Page 8 of Daughter of No Worlds

“I’ll come back, you know,” I murmured. “For all of you. I’ll have connections, I’ll have resources—”

He reached up and patted my knee, as if he understood the guilt churning through my stomach. “I know you will.”

* * *

Eventually poor Serelcouldn’t take it anymore and wandered back to his own room to get some much-needed sleep, leaving me alone in mine. I was exhausted, but I knew there was no use even trying to rest. Instead, I paced.

This was a slightly dizzying endeavor, considering that my room was only barely larger than my bed. Still, it was clean and well kept, with nice furniture and a few decorations. Esmaris sometimes brought me little gifts from his travels, which lined the shelves around my room. But my most treasured possessions were the ones that came from Ara.

Ara, a little island thousands of miles away, primarily known as the home of the Twin Orders: the Order of Midnight and the Order of Daybreak.

Ara, the place I would be going the minute I purchased my freedom.

That thought — or the pacing, or exhaustion, or all three — began to make me nauseous. I dropped to the floor, yanking a worn wooden box from the bottom of my bookshelf. In it were some pieces of junk (a stone from Ara’s beaches, a few pieces of paper with circular markings scribbled on them) and several books. I pulled out the one with the plain blue cover, unmarked other than the silver moon and gold sun insignias foiled on the front.

The symbols of the Orders.

I threw it open and flipped through its pages. My fingertips traced over the pictures, the raised ink, the still-unfamiliar writing, as I practiced my Aran beneath my breath. I paused at one sprawling illustration that covered a set of facing pages: a drawing of founders of the Order of Midnight and the Order of Daybreak, Rosira and Araich Shelaene. Blues and purples swirled around Rosira, framing her white hair against a moon silhouette, while fire circled Araich. Their palms touched across the seam of the binding.

Rosira represented the Valtain, magic Wielders with albino skin and white hair, who comprised the Order of Midnight. And Araich represented the Solarie, non-Valtain magic Wielders who comprised the Order of Daybreak. Their magic complemented each other even as it contradicted, like two sides of the same coin.

The book, along with all of my trinkets from Ara, had been a gift from Zeryth Aldris. He was a traveler from Ara and a high-ranking member of the Orders who would stay at Esmaris’s estate as a guest for a few days at a time. I was immediately fascinated by him. I had never met anyone who looked anything like me before, even though, unlike me, his colorless skin and white hair were uninterrupted — a full Valtain. I took to following him around like a lost puppy, but he was kind to me and seemed to enjoy indulging my curiosities. I would listen to him for hours as he would tell me in fractured Thereni about the Orders and their history.

And then, during the days, I watched as Zeryth mingled with Esmaris and his nobles. I observed the way people smiled at him, deferred to him, looked at him with the same fearful respect that many reserved only for Esmaris himself.

Something had clicked into place, then. As a member of the Order of Midnight, Zeryth had resources. He had support. He had protection. And most importantly, he had power.

Everything I needed to make my survival worth what it cost my family. Everything I needed tobecomesomething.

“Could I become a member of the Orders?” I had asked Zeryth, later, eying my hands and the splotches of sand-colored skin that crawled across two of my fingers.

“Certainly,” he replied, giving me a dazzling smile that made my fourteen-year-old self melt. “Fragmented or no, you are still a Valtain.”

Well. That was all the encouragement I needed.

I threw myself into it from that day on. I researched the Orders obsessively. I practiced Aran in whispers at night, teaching myself what I could of their strange, frustrating language. Zeryth would visit several other times over the years, and with each return, he would bring me little gifts from the Orders and put up with my incessant questions.

He had promised me that if I made it to Ara, he would introduce me to the Orders. I hoped he was ready to make good on that promise.

A shiver ran through my body, and I looked down to see that my hands were trembling around the yellow pages.

No. No sleep tonight, that was for sure.

Instead I stayed awake until the beginnings of dawn seeped through my curtains. I read every book Zeryth had given me, cover to cover. I practiced every Aran phrase I knew, and repeated ones I didn’t until they sounded secure on my tongue. I filled my brain with plans until there was no room left for fear or uncertainty.

Hours. Only hours remained, before everything I knew would change.

I hoped they were ready for me.

I hoped I was ready for them.

Chapter Three

One would think that after all these years, I would have stopped finding Esmaris so breathlessly intimidating. I had lived with him for seven years, and I had perhaps seen him in more — one could say — compromising positions than likely anyone else had. But still, sometimes I would walk into a room and be momentarily stunned by him, by the way that it seemed like all of the air in a room bent towards him.

This was one of those moments.

I watched his back silhouetted against the window of his study. Like the night of the party, he wore red, though this time his jacket was a deep burgundy brocade. His hands were clasped in front of him, the line of his shoulders perfectly broad and square. The man never slouched.

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