The silence didn’t last; it never did.

The warmth faded and the blood kept dripping, and self-preservation took over. My hand had been injured and I needed to fix it. It was my left hand, the non-dominant, but I still needed it.

Trying to pick out bits of glass by hand was clearly a terrible idea, so instead I called the shadows to me and directed them to swarm my hand and take away everything that didn’t belong. I swept them over the sink and floor and dragged every shard of glass I could find into my second shadow’s storage space.

My hand twitched and bled and I stared at the broken skin. There was something enrapturing about the sight, even as panic started to creep in and I realized how utterly fucking stupid I had just been.

I can fix this. This is fine.

I was lying to myself. If not consciously, then at least unconsciously. I knew my effort was doomed to failure, but still I tried.

Nothing in my concept of Shadow or Starlight was tied to healing, but in my desperate attempts to evolve my magic I had developed a third affinity: Blood. Blood could represent kinship, lineage, and bonds, or it could represent life and death, heal and harm. Blood brought life as it flowed through veins, and it signified death when spilled on the battlefield. Blood was sacrifice, hardship, and suffering.

My affinity for Blood had always strayed much nearer the negative connotations than the positive, but I pushed that aside and held on to a strand of hope. I can do this. I gritted my teeth and called the magic to me, finding it sluggish and stagnant compared to fluid, dynamic Shadow. It knew this act went against its meaning.

I built the image in my mind, thinking of all the times I had seen healers repair flesh and knit wounds shut. I thought of gaps in skin closing cleanly and imagined blood flowing back from whence it came. I pictured my hand, whole again, and the restoration of my body’s equilibrium.

I didn’t have a formal incantation for this, no verse rich with meaning, so I did the next best thing: I talked.

“Blood is life. Blood is the essence of life, so to master Blood is to master life itself. The blood in my veins is mine, and it obeys my call. So restore my flesh and heal my wounds, because you are the essence of my life and you belong to me, you answer to me. Heal me, damn it. Mend what is damaged, repair what is broken, fix my mistake. Blood is life, and this is my blood, my life, and I can fix it. Heal!”

I shoved the spell into my hand and poured every scrap of meaning I could think of, drawing on all my memories of being patched up by family healers. Sunlight healers, using the family affinity. Cuts and scrapes and disapproving stares, light and dark and nerves. Healers working their magic, striving, failing, not enough to save her. My brother, my healer brother who was renowned for his healing ability, renowned for his mastery of Sunlight, his stupid wretched too-perfect–

The magic sunk into my hand, into the breaks in my skin, into the blood flowing free, and the blood shook and twitched and shuddered but it didn’t go back in and the cuts didn’t seal. All I accomplished was making my hand even redder.

Stupid. Pathetic. Stupid pathetic worthless–

I closed my eyes and started counting. I imagined constellations in the night sky and counted the stars that made them. Six stars to the Leaping Lion, four stars to the Farmer’s Flail. Five stars to the Gleaming Aegis, nine stars to the Lidless Eye.

It helped, a little. Enough that I could steady my shaking hands and wash them in the sink. Enough that I could quiet the noise and reorient myself. I am calm. I am in control. Deep breaths, Reska. I tried to keep my breathing deep and steady as I dried my hands on a towel and moved back to my bedroom.

I kept a kit under my bed for wound care. I knew that I should see a healer, I knew my hand was too important to risk with a shoddy patch-job, but I couldn’t bear the shame of it. What would they think, when I showed them my bloody hand not even an hour after humiliating myself in front of the most powerful members of my father’s court? What would they say this time?

I applied a bit of honey to bandages and carefully dressed my hand, then added a layer of dry dressing and wrapped it tight. I was lucky the wounds were shallow enough to not need sutures, as doing that one-handed would have been a nightmare.

There was something calming about going through the motions of tending to my injury. The work was simple but demanded focus, and when the task was done I felt a bit better, like I had bandaged up more than just my hand.

I could still feel the ache inside me from the contents of the writ and my stupid, reckless overreaction, but it felt a little more manageable. Still, I needed a better distraction. If I stayed in my room and stewed I would inevitably talk myself back down into a spiral.

There was one obvious answer: the library.

