Damia found herself in a gss enclosure. Four gss walls surrounded her, and streams of people flowed by at a constant rate on all sides. She didn’t know where they were going or where they came from. She couldn’t make out most of their faces.

  Theonin was the first she recognized. He didn’t look at her. Only stared straight ahead and kept pace with the flow of bodies before disappearing into the masses. Then Rezin and Casimir appeared together on Damia’s other side. They were somewhat slower than the rest. They looked only at each other.

  Looking straight ahead again, the stream of people had disappeared. Only one man stood in front of Damia, his gray gaze piercing and unrelenting. Sam watched her, unmoving, unspeaking. Without any idea what she was doing or why, Damia raised a fist to the gss in front of her. She smmed the side of her fist into the wall. It cracked. Sam nodded once, almost imperceptibly. She aimed for the same spot again. The crack grew. An electric buzz began to grow from Damia’s toes, to her knees, and up all the way through her body until she thought her hair were standing on end.

  In an impossibly slow third and final sm, Damia was suspended in the exact moment that the entire gss box shattered around her. She heard Sam calling her name. Once. Twice.

  The third time Damia heard her name, she fell out of the chair she had fallen asleep in entirely, barely managing not to whack her head on the desk on her way down.

  “Damia? Mage Damia? Are you in there?” called an unfamiliar feminine voice. Definitely not Sam’s low, grumbling tone.

  “Yes,” Damia rasped, her throat entirely parched. Swallowing, she tried again, “I’m here, I’m coming.” Lifting herself off the floor using the desk and chair for leverage, Damia gnced in the full-length mirror to check the damage.

  She was still in yesterday’s traveling gown. Her night-dark hair had clearly once been in a nice, tidy braid, but the entire left side of her head was now disheveled and a halo of frizz sat atop the crown of her head. The opal ring on her right hand that marked her as a court mage had left its triangur impression in the middle of her cheek, another brand of her new position.

  A fourth knock indicated to Damia that there was no time to remedy any of these aspects of her appearance before facing whoever was on the other side of that door. Smoothing down her hair despite the futility of the act, she swung open the door to see a small young woman with short, fluffy orange-red hair and a yellow robe. The girl smiled hesitantly at Damia.

  “Good morning! Er, almost. It’s just past noon now. But that’s okay!” the girl excimed cheerfully, bouncing a little on her heels. “My name is Silvia Morrow,” she stated, bowing her head and curtsying slightly. “I was your predecessor’s apprentice. I’m here to help you get oriented.”

  Damia blinked at the girl called Silvia, then offered her a gentle smile of her own. Silvia seemed to be around the age of many of the beginner students at the Academy, maybe 15 or 16. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Silvia. In the course of this orientation, might you orient me toward a bath?” Damia asked hopefully.

  “Of course!” Silvia responded seriously, straightening her back and shoulders. “We can do that first. Grab whatever you’d like to wear for the day, then we can set out.”

  Damia nodded, leaving the door cracked open as she returned to the trunk at the foot of her bed that she had yet to unpack. She grabbed the first white gown she could get her hands on, then returned to Silvia at the door. “Shall we?” she asked as she shut the door behind her and joined Silvia in the hallway.

  “We shall!” Silvia sang, leading the way down the corridor. “The baths in the pace are communal. They’re not open to any non-residents of the pace, but they can be used anytime by you or anyone else who lives here!” she expined.

  Damia’s cheeks heated at the thought of bathing with anyone else. She had always had access to a small but private bath at the Academy. The girls had had to take turns bathing, but they worked out a reasonable schedule.

  The baths were quite close to Damia’s room, and she made a mental note that it only took two left turns to arrive there.

  “I’ll wait for you here. If you hurry, we can join the princess for an afternoon meal,” Sylvia stated, leaning with her back against the wall opposite the entrance to the baths.

  The prospect of lunch indeed motivated Damia to clean herself quickly, despite the soothing heat of the bath’s water and the trace of vender scent that lingered on her skin thanks to the soap supplied in the room. She was grateful that no one else was present at the time, and wondered if early afternoon would be a good time to frequent the facility if it meant no one else would be around.

