“You really don’t remember anything.” Her plump lips are parted in thought, her bright eyes worlds away as she seems to process that.
“Nothing. And it’s infuriating.”
“Yes, I can see how that would be,” she says absently. “Where to even begin … my foolish brother. This is Wendeline’s area of expertise, not mine.” She sighs, as if preparing to settle into a long explanation. “All casters are born with an innate connection to one of the elements. Those are the forces that ensure our existence. Water, air, earth, fire. They draw their power from that element and can weave spells. The stronger they are, the more complex the spells they can weave. Some casters are weak, able to do little more than spark candles with a flame. Others can whip clouds into storms and control what you see and hear, or don’t see and hear. Though, those powers are far more effective on humans than on our kind. Their minds are simple, pliable.”
I study the stone path, afraid she’ll somehow read my simple human thoughts in this elven body I’ve occupied.
“And sometimes, a caster is born with a connection to two elements. Even three. Those casters are called elementals. They are rare but extremely powerful. Margrethe was an elemental. She had a connection to both air and fire.”
“They’re strong enough to kill daaknars.”
“As long as they don’t allow it to get too close, yes. Margrethe must have been surprised by it.” Annika’s brow tightens, the only sign that the high priestess’s grisly death bothers her. “But also, elementals have enough power to summon the fates and make requests that only they have the ability to grant. No one can alter the fabric of life, save for the fates themselves.”
Realization washes over me in a wave. “Like bringing a person back from the dead.” Is that what Sofie is? An elemental who talks to the gods?
“The elementals can ask for virtually anything. For resurrection, immortality, a child from a dead womb. But when the fates grant an appeal from an elemental, it always carries risk. A woman pleads to be blessed with a child, and she may birth a fiend. A king demands unnatural strength in a coming battle, and he may wake as a lion. A princess begs for everlasting life for her lover, and he may be turned into a creature. It’s rarely without consequences, and some of those consequences change everything we know.”
Her thoughts veer somewhere for a moment. “Kings and queens of the past caused such catastrophes with their requests that summoning the fates has been forbidden for centuries. It is far too dangerous a power for anyone to wield, especially for their own gain.”
“But you think Margrethe broke the rules and summoned the fates to bring me back to life?”
“And to keep you alive, if the daaknar attack says anything. Except when you came back, you did so not remembering who you are.”
Or I came back as someone else entirely. “You’re saying that’s a consequence of her summons.”
“Yes, that is the theory at the moment, though many questions remain.” Annika goes quiet as we encounter two more courtiers out for a stroll.
The one on the left, a woman with sleek inky hair that contrasts with her ivory complexion, offers a shallow curtsy as compared to her companion—almost as if she deems herself above stooping to anyone. But then her coal-black eyes swing to me, and I see the hostility in that dark gaze and pinched mouth. She is not happy to see proof that the rumors of Princess Romeria’s demise were false.
The moment is fleeting and then we are continuing along the path.
“We haven’t had an elemental here for almost two centuries, and now Margrethe is dead. I fear we will see no elementals for many more years, all while your mother collects them like precious dolls on a shelf,” Annika says, jumping back into our conversation.
And because Neilina doesn’t want her enemies having access to such dangerous power. Maybe she has good reason. “Where do these casters come from?” I ask, desperate to piece together this fascinating world of magic.
“They are born to Ybarisan mortals. It is said that for every thousand humans born, one will be gifted. They’re all tested at birth, and any gifted baby identified is sent to the isle where the caster magic is most potent, to be trained by the guild. They are assigned roles within Ybaris when they come of age. All elementals are required to serve the queen in Argon. I heard she keeps them collared and in a special tower within the castle. Not an unpleasant one, but a prison all the same. They serve her every whim and wish.”
“Mordain allows that?”
“They are not given a choice. Mordain bows to Ybaris’s rule, and Queen Neilina bows to no one.”
This woman—this queen—sounds tyrannical. What did she raise her daughter to become? By all accounts, equal to her in hatred and deviousness. “How many elementals does she have? Do you know their names?” Does one have hair the color of copper?
“If what you told us before is accurate, there are never more than twenty at any given time, but I do not know of them. Our spies have not been able to infiltrate the queen’s private household yet. And besides, the elementals take ill frequently and change often. They’re never with her for more than fifteen years, two decades at most.”
We pass through a tunnel where a thick bramble has been trained to climb hooped iron trellises, the prickly vines coiling around the metalwork. I flinch as something bites into the back of my hand. An errant tendril somehow missed by the gardeners’ judicious pruning. The cut is just deep enough to draw blood. Another mar to add to my collection. “How powerful is Wendeline?”
Annika watches me swipe at the wound with my thumb. “She is not an elemental, if that’s what you’re asking. But she has the strongest affinity to an element of the seven we have left, and is ranked highest. She is the only one of our casters who can heal. We value her skills greatly in Islor.”
“And what happens to the gifted babies that are born in Islor? The ones born to humans here.”
“Oh, you truly are so clueless.” Her perfectly shaped eyebrows curve with amusement. “There are no gifted babies born in Islor.”
My annoyance flickers. “Why not?”
“Because the fates have deemed it so,” she answers vaguely, leading us to the left, around the bend in the cedar hedge, her fingertips skating across the trimmed branches.
Another piece to add to my collection of information that I hope will make sense one day. I open my mouth to press her with more questions when I realize we’ve ventured into the rose garden. Three burly men in shabby brown pants and jackets far too heavy for the warm temperatures haul the last of the stone rubble onto a wagon. Beads of sweat drip from their faces and the pungent odor from their bodies carries all the way to my nose. Draft horses graze on strewn hay while they wait for their task.