I swapped my gray sneaking clothes for an outfit that would look more at home wandering the castle and browsing the library shelves: a silk dress with vibrant orange body, cream-colored sleeves and skirts, and pale orange floral patterns threaded along the hem of the sleeves and skirts; and a silk cloak in sky-blue with sunburst patterns in gold lace, draped over the shoulders and voluminous enough to hide my injured hand within the folds. I kept my boots, comfortable as they were, as I doubted anyone would notice them beneath my skirts.

I wished as ever that there was a convenient way to hide my eyes, but my pale blonde hair was common enough in the realm that I could probably evade notice so long as I avoided looking at people directly, or if I maneuvered my hair to hang over my face. Being able to occasionally obscure my identity was half the reason I kept my hair so long and straight.

I took a few more steadying breaths before finally gathering the resolve to step out of my chambers and into the halls of the castle. I made good pace for the library and, before I was even halfway there, came face-to-face with Luka.

“Reska. I was on my way to pay you a visit.” My half-brother was still in his court uniform, bedecked in silk and gold and precious gems. “We should talk.” His demeanor was easy, relaxed, but his tone was serious.

My mood soured immediately, but I forced myself to be polite. “What about, dear brother?”

Luka winced. “I can tell you’re still upset. I understand that. I knew this was going to be hard on you and–”

“You knew and yet you didn’t warn me,” I cut in. “We haven’t even spoken in weeks.” Another little pang of pain crossed my chest. It hadn’t always been that way, with Luka. “But I get it, I do. You were too busy with Father, preparing to take my place.”

“Reska–”

“No,” I interrupted again, “you already took my place years ago. Maybe you always had it. So what’s there left to say?”

The crown prince sighed. “You know it’s not like that. Please, Reska, be reasonable.”

Why should I? I bit back the words I wanted to say. “Just… just go away, Luka. I don’t want to think about this right now. It already hurts enough.” I looked away from him, unwilling to meet that golden-eyed gaze.

Out of the corner of my vision I saw him grimace and fold his arms. “It’s not that simple. I don’t think you properly understand the consequences of what you did today. You can’t just run away from that and hide in your room, or in your precious library.”

I pulled my cloak tighter around me and snapped, “Is that why you were looking for me? To lecture me? I don’t need this from you, Luka. I get enough of it from Father. At least he doesn’t pretend to care about me first.”

Luka’s voice softened. “Is that what you think? That’s not true at all. Father cares, he just has a stern way of teaching. The burden of kingship is heavy, but he’s a reasonable man. If you stopped antagonizing him you’d see that.”

I dug the fingers of my uninjured hand into my palm. Softly, weakly, I said, “He doesn’t even give me a chance, Luka. I’ve tried so hard for so long to prove myself and he just spits on all my efforts. I built three affinities in the time it takes most to develop one, but because I can’t call a sun to my hands I’m nothing to him.”

Luka went quiet, and after a moment I turned to leave, but he put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me. “There’s more to being the heir than just having the right magic, Reska. I know you think that’s the only thing standing in your way, but it isn’t. To lead the family means knowing the right time and the right place to say the right things to the right people. It means mastering our blood’s magic, yes, but it also means mastering diplomacy and commerce and warfare and subterfuge. And barging into court like that? Making a scene in front of everyone? You had to have known that wouldn’t go well. But it’s the kind of thing you always do. It’s just in your nature.”

I stopped, stunned, and then I whirled on him and snarled, “What are you saying? That I’m just unfit to be in the public eye? That I’m worthless as a child of Dawnbringer? That I should just exile myself and get it over with?”

Luka closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes to snare my gaze head-on. “I’m saying: what girl wouldn’t kill to be a princess? Isn’t that enough?”

My mood was getting darker, sharper, despairing. That’s not what it’s about. That was never what it was about. “Would you still hold that attitude if you were the one who lost?” I pushed his arm off and stepped away from him.

Luka rolled his eyes, exasperated, but before he could make any retort he caught a glimpse of my other hand as my cloak shifted with the motion of pushing him away. Immediately his expression went murky and he muttered, “What did you do to yourself this time?”

This time. What did you do this time? What did you do to yourself this time?

The crown prince took a step toward me and said, “You should have told me. Give me your hand and I can–”

“No!” I shouted as I clutched my wounded hand to my side and raised the other arm defensively. The shadows in the hall sharpened and came together in front of me, coalescing into a thicket of thorns that separated me from Luka.

Luka’s hand went to the hilt of the ornate rapier looped through his belt, moving on instinct, but he stopped before drawing the blade. He narrowed his eyes at the barrier of darkness, then at the panicked expression on my face. “Sister.”

