The Young Elites

I fall silent at the mention of the tower. Raffaele notices my discomfort. We walk in the darkness for a long time without saying anything.

Finally, we stop before a dead end. Raffaele runs his fingers delicately along the edge of the wall. He finds a small groove in the stone, and then gives it a good push. The wall swings slowly to one side, and light streams in. I squint.

“And this,” Raffaele says, taking my hand, “is my favorite path.”

We step through the open wall and find ourselves standing at the entrance of a tunnel, the ancient stone steps sinking straight into the water of the canals, a quiet, hidden spot that looks out over the main harbor and the beginning of the Sun Sea. Distant gondolas glide by on golden water.

“Oh,” I breathe. For an instant, I forget my troubles. “It’s beautiful.”

Raffaele sits on a step right above the water, and I follow his lead. For a while, we say nothing, listening instead to the water lapping gently against the stone.

“Do you come here often?” I ask him after a while.

He nods. His multicolored eyes focus on a faraway pier, where the hazy silhouette of the palace rises. Light outlines his long lashes. “On quiet days. It helps me think.”

We sit in comfortable silence. Off in the distance, the songs of gondoliers float toward us. I find myself humming along, the melody of my mother’s lullaby coming instinctively to my lips.

Raffaele watches me with his small smile, his eyes bright with interest. “You sing that song often,” he says after a moment. “‘The River Maiden’s Lullaby.’ I know it. It’s a lovely rhyme.”

I nod. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was very little.”

“I like it when you sing. It calms your energy.”

I pause, embarrassed. He must be able to sense my heightened sense of unease for the past few days, as my next appointment with Teren draws near. “I’m not very good. I don’t have her voice.” I almost tell him about my sister, how Violetta’s voice sounds closer to my mother’s—but then I remember where my sister is right now. I swallow the words.

Raffaele doesn’t comment on my energy this time. Maybe he thinks the thought of my mother saddens me. “Can you sing it for me?” I ask him, to distract myself. “I’ve never heard you before.”

He tilts his head at me in the way that makes me blush. My alignment to passion stirs. His eyes go back to the water. He hums a little, then sings the first few verses of the lullaby. My lips part at the sound of his voice, the sweetness of the melody, the way the lyrics hang in the air, light and clear and full of longing. When I sing it, the song comes out as individual notes, but when he sings, the notes change to music. I can hear my mother in the words. A memory comes back to me of a warm afternoon and our sun-drenched garden, when my mother danced with me to the lullaby. When she caught me, I turned around to hug her and buried myself in her dress.

Mama, Mama, I called up to her. Will you be very sad when I grow up?

My mother bent down and touched my face. Her cheeks were wet. Yes, my darling, she answered. I will be very sad.

The melody ends, and Raffaele lets the last note disappear in the air. He glances at me. I realize that tears are blurring my vision, and reach up to hurriedly wipe them away. “Thank you,” I murmur.

“You’re welcome.” He smiles back, and there is genuine affection in his expression.

For a moment, I sense something I’ve never sensed outside of the Dagger Society. Something I’m finding only now, surrounded by young strangers that remind me of myself. Kindness. With no strings attached.

I can see a life for me here, as one of them.

It’s a very, very dangerous way to think. How can I be their friend, with what I’m doing? The closer I get, the harder it will be the next time Teren expects me to deliver what I’ve promised him. But the longer he stays away and the stronger I get, the bolder I grow. I return to watching the scenery with Raffaele, but my mind spins. I need to find a way out, to find Violetta without giving Teren his information. And the only way is to work up the courage to tell the Daggers the truth.

Raffaele’s sessions with me evoke gentle passion—but nothing I do with anyone comes close to my training sessions with Enzo himself.

Enzo pushes my emotions hard. He teaches me how to create a convincing illusion of fire, how a flame flickers, how the color of it changes from red to gold to blue to white. I weave and weave until I exhaust myself.

“Your strikes are unfocused,” he snaps one night as he teaches me the basics of sparring with a wooden sword. “Concentrate.” Our clashes echo in the empty cavern. He knocks the weapon out of my hand with one effortless blow, then kicks it up in the air and flings it back at me. I scramble to catch it, but my weak vision means I miss it by a good several inches. The wood hits my wrist. I wince. At this hour, all I want to do is go to bed.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” I retort, ignoring the pain. Curse him to the Underworld—he always attacks on my blind side. I know he tries to anger me on purpose, to strengthen my power, but I don’t care. “I’m a merchant’s daughter. I haven’t exactly trained for dueling.”

“You’re not dueling. You’re learning basic defense. Young Elites have enemies.” Enzo points his sword at me. “Again.”

I strike. I conjure a dark silhouette of a wolf and fling it at him, hoping to throw him off. It doesn’t. He dodges my blow with ease, then lunges back, clashing with me twice until we’re close to the cavern’s wall. He whirls and yanks a dagger straight out of his boot. This second blade stops a hairsbreadth from my neck.