  The dress Damia had selected was sleeveless with a mock neck. Unlike the long-sleeved traveling gown she shed before her bath, this gown showed off the swirls and tendrils of opalescent tattoos adorning her arms from the tip of her middle fingers to the tops of her shoulders. A product of the final trial of her training at the Academy. A reminder of not only her power, but her tenacity.

  Opting to leave her hair loose in the interest of time, Damia strode to the exit and back toward Silvia with a renewed determination. She felt more like herself than she had since leaving the Prismatic Citadel. While uncomfortable, it no longer felt like a betrayal to herself, to her dreams back at the Academy, to be herself in this pce.

  A tiny ember of hopefulness fred in her chest. At what, Damia wasn’t sure, but the possibilities no longer filled her with a sense of dread. Not entirely, at least.

  “This way to the banquet hall!” Silvia called, not wasting any time at Damia’s arrival before leading them away. Damia recognized the tter half of their trip from the previous night, and was pleased that though she had gotten turned around more than once on her quest for the kitchens, she had at least come close to her destination when she had run into Sam. A tiny current of electricity buzzed at Damia’s fingertips when she thought of him.

  The entrance to the banquet hall was a tall double door reminiscent of the great doors at the front entrance of the pace. A dull roar of many conversations overpping one another emitted from beyond the door, and Damia was relieved that they seemed to be in time for the meal. Inside, the room was maybe halfway full of both tradespeople working in the pace and nobles here for business enjoying their afternoon meal at long wooden tables.

  At the head of the room stood a smaller table with a lic table runner. Behind it were the tallest regur gss windows Damia had seen in Altriel yet. There were three nearly floor-to-ceiling arched windows that overlooked the capital city of Altriel. The abundant natural light alleviated another sliver of her homesickness, to her surprise.

  Sitting alone at that head table, a woman with warm, auburn hair waved in Silvia and Damia’s direction. The woman was grinning, eagerly beckoning Damia and her companion to come toward her. They obliged, and Damia could feel the eyes of each person they passed burning into her back. It was reasonable, she told herself, for these people to be curious about a newcomer. Just act natural.

  “Silvia!” the woman at the head table called out, “I’m so gd you could make it! And you must be Damia.”

  Silvia curtsied deeply when they approached the table, and Damia followed suit. “Princess Valois, thank you for your gracious invitation,” Silvia decred. “Please allow me to introduce Mage Damia of the Prismatic Citadel,” she followed, speaking more formally than Damia had ever heard a girl her age address another. Her youth was irrelevant to her capabilities — Damia was gd this girl would be her guide to the Kingdom of Altriel.

  As Damia curtsied again upon her introduction, the princess stood, waving her hands as she said, “Yes, yes, that’s all good and well but please! Come! Sit with me!” She wore a bck tunic and trousers with, surprisingly, no shades of purple at all that Damia could see. So the royal family did not wear the one color every day after all. The princess was quite tall, and her shoulders were almost as wide as the back of her chair. Her hair was pulled back into a bun that couldn’t quite be contained by the many pins that appeared to be poking out of it. Her grin remained in pce as Damia took the seat next to the princess and Silvia settled on Damia’s other side.

  “It is so lovely to finally meet you!” the princess excimed, csping one of Damia’s hands in her own. “And, please, as long as we’re not actively holding court, just call me Sera. I know you’ll remember to one of these days, Silvia,” she chided pyfully. Turning her attention back to Damia, she leaned back. “So, how was your first night in Altriel?” she asked.

  “Well princess, I mean, Sera, it is an honor to serve the good people of Altriel. It is a privilege to be here,” Damia recited, remembering Lady Vessimir’s words in the back of her mind.

  “Right, of course, we’re great here and all, but that’s not necessary. I didn’t invite you here to be pandered to,” Sera said coolly. After a moment, her expression softened again. “Please. I’ve already got plenty of panderers here. Friends, on the other hand, are harder to come by. So which do you want to be?”