I swallowed hard and tried to force the shadows back to their corners. “I– I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.” The resisting manifestation of my magic contrasted my words starkly.

Luka just kept staring me down. When the barrier finally started to bleed away he shook his head at me slowly and said, “Control yourself. If you can learn nothing else, at least learn to control yourself.”

He left without another word, and I stood there alone with the noise in my thoughts. When the last of my shadows returned to the corners of the hall I resumed my trek to the library in even worse spirits than before.

The rest of my walk was uneventful, and when I took my first steps into the library I felt my heart lighten a shade. I’ve always loved to read, ever since my father first taught me with his favorite works of literature and theory. A library is a greater trove than the most lavish vault of coin, and all the more comfortable to explore.

The library was one of the largest chambers in the castle, occupying nearly two whole levels of the northwest wing. While most of the castle was lit with sunstones, the library was lit with moonstones to be gentler on the pages. The shelves were treated greatwood imported from our neighbors in the Kingdom of Wood and Cloud, and the floors were carpeted in wool dyed into intricate patterns in shades of blue, green, and orange.

The library was divided into nine sections, themselves subdivided into smaller sections, and over the years I had familiarized myself with each of them extensively: literature, history, sorcery, philosophy, manuals of craft, manuals of war, mathematics, medicine, and law.

I wandered the shelves, enjoying for a time the simple act of reading the titles of books and recalling what I knew of the contents. I hadn’t read every book in the library, of course; there were probably thousands in total, and my interest in the written word was not universal. Still, I had read more than most.

I contemplated what I should read: there were a few books I had been meaning to sit down and sink my teeth into, but I wasn’t in the right headspace to really digest their contents. There was always the option of rereading a comfortable favorite, but something about that idea made me feel uneasy.

You can’t just run away and hide in the library.

I clenched my uninjured fist. I couldn’t get Luka’s words out of my head, nor the memory of the debacle in the throne room. More than anything, I remembered the way my own magic had embarrassed me, the shadows refusing my dominion both in front of court and alone with Luka.

My magic had always been like that, and it rankled; my power was greater than any sorcerer of my age, greater than most sorcerers twice my age, but it slipped from my control like I was still a little girl. Just one more reason the whole castle called me “demon.”

I left the literature stacks and slipped through the shelves to the sorcery section. Of all the collections in the library I had read this one most thoroughly, and I knew exactly what book I was after: The Aspected Child: You Are What You Can Do, assembled by the Covenant of the Lidless Eye for the benefit of budding sorcerers. It was a standard read for any scion to a sorcerer bloodline, talking at length about how to shape meaning and develop finer control over one’s magic.

I found the right spot, reached out to pull the book from the shelf, and as I did my hand touched yours.

I pulled away, surprised, and immediately panicked that I’d be recognized. I looked away and brushed a lock of hair in front of my face to try and hide my eyes. “Sorry, I was lost in my head. Go ahead, I’ve already read that one.”

You laughed lightly and said, “No, no, the fault is mine.” Your voice was confident, low, and smooth. “Though if you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear what you think of it.”

I risked a glance and was caught off-guard by the sight of you; you looked like the strangest girl I’d ever met. Your hair was short and messy, a choppy tangle of russet-brown, and your eyes were dark like mine but burning with an almost frightful intensity. You were bony and thin like someone starved, but you were as tall as my father and there was a manic energy about the wide grin on your face.

Your clothes were the strangest part, and at the time I didn’t know what to make of them. You dressed all in black, which suggested either foreign make or absurd wealth given that no black pigment could be found locally. You wore a tunic that was of absurdly fine cotton and bore an intricate geometric design in vivid red, tight-fitting trousers of what seemed to be heavy twill, and a jacket of polished leather and metal decorations that went only to your waist and was worn open in the front. You would later tell me that those articles of clothing were called a tee shirt, skinny jeans, and (least surprisingly) a leather jacket, and that the design on the shirt was meant to represent an icosahedron, which you called a “d20.”

I will admit that I found the whole effect oddly compelling; your aberrance was almost exotic after a lifetime spent interacting with the same few social circles. I still wonder: did you tailor your appearance to disorient me, or was it simply disinterest in the idea of pretending that you in any way belonged in my world?

No matter. The end result was that I spent a few surprised moments staring blatantly at your strange attire, and when I looked back up at your face you were smirking at me. “Find anything interesting?” you asked in a playful tone.

