, Shen, the Steward. The Steel, Silver, and Gold Stars, respectively.”
Nok touched his side gingerly. Like all Ashina children he had learned something of the Yunian government growing up. Right now, though, with his head swimming, and no grasp on how he had gotten where he was or how long he’d been there, he was having a difficult time recalling the finer points. “Are we your prisoners?” he asked warily.
Prince Jin’s eyebrows shot up. “No, certainly not.”
“Is Princess Lu a prisoner?”
“Not at all.”
Nasan’s hand squeezed at his shoulder. “Relax, brother. They’ve been nothing but good to us. Fed us, let us bathe in their hot springs, gave us an apartment big enough to house our entire Kith. Patched you up faster than I would’ve thought possible, too, with their energy healing. You’ve only been out for a couple days, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Nok mumbled, rubbing his head. The surprise of waking up in this place was wearing thin, leaving only exhaustion in its wake.
“Prince Jin here was just giving me a tour of the grounds,” his sister continued. “We passed the hospital wing of the palace, and I thought I’d check in on you.”
“If you’re feeling well enough, you could join us,” the prince suggested. “We can locate you a wheeled chair if you’d like.”
Nok gave a quick shake of his head. His side hurt some, but his legs ached worse from lying still for two days. “It’s fine. I want to walk.”
“Excellent.” The prince nodded. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors.”
Nok studied Prince Jin guardedly. He was young—most likely no more than a few years older than himself—tall, handsome. He had the most open, earnest face Nok had ever seen. It was almost unnerving, the way the other boy’s sun-warm brown eyes sought his own, seeming to beseech him for his trust. And won it almost instantly.
Nok held back a sigh and nodded instead. “Let’s go see some gardens, then.”
Prince Jin led them down a stairwell conneting Nok’s hallway to a lower level. Here, gardens were planted on dozens of stepped tiers cut into the side of the mountain, small pathways connecting them. The prince kept pace with Nok, acting as though his slowness were completely normal. Nasan had no patience for such coddling; she forged ahead on the stone path, pausing to gaze up at the ornate buildings cut into the face of the mountain in skeptical wonder.
Nok found looking up made him dizzy, so he kept his eyes trained to the path, or at whatever plant Prince Jin was directing his attention toward. The gardens the Yunians grew had little of the sharp, neat order Nok had glimpsed in those of the more upper-class homes of the Second Ring. Rather, they grew in a pleasant, languid sprawl of blue-green vines, some of the leaves stiff and needlelike, others plump and succulent.
“. . . of course, we had more variety in the old days, but since we moved into the Inbetween, we no longer have spring—or seasons at all. As far as flowers are concerned, we are limited to what the Nima trees can provide,” Prince Jin was telling him, gesturing to a cluster of trees, their mournfully drooping branches spangled with clusters of pale ash-white flowers.
“They are named for a lesser goddess who fell in love with a spirit of the Inbetween. So enamored was she that she watched him daily from a port in the Far Beyond—what you might call the heavens—until finally she leaned too far forward and fell. She died in her love’s arms, and her last gasp was filled with such longing and sorrow that it washed over him like a perfumed wind. Where they rested her body, the first Nima tree sprung up. The blossoms that adorn their branches carry the scent of her breath, and they wear mourning shrouds of white petals.”
“That is . . .” Nok fumbled for a polite word. “Quite a story.”
Jin smiled in the same easy, unabashed manner he seemed to do everything. “It’s only a myth, but it is my favorite because it is so romantic. We don’t have a lot of romance in our myths, otherwise.”
“He didn’t love her back, though. Didn’t even know her, did he?” Nasan interjected from below, making Nok jump. “Seems like a waste.”
Jin’s eyebrows vanished beneath his thick fringe. “To die for love? How could that be a waste?”
Nok shrugged uncomfortably under Jin’s wide stare. “I suppose,” he said, if only to end the conversation.
They wended their way down two more garden tiers. Nasan left them again to plow ahead.
“I would like to know Princess Lu better,” Prince Jin blurted once Nasan was out of earshot. “Is there an activity I could engage her in? Would she take well to an invitation for a private walk around the palace grounds, do you think? I fear I am not very familiar with your Hu customs; I don’t wish to seem overly forward.”
Nok frowned. “I . . . I’m not Hu, either.”
“My apologies! Of course, you are Ashina. But, you know the princess well,” Jin said. “Tell me, what is she fond of? What does she enjoy?”
Hunting. Fighting. Aloud he told the prince, “I . . . I think she would walk with you?”
“Is there a particular gift she might enjoy? Certain foods? Flowers?”
Nok tried to imagine how Lu would respond to an offering of flowers.
“You are smiling . . . Did I say something amusing?” Jin asked quizzically.
“What? Oh no . . . it’s just . . . well, nothing.”
He is trying to court her, Nok realized with a shock. Was this boy—this young man—such a fool that he would be taken in by a pretty face?
He doesn’t even know her.
Well, the prince was likely to be disappointed. He was amiable, but clearly a bit simple. Dull. Lu was not likely to be impressed. Was she? He was very handsome.
Jin surged on, heedless to Nok’s discomfort.
“Perhaps no gift, then? But you think it would be acceptable for me to ask her to take a private walk. Just the two of us?”
The thought made Nok uncomfortable. He needed to sit and rest. “I . . . I think that would be fine,” he heard himself say.
“My apologies for asking so many questions,” Jin said. “I have never met anyone quite like Princess Lu.” He smiled shyly. “Everything around here is so still, so quiet . . . like stone. She is truly a child of the fire—so alive. Even her eyes, they dance like flames.”