  Damia was too stunned to speak for a moment, but Silvia just chuckled beside her. After another second, the tension in her chest bubbled out in a chuckle as well, and Sera outright ughed. This was so, so far from what Damia had expected.

  “Fair enough,” Damia started. “I think the cramped carriage ride here from the Citadel may have actually rearranged my spine. The two officers that brought me to the pace couldn’t have said more than a few dozen words between the two of them, though it really seemed like one of them wanted to say more. So, you know, off to a weird start already. Then when I got here, I was swept away to my room by that Theonin person who also wouldn’t say more to me than absolutely necessary. Oh, but not before I humiliated myself in front of him and the two officers by thinking he was the king. Then, he just abandoned me in my room, so I had to go wandering hopelessly around the pace to find a scrap of food because I hadn’t eaten for a full day. Then I ran into the strangest, most gorgeous man I’ve ever met. Then I fell asleep at my desk not three feet from my bed for a full 12 hours. And… now here we are.” Damia’s cheeks reddened, immediately regretting her full-on ramble session. But a piece of her was relieved to have been able to share it with someone, and she was, in a way, thankful to the princess despite her mortification.

  For the first ten seconds after Damia finished talking, Sera and Silvia just stared at her. Then, as they looked at each other, they both burst into raucous ughter.

  “Theonin Garrol? You thought that Theonin Garrol was the king? Oh god, his head was already far too big as it was, he’s going to be unbearable now!” Sera wheezed in between bouts of unabashed cackles.

  “What were the names of the officers? Was one of them Casimir? That’s my brother! He told me he had an important job yesterday,” Silvia asked as her own giggles eventually subsided, and Damia nodded, pleased to see how proud the girl seemed of her brother.

  At that, a member of the kitchen staff stopped at the table and left two bowls of a steaming vegetable stew. Damia immediately slid one toward her, reminded of her minuscule meal st night. Silvia, to her relief, did the same.

  “Thank you for that, Damia, I mean really,” Sera crooned, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Okay, I guess it’s only fair if I return the favor a little bit. I’m sure you’ve been wondering what the deal is here in this kingdom. In this pace. And I’d rather you hear it from me than some gossiping noble,” she expined.

  Damia watched her sideways as she continued eating, nodding in encouragement for the princess to continue.

  “Yeah. So, I’m sure you know my dad died about a month ago. A couple days ter, our court mage, Veda DeAltriel, died too. It was… weird. She seemed fine right up until she died. We still don’t really know what happened, and we probably never will. But, her being gone meant we had an opening. For a mage, I mean. As much as my brother tried to insist we didn’t. So he now sits in our dad’s throne, and you’ll stand next to it, whether he likes it or not,” Sera said resolutely.

  “You mean, the new king didn’t want a new mage?” Damia asked, putting her spoon down for a second.

  “Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that part. Look, it’s not important, you’re here now. This kingdom needs you. Whether he knows it or not, my brother needs you. So I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I’m gd you’re here. And I hope you can be gd to be here too,” Sera added, looking at Damia with true vulnerability in her eyes. Her jaw flexed, and Damia realized this must have been harder for Sera than she had realized. It hadn’t been two months since her father had passed and her brother had ascended to the throne. Damia was not the only one here suffering a painful, unexpected transition.

  Damia swallowed. “It’s okay. Thank you. For telling me all this,” Damia affirmed, making sure to look Sera in the eyes so she knew she meant it. She wasn’t sure how to be friends with a princess, but she had to give it her best shot.

  As Damia slurped down the st of her stew, she spotted a familiar purple figure striding toward them. “My dies, it is time for our gathering in the great hall,” Theonin Garrol decred, stopping briefly in front of them before turning immediately on his heel and proceeding out of the room, not waiting for them to follow.

  The three women rose in near unison, and Damia looked expectantly between Silvia and Sera.

  “I hope what I told you wasn’t too daunting,” Sera started, “because I think it’s time for you to be presented to my brother.”