My face reddened with embarrassment as I hurriedly replied, “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I’ve just never seen clothing like that before.”

You changed your expression to something warmer but still amused. “Don’t worry, I like the attention.”

I didn’t know how to react to that, and I was still caught between embarrassment and panic that I would be recognized, so I froze up.

You pretended not to notice, but broke eye contact and shifted your attention to the book to give me space to breathe. “You have so many books here, it’s wonderful. This library is absolutely magnificent. I don’t suppose you know how they’re made? The paper, in particular, since it seems of such high quality.”

The sudden change in topic let me refocus, though I found the question confusing; wasn’t that just common knowledge? Still, it was a chance to share information, so I gladly told you, “It’s a fairly simple process, I’m actually surprised anywhere hasn’t heard of it. All it takes is someone with the right affinity and a good sword. They cultivate these big mushroom forests and then slice the stalk into perfectly-thin pieces.”

Your eyes gleamed as you glanced back at me, and then you looked at the moonstones above and murmured, “Fascinating. What about the lights? You have excellent lighting in this castle but they don’t seem to operate on electricity. What are they?”

A part of me started to suspect that I was being led on, made a fool of, but you seemed so sincere that I had to answer. “Those are moonstones. Glassblowers with a certain affinity make them and let them soak up moonlight. The lights in the rest of the castle are sunstones, they follow the same principle but with sunlight.”

“Affinity,” you said, tasting the word. “I’ve seen that in a few of these books. It’s the foundation of your magic system, right?” You tilted your head and looked at me curiously. “Do you have one? Forgive me if that’s a presumptuous question, I’m afraid I lack for social graces.”

I froze at the question, and then the rest of what you said hit me. How can she not know about affinities? Is this some cruel trick? I looked at you like you’d asked what water was. “Is that a joke? Do you really not know? Everyone has an affinity.”

You winced. “Ah, I’m showing my ignorance here. I’m… not from around here. In fact, I’m so ‘not from around here’ that this is actually my first exposure to any of this. We don’t have the same kind of magic where I’m from.”

I had a hard time believing that, but it seemed too outlandish to be a trick. If someone wanted to mess with me, there were far simpler means. “What do you know, then? About magic, I mean, and about where you are.” I paused and added, “How did you even get in here? I took you for a visitor from a far-off clan but you can’t have interacted with any of the bloodlines and come away that clueless about our magic.”

You seized on those last few words, ever the type to press opportunity. “Are you from one of the bloodlines, then? I’ve been keen to learn about them firsthand since first catching mention in these texts. I have to admit, the reading material has been pretty dense without the cultural context to understand it.”

On the back foot once again I warred with myself over whether to tell the truth, but curiosity and pragmatism won out. “I am, yes. I… my name is Reska Ines Zelic Dawnbringer, and I am the trueblood princess of clan Dawnbringer. And you didn’t answer my question.”

You chuckled and said, “Would you believe that I just woke up here a few hours ago?” You gave me a considering glance and said, “No, you seem like a very intelligent woman, Reska, so I doubt you’d take me on faith. So I’ll offer this instead: wherever I’m from and whoever I am, you could probably kill me with your eyes closed. I’m neither a threat to you nor to any of the things you care about. All I am is a girl burning with curiosity, and a stranger in a strange land.”

An initial sense of flattery at your compliment to my intelligence gave way to the cold realization that you were probably right: I could kill you with my eyes closed. I could probably kill most everyone in the castle with just the hint of a thought, if I immersed myself in my magic and let Shadow run free.

The thought chilled me and gave me pause. What was I really worried about, questioning your story? The worst that you could do to me was humiliate me, and that ship had already sunk in front of my father and his court. I didn’t know if I could believe you about just finding yourself in the castle, but I could believe that you weren’t a threat.

And… a part of me liked the attention. I liked talking to someone who wasn’t calling me a demon or looking down on me as a petulant child. I liked talking to you. You made me feel like I wasn’t worthless.

How pathetic is that? A few kind words and I was already hooked.

So instead of interrogating you further, or calling the guards, or doing any number of far more reasonable things, I just said, “You know… you still haven’t told me your name. Hard to have a conversation with someone when they’re just ‘hey you.’”

You smiled at me, knowing you’d won. You told me, “My name is Homura,” and I believed you.

You always were an excellent liar.