A Spark of White Fire Read online

  “It was an admirable, if unsuccessful, attempt to continue down your path of irredeemable inactivity,” I say sympathetically. “Maybe next time?”

  This cheers him up. “I live in hope.”

  I’m grateful and he knows it. Rama is the king’s youngest son, and my only real friend, and he’s always shared more with me than he should. I expect his father’s advisers would be horrified if they ever found out how much he tells me.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “One of the guards told me he saw you,” he says. “How I mustered the energy to come all the way down here to find you is beyond me, but here I am.”

  “Why does your father want Prince Alexi to take Titania from him?”

  “He says he wants something only Alexi can give him. And he thinks the only way to persuade Alexi to give it to him is to offer Titania first.”

  “But what’s the something that he wants?”

  Before Rama can answer, a servant steps out onto the balcony behind us. “Your sister says you’re wanted in the family quarters, my prince.”

  “Is it important? I’m in the middle of—”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say. I have to go, too.

  The servant’s cheek twitches. He’s not the only one who hates that I speak to Rama like we’re equals.

  Rama grins and meanders off, dragging his feet. He’s like an especially lazy cat, all yawns and groans and a constant refrain of “Esmae, leave me alone. I can barely cope with the strenuous demands of everyday existence without the added trauma of your involvement. Why do you always require so much movement from me?”

  As soon as he’s gone, the old servant scowls at me. “This is what comes of goddesses sending gutter brats to the royal schoolroom.”

  “So you elevate the prince above us,” I say, “but you’re happy to cast aspersions on the choices of a goddess? You do realize a god is more likely to smite you than a prince?”

  In fact, the opposite is true because gods can’t smite without consequences. That said, they can certainly curse us. The servant glances skittishly over his shoulder as though afraid Amba might have appeared behind him to do just that.

  “She’s not there,” I say helpfully.

  His scowl deepens. “It’s not the goddess’s choices I have a problem with. The way you speak to the prince is a scandal. You should behave in a manner that better suits your station.”

  “Rama doesn’t think he’s better than any of us, so what business is it of yours how I speak to him?”

  The servant grunts dismissively and storms away. I turn back to Alexi’s starship.

  And just in time, too. The door hisses open and a handful of people spill out. Guards and advisers, I assume, if their clothes and posture are anything to go by. After the advisers comes a tall woman in a warrior’s armored tunic and then Prince Alexi himself. The woman stops just outside the doors and waits for Alexi to catch up so she can have a private word with him.

  I move closer, down the stairs, away from the balcony, and toward the pair, blending in with the bustle of servants, guards, and pilots tending to ships and organizing the arrivals.

  The woman is in her late thirties, with toned limbs and light brown skin, black hair shaved almost to her scalp, and long, narrow eyes. She looks familiar, and I wonder if maybe I’ve seen her on one of Rickard’s many video cubes of Kali. She stands utterly still as she speaks to the prince, but it’s the stillness of the cobras coiled in the snake pits of Sting.

  And Alexi—

  After years of hopes and questions and wishes left with milk and honey at gods’ altars, we’re finally in the same place. Finally together.

  I’ve heard so many stories about him. He’s known across the star system for his sense of honor, his bravery, his stupendous skills as a warrior. When he was five years old, he was kidnapped by a vicious raksha demon; when his father’s soldiers arrived to rescue him, they found the demon dead, Alexi’s knife buried in its heart. Dozens of warriors have tried to defeat Alexi in combat since then, boys and girls, adults across the entire gender spectrum, demons and half-demons. They’ve all failed. And yet, each time Alexi wins, it’s with such grace that even the defeated love him for it. He never forgets a favor or a kindness and he never fails to help those he calls his friends. He’s a prince of princes. And he’s just seventeen years old.

  He’s tall and lithe and restless. There are coppery streaks in his short brown hair and a golden bow made of light is slung across his back. He has a handsome face, with a strong jaw and easy smile that have won more than his fair share of hearts across the galaxy. His eyes are clear and gray and so familiar that my throat feels tight.

  I have to speak with him. This is your chance, Esmae. Use it.

  I edge closer. A couple of the guards glance my way but then dismiss me as just another servant, no threat. A mere pawn on the board.

  “Leila, don’t pin all our hopes on this,” Alexi says to the woman.

  Leila. So she must be Leila Saka, his general and right hand. I’ve definitely seen footage of her before. She’s terrifying on the battlefield, fast and lethal.

  “She’s just a ship,” Alexi goes on. “An extraordinary ship, but a ship, nevertheless. She has limitations, she can’t be everywhere at once. We won’t win this war on her back alone. We need help from inside Kali, but that’s become almost impossible since my cousin banished or locked up all our allies.”

  “Titania is the weapon that can turn the tide, Alex,” General Saka replies. “We may not need help from inside Kali if we have a warship that can terrify your uncle into surrendering. And if nothing else, we’re here because she is a weapon we cannot and must not ever let into his hands. I think the fire made it clear that he will do whatever it takes to be rid of you. And he’s sent your cousin here to compete against you today, so I’d advise keeping your eye on him at all times or you may find him stabbing you in the back again. Literally this time.”