Nok felt a twinge of annoyance in his gut. Why is he telling me this? He shuffled his feet, eager to move along. How did one politely sidestep a prince’s interrogation?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anything about the princess . . . or, really, princesses in general. I’m just her guide.”
Jin’s brow furrowed. “She referred to you as her friend. My apologies, I assumed from the way she spoke of you, you knew her quite intimately.”
Before Nok could reply, they were interrupted by the sound of a massive bell being struck. Its ring was low and subtle to the ear, but it thrummed through Nok’s body with such force he felt as if he were caught in the gentle current of a river. Up ahead on the path, he saw Nasan look up as though she’d felt it, too.
“Oh!” Jin exclaimed. “Court is being called to session . . . I lost track of the hour.”
“Court?” Nok repeated. “So, Lu will be there, right?”
“Yes,” Jin affirmed. “Would you like to come? It just occurred to me that Princess Lu will have no one seated in her corner of the audience, and your support would look . . . ,” he hesitated, gesturing limply toward Nok.
Nok looked down at the crinkled gray robes the healers had provided him, the obvious hitch in his step, the way he favored his left side. He was certain his face was a mess—dark circles running beneath his eyes, cheeks hollowed out with hunger and pain.
“Better than nothing?” he suggested.
“Possibly,” Prince Jin said charitably.
Nok had never been in a court hall before, but it was hard to imagine that any in the world could be grander than the one he stood in now.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, but when they did he saw that, like the hospital, the hall was cut into the side of the mountain. The ceilings here were even taller though, and lavished with vast, deliriously colorful murals. The murals were interspersed with hundreds of massive stalactites, each as tall as a grown man, stabbing down toward the floor. A closer look revealed that the stalactites were covered in carved patterns—each line chiseled away by careful, uniquely skilled hands.
As he and Nasan followed Jin down the central aisle, Nok realized that a soft, orange glow was rising from within the stalactites, turning each into a lantern. By the time they reached the end of the aisle, the hall was cheerfully lit. Nok wondered how it would compare in Lu’s eyes to the court she had grown up with.
“The section there on the left is the guests’ gallery,” Jin said, interrupting his thoughts. Nok followed the direction of his nod and saw a slightly raised, gated box within which stood three empty tiered stone benches.
“I wish I could join you, but I must take my spot on the dais.” The prince gave him a friendly, apologetic pat on the shoulder, then left them. Nok looked around at the slow-filling hall, its stone walls beginning to radiate back the heat and buzz of several hundred bodies and voices. A wave of nausea hit him, and he grasped at Nasan’s arm instinctively.
“You all right?” she murmured. “We can go if you want—I’ll take you back to the apartments they have us in.”
“No, I want to be here for this.” Righting himself, he made his way to the guest gallery and took a seat beside his sister.
Nok felt rather than saw Lu enter the hall. The noise of the gathered crowd pitched in volume—a flurry of hisses and whispers to “look, look!”—and just as abruptly, it fell ringingly quiet. He turned with the rest of them and there she was in the doorway, resplendent in red robes. A white fur mantle hung over her shoulders and was cinched about the waist with a heavy pendant of jewels. She looked like fire and snow, a sole flare of color against the uniform pale gray of Yunis.
A guardsman at the door stamped his cane and announced, “Princess Lu of the Empire of the First Flame.” The crowd stood in unison.
A small smile played across Lu’s red-painted lips, and she nodded graciously before stepping down the central aisle, accompanied by a trio of Yunian handmaidens. She looked as tall and strong as ever, but the size of the hall shrunk her—a princess, yes, but also an outsider amid a sea of strangers, very far from home.
When she reached the foot of the dais, Nok saw her hesitate before stooping upon the cushioned kneeler placed there for her comfort. The handmaidens came forward to fix the drape of her robes. Nok shifted, uncomfortable. She felt somehow far away, as though the regal trappings had built a wall around her.
“Your princess cleans up nice,” Nasan whispered.
“She’s not my—”
The guardsman stamped his cane again. “Rise for the Tri-arch of Yunis!” he called, his voice filling the hall. “Prince Jin, the Warrior, our Steel Star. Mother Vrea, the Oracle, our Silver Star. Prince Shen, the Steward, our Gold Star!”
Everyone around them stood instantly, heads bowed in reverence. It took Nok a moment to catch his bearings, but he scrambled to his feet, pulling a somewhat more reluctant Nasan up with him.
At the front of the hall stood Prince Jin, and behind him, a woman and a man.
Both were tall and stately, and both struck him as far more otherworldly than Jin. The woman in particular, Vrea, seemed to float. Draped in hooded robes of silvery-gray that swept the aisle in her wake—the slightest whisper of silk against stone—she looked like a slow-moving rainstorm. As she ascended the dais, she lowered her hood, revealing a serene, tawny oval face with deep-set eyes, a flat nose, and wide, pleasant mouth. Her hair was shorn close to the scalp.
Behind her, the Steward-King, Prince Shen, followed. Tall and regal, he drew the gaze with intelligent, searching dark eyes. His night-black hair was combed severely back from his face and tied into a plait that fell down his back. His features were strong and even, but there was something so stern about them that it made one shy away from thinking him handsome. His beauty was an objective one, neither sensuous nor pleasant. Awesome like that of a mountain, and just as impassive.
“That Shen’s going to take some convincing,” Nasan murmured in Nok’s ear as Shen passed. “Hope your princess has more charm in her than she’s shown so far.”
“Lu’s perfectly charming when she’s not being antagonized at every turn,” he shot back. “And she’s not my princess.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “Well, she certainly got to you. Maybe there’s hope, after all.”