14

Valere saw the smile and let her keep that small piece of morning until breakfast came to an end, and together they walked toward the waiting carriage. Only then did Ryska finally see the palace she had missed in the darkness of the night before. Its white stone halls gleamed beneath the morning light, while flowering vines, ancient trees, and white blossoms stirred in the sea wind. The sea surrounded the palace on three sides, blue as the eyes of Valere and nearly everyone she had seen here. They crossed long colonnades open to the sea, passed through vast chambers, and reached ground adorned with gardens and flowers that swayed gently beneath the salt-laden breeze.

Nanna stopped beside carriage and kissed his forehead. "Gods be gracious, do well in your assessments," she said then she turned to Ryska, cupping her face between warm, familiar hands as though the gesture had always belonged there. “Pass your examination.”

“Thank you...” Ryska looked helplessly toward Valere, searching for the woman's name.

“Nanna,” he supplied.

Ryska looked back at her for permission then spoke when Nanna gave the smallest nod. “Thank you, Nanna, I will pass.”

“You will,” Nanna said and remained where she stood watching both of them climb into the carriage, one hand raised in farewell, watching until the carriage passed through the main gates, turned around the stone corner of the palace road, and disappeared from her sight.

The carriage moved through Aldaene, its wheels sung softly against the stone roads, but Valere's thoughts remained on the fact that Nanna must have said something to Ryska in her excitement. He looked at Ryska then looked away and then found himself looking at her again.

“Did Nanna say anything to you?" He asked at last. "Do not mind her if she said something she should not have.”

“She was sweet, though she called me Dragon Girl.”

“Ah, that she said rightly," he smiled. "You are a dragon.”

“I am Draconian, not a dragon,” Ryska cast him a sidelong glance then the carriage came to a halt.

Valere stepped down and helped Ryska descend. “A distinction without mercy,” he lowered his gaze to the top of her head, which barely reached his shoulder. “Dragons are giants, but you scarcely reach my shoulder," his smile deepened. “You are a little dragon.”

“You are insufferable," she shoved him.

"Careful," he said. "I have no wish to die before the examination and have people say Valere Paendrage died fearing an examination.”

Ryska pressed her lips together, but a smile escaped anyway then she remembered the question she had meant to ask. “I kissed your neck and… I think…” She hesitated. “You stopped me from kissing you, and then I… Did I make you...”

“You did not compel me, nor did you make me do anything I did not wish to do,” Valere answered gently. "And..."

The carriage came to a halt beside them, and before Valere could finish, Maendon and Sytara stepped down and hurried toward him.

“Valere," Maendon stopped beside him. “Where were you the whole night?”

“At Azurae Palace,” Valere replied, then leaned toward Ryska. “Let me take you to the healer.”

“Were you...” Maendon began, but the hard glare Valere gave him silenced the question before it could leave his mouth.

“We will see you at the pavilion,” Sytara caught Maendon by the arm and pulled him away before he could say another word.

Valere shook his head and led Ryska toward Merrath, where Shalmali handed her an ice draught and Ryska drank it at once.

“Be careful not to hurt yourself, pain will return when the draught’s effect wears off," Shalmali informed. "Go for your assessments.”

Ryska nodded and left with Valere, and together they joined the hundred-odd candidates making their way toward Aelthara. Some spoke eagerly of the trials awaiting them, while others murmured through their techniques beneath their breath, drawing invisible bowstrings with anxious hands until Aelthara's gates rose from the hillside in the shape of a colossal bow drawn toward the heavens.

Two towering pillars curved inward before meeting at a carved stone grip high above. Ancient runes coursed along the arch like veins of silver, while ivy climbed the limbs of the great stone bow, as though nature herself had chosen to adorn the Academy of Hunters.

The stream of students passed beneath the bow-shaped gate into a vast ground that stretched all the way to the sea on three sides. The grounds were immense, broad enough that the farthest targets appeared small against the cliffs rising along the rear of the yard. Hundreds of targets had been set at varying distances across the open ground, each designed to test a different measure of skill. At the center stood the pavilion overlooking the entire ground, where students gathered beneath its broad roof until nearly two hundred voices filled the air.

Valere led Ryska to the seats Sytara had kept for them and they had scarcely taken their seats when he noticed the slight furrow between her brows. “We will speak of it once the examination is over,” Valere said softly. "For now, worry instead about first rank slipping from your grasp," he gave her a smile. “Your rival sits beside you.”

“You are not winning,” she frowned.

“We shall see,” he replied.

“Oh, you shall see.”

“Then whoever loses shall buy the other supper," he raised an eyebrow. “How say you?”

“I only pray you do not sulk while paying.”

“For you, I would pay any price,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Sytara leaned closer and whispered, “What are you two talking about?”

“Keep quiet,” Valere warned, shooting her a glare, but Sytara ignored it.

“What is her name?” she asked in a voice low enough for only him to hear.

“Ryska Aen,” Valere answered, and there was a fondness in his voice he did not bother to hide.

Sytara's eyes widened. “The Princess of the North?”

“The one and only Princess of the North,” Valere said, almost with reverence.

“How?” Shanje, seated behind them, asked. “North Myris has more than fifty Houses. Surely there are a dozen princesses among them.”

“The Princess and The Prince are titles reserved for the children of the Imperial Houses,” Maendon offered. “And since one of the two northern empires, House Paendrage, has no daughter,” he finished evenly, “that leaves her the only Princess of the North.”

“I did not know House customs worked that way,” Shanje muttered.

“You have to belong to a House, or grow up in a palace, to learn House customs.” Ryska stated a fact, and Shanje received it as an insult.

She saw a picture she had never wished to see, Valere was the Prince of the North, Ryska was the Princess of the North and she was neither noble blood nor palace-born, only a common girl whose dreams had begun to reach far beyond the place the world had given her.

“I am Sytara,” she offered a hand.

“You are wearing the same attire as I am,” Ryska looked at her taking her hand, they wore the very same garments; only the color differed.

“You are wearing my clothes,” Sytara smiled. “Since he has no sister, and women’s garments were needed in haste, I offered mine."

"You have fine taste in your attire," Ryska said.

“You think so?” Sytara's face brightened, and she tugged at Valere's arm. “Step aside. Let the girls talk.”

“What in the heavens? You could have asked nicely,” Valere grumbled, changing seats reluctantly.

Sytara ignored him and settled into his seat. “Did you have the tutor who made you practice bowing with a book upon your head?”

“They tried often, but I never obeyed.”

“I should have done the same,” Sytara sighed, then asked, “Can you draw?”

“No.”

“Then you must be a good singer.”

“I am not.”

“A princess with no training?” Sytara frowned. “That is a tale for the day Joharra drinks the rain.”

“My father never suffered anyone to force me into a lesson I did not choose,” Ryska answered, and a fond smile found her face.

Valere heard the fondness in her voice as she spoke of her father, so unlike the resentment he carried for his father. Envy stirred within him, but his conscience answered and shame followed for how could he envy a grieving daughter the love of a father she had already lost? He carried that shame for the rest of the wait, for he had never had his own Valere to tell him not to worry, but to let himself yearn for the love he had never known and to remind him that he was scarcely a boy of ten at seven.