  Alexi laughs. He has a friendly, warm smile and his laugh is infectious. The corners of my own mouth tug up before terror flattens them again.

  Move, Esmae.

  But I don’t. I stand frozen, jostled by passing servants and pilots, and can’t quite bring myself to approach. What if he doesn’t want to talk to me? What if he laughs at me?

  And then, from above us, a bell sounds.

  General Saka uncoils from her stance, dangerous energy humming, and gestures upward. “That’s the first bell. We must join the other competitors.”

  She and Alexi start walking away, and all I can do is watch him go, afraid, frozen, and furious with myself.

  My nerve failed. I had my chance and I let it slip away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I rush to the Reception Hall, kicking myself the whole way. I can’t believe my own cowardice. I’ve planned that moment with Alexi for months but faltered when it was time to act.

  And if I faltered here, what’s to say I won’t falter again? What’s to say I won’t fail when it matters most?

  The route to the hall feels endless. Windows flash by as I race down corridors and up stairways, but I’ve seen the view a thousand times and don’t stop to look. Sun lamps, rooftops, tiny starships patrolling just inside the barely perceptible inner and outer shields. And beyond, in the distance, the planet Sting, which is where Wychstar was first built before it rose into the stars.

  Spaceship kingdoms first came to be in the 1200s, when a number of men and women took flight from their planets and built new kingdoms among the stars, but eventually the practicalities of keeping a base ship fueled and stocked grew too cumbersome for most. Six hundred years on, only two of these realms have stayed afloat: Wychstar and Kali.

  Kali. It feels universes away, a realm of warriors and myths and usurpers, crooked and beautiful. That’s where I belong.

  Home.

  Madam Li’s sanctuary has been a safe, comfortable place for me, but it’s never been home. I was a foundling taken in and raised with an endless pa
rade of small children who came for a little while and left when they were adopted or restored to their birth families. I stayed, waiting for the day I would return to Kali. Amba told me that was where I came from and that I would go back there one day.

  Then four years ago, Elvar, the usurper king, stole the crown from his dead brother’s rightful heirs and sent Alexi, his brother Bear, and their mother Queen Kyra into exile. But everyone knew Alexi would fight for his throne. A civil war was inevitable. It was then that Amba ceased all talk of my going home.

  I’ve never stopped wanting it, though. I swore to myself that I would make my way back to my family one way or another. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be a foundling left out in the cold forever. I had prayed and trained and worked for it for years by then, and I wasn’t about to give up that dream. Late at night, in the room I shared with girls who would be gone again in a few days or weeks, I held that wish close.

  Now it’s finally time to make it come true.

  I reach the Reception Hall and slip inside just as the doors close behind me. The hall is enormous, with a domed ceiling and big windows, and a space has been cordoned off for the competition in the very heart of the room. It’s packed with guests; excited voices, the clink of wine glasses, and the sickly sweet smell of perfume fill the air.

  I search the hall until I find Rama and slip past the crowds to reach him. He’s thrown across a bench with his eyes closed. How he gets away with behavior like this in public, I’ll never know.

  “So you really don’t know what the competition will involve?” I ask him.

  Rama deigns to open one eye. “I told you, Ez, Father’s been so determined not to let any information leak out that he wouldn’t tell any of us the specifics of the competition. He didn’t want to give any of the competitors a chance to prepare.”

  “You’re a prince! Third in line to the throne! How can you not know?”

  Rama chuckles. “Rodi is first in line, and even he doesn’t know. My proximity to the throne makes not one jot of difference to Father. He knows I’m a blabbermouth who can’t be trusted.”

  “That,” I concede, “is a valid point.”

  “I know as much as you or anyone else in this room. The competition will involve a single task—one that will require a great deal of skill in swordsmanship, archery, or some other battle-ish nonsense.” Rama shrugs. “Alexi will win because he’s better than almost everyone in the world at the aforementioned battle-ish nonsense. The only person who might possibly beat him is Sebastian Rickard himself, and he isn’t competing.”

  Rickard, another powerful piece in this game of Warlords. Rickard, the old warrior, one of the greatest to have ever lived.

  My teacher.

  And the closest thing I ever had to a father.

  Until the day he left and never came back.

  “Wait.” Rama opens both eyes and sits up abruptly. “Rickard.”

  I school my face into polite curiosity, hiding away how much the sound of that name hurts. As far as Rama knows, Rickard is no more than a legend to me. “What about him?”

  “I do know one other teeny tiny detail about the competition. Father specifically wanted to rig the contest in Alexi’s favor, to guarantee his victory even if by some mischance his superior skills aren’t enough, so he made sure the task is one that only a student of Rickard’s is likely able to complete.”

  This is a much smaller number of people than you would think. Years ago, Rickard was a close friend and adviser to Queen Vanya of Kali, and then to her son and heir Cassel upon her death. Back then, people came from all over the star system for advice and lessons in the arts of war, but King Cassel eventually grew unhappy and begged Rickard to stop giving away his secrets.

  “What if we go to war again with other realms?” Cassel had asked. “What if these students of yours use your lessons against us?”

  So Rickard made the king a promise. “I will teach your heirs everything I know, and your heirs alone. I will teach no one else.”

  That was twenty years ago. Rickard kept his vow. He stopped teaching, but when Cassel’s heirs were born a short while later, he trained them as promised. Alexi is one of them. And Bear, his brother, is another.

  I’ve seen the list of competitors. None of Rickard’s former students are on the list, apart from Alexi.

  “How does King Darshan know what Rickard might have taught his students?” I ask Rama. “How did he know which task to set?”

  “They once knew each other,” Rama explains. “A long, long time ago. I think Father wanted to be one of his students, back when he was still taking new students, but I don’t think Father made the cut.”

  “Why?” I wonder. “Why Alexi? What does he want so badly that he’s willing to give Alexi an unbeatable warship just to get it?”

  “I wish I knew. My unsatisfied curiosity is unbearable, I assure you.”

  I look across the hall to where King Darshan sits on his throne. His face is turned toward the enormous arched windows that look out onto the endless black skies broken only by floating rocks, stars, gas clouds, moons—

  —and Titania.

  She’s suspended outside now, the prize waiting for her winner. I’m sure some people think King Darshan must be mad to give away the unbeatable god-graced ship, but they probably don’t know the other part of her story.

  It’s said that when Darshan asked the gods to help him build his warship, he asked for one more thing: “I want a ship that can never be used against me. Let it turn to dust before it can harm my realm or myself.”

  That part of the story has always made me sad on Titania’s behalf, condemned by the one who made her because he would rather she were destroyed than risk her hurting him in some way.

  “I wonder if he’ll miss her,” I say out loud.

  Rama stares at his father’s face. “He didn’t speak for ten years just so he could have her. He built her with his own hands and the gods’ help. Of course he’ll miss her.” Rama cracks a smile. “And he won’t give her up easily. That’s why he isn’t just gifting her to Alexi. He wants him to earn her.”

  “What about the others? There’s a champion from each kingdom here today, and technically two from Kali. That’s forty competitors. That’s a lot of people who are destined to be disappointed.”

  “I think they all know they’re unlikely to win. I reckon most are just glad they’ve even been offered a chance to compete. Everyone will have a shot at the prize. That’s all they want. A chance. And, in any case,” he adds, “Alexi is so loved and admired that they won’t be too put out when he wins. They’ve trusted Father not to use Titania to bully and ruin them since she was built. They’ll trust Alexi, too.”

  So loved. So admired. The golden boy. He’s achieved so much in such a short life.

  And lost so much.

  The second bell chimes.

  It’s time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The excitement in the Hall has reached a fever pitch. Rama joins his sisters and brother at their father’s side. I move farther into the crowd, trying to blend in.

  Three servants carry a number of different items into the hall. I hear the crowd murmur, puzzled and interested. The servants set up the items, one at a time, and my heart beats faster as I begin to recognize the picture.

  A large golden bowl of water set on the floor.

  A mechanical fish, no bigger than a banana, suspended from the domed ceiling about thirty feet above the golden bowl.

  A heavy, exquisite bow laid beside the golden bowl.

  A quiver of dozens of identical, ordinary arrows. One arrow for each competitor, I imagine, and some spares in case of accidents.

  My breath catches. I know the task.

  A near-impossible task.

  Alexi will probably find it easy.

  The vast room goes quiet as King Darshan rises. “Welcome, dear friends,” he says. “Welcome to the competition.” He points at the window. “The prize: Titania.”

  Ther
e are cheers. The crowds part at the other end of the hall and the doors open. The forty competitors enter, most with an escort of a few guards and advisers and even family members for support. Many are quite old, rulers and champions who have been established for decades, but a handful of competitors are around my age. They all look nervous and excited.

  All, that is, except for Alexi. And his direct rival, the other prince of Kali. The jealous prince, the final piece on the board.

  The cousins regard each other in stony silence. Max Rey, the thief prince of Kali, jealous and greedy, who helped his blind father Elvar steal the throne of the realm, who sent Alexi into exile. He’s about as tall as Alexi and a scant few years older. Pale, black-haired and dark-eyed, spare and very still. If he’s aware that the crowd hates him, that those assembled can’t wait to see him lose, it doesn’t show. He’s only interested in Alexi. He certainly doesn’t notice me, another figure in a crowd. He has no idea how much I wish the stone floor would open up and swallow him forever.

  Alexi takes half a step forward. “Max.”

  “Alex,” the older prince replies.

  “I hope my aunt and uncle are well,” Alexi says.

  Max’s teeth flash in something that isn’t a smile. “I doubt that.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you here. Have you come as Elvar’s champion?”

  “I’m here as the ruler of Kali. I rule with Father these days. Why are you here?”

  “I’m also here as the ruler of Kali,” Alexi says through gritted teeth. “I assume King Darshan has decided not to take sides.”

  They’re each here to fight for their cause. And so am I. I’m fixated on them, the cousins circling each other like wolves, and I wish I was there. Beside them. Involved. I’m tired of this lonely, dark space on the sidelines where I’ve been all my life. Where I stand right now. I’m tired of the invisibility and loneliness of the shadows.