Chapter One—The Spark
Princess Heir Nehemia Ytger, Light of Eywlle, knew a great many things from birth. It was not just that her family had hired the best tutors of her kingdom - it was more than that. Nehemia knew there was something in her blood, something in her family's blood that could be traced back to the source…if Adarlan had not burned all her books.
She was young then, so, so young, but she could remember everything. Not even ten then, she had woken up to the door banging open and being ripped out of bed by a lady-in-waiting.
"Your Majesties, the Adarlan army has broken in!" Her mother, the Queen, threw on a robe and flew to the balcony to stare at the scene below. The only thing she saw was red, before the lady grabbed her and turned her away, while forcing her into a small robe.
Her people. Her people were down there, killing and being killed for her. For her to stand there, frozen and wide-eyed, not knowing what to do.
"Neith, get Nehemia and the ladies to the basement-"
"Papa!" But she was swept up the same lady who wrenched her into her robes. They followed the Queen through a trap door, down flights after flights of stairs, before reaching a cellar-like room. The room was cold and damp, with only one opening, barred.
Throughout the entire wait, Nehemia kept thinking about the look that passed between her parents. The kind of look that only two people who had been together for so long could understand. But Nehemia did too - she was always good at reading people, or so they said.
Eyllwe was not winning this war. Eyllwe was not surviving this war.
It was a look or resignation, a look that showed that her father had been expecting them to lose all along. People would have said that her father should have more faith in his country, but…none of them thought her kingdom would win anyway - not her, not her mother, not the ladies-in-waiting, not even the guards.
Her father was not going down to fight a war, he was trying for a hand of peace. Oppressed peace, with her people sold as slaves in Rifthold and the salt mines, was better than having them all slaughtered and dead.
And that night, Nehemia who was just seven, realised something: she did not like Adarlan. She did not want Eyllwe to be like Adarlan. Her parents were not like the King.
She wanted to rule with words and peace, not threats of war; she wanted kindness and acceptance, not the killing and banishing of all Faes and magic. Her kingdoms would be built up with love and hope, not from the bones of her fallen, discriminated enemies. She wanted to be the Light of Eyllwe - the Light of Erilea.
"More and more people are being taken away - innocent civilians, mothers from their house and children from their schools. We are powerless, Your Majesties! What can we do!" The Princess Heir's hands trembled as she held them on her lap. A decade later, and still nothing had changed. Eyllwe, and Melisande and Fenharrow and Terrasen, were still under Adarlan's iron fist. Rebellions were running rampant, but most were caught and publicly flogged and beheaded before they could make a difference.
Nehemia sighed. She knew what she had to do. "I will go to Adarlan."
"Why have you come?" The Queen of Adarlan asked.
Nehemia looked at the stone chest, and jerked her head towards it. "Am I not called to open it? To learn how to save us, and to pay the price?"
She knew she had power and magic in her blood, magic stemming from an ancient source older than the gods themselves.
"Not you. Not in this way."
Nehemia pursed her lips, unsatisfied with the answer. "Then how, Lady, am I required to bleed?" She knew Elena Havillard did not want to tell her, did not want to reveal some dark secrets of their past, but Nehemia had to know.
At last, the Queen told her about the bloodline of Maala, about how two of them flowed in Rifthold, Adarlan. She told her how Nehemia had to travel to Adarlan and break one of them - on purpose. How cruel, she thought.
And she thought. As she listened to the Queen, she thought about how she could travel there, not to break someone to save Erilea, but use her words and gifts for peace. Instead of butchery and death, she could promote peace. She didn't need to break them, she didn't need to fix them, but she could help them find their path, help them realise the ancient magic, more powerful than the kind banished by the King.
"There was never stopping you, was there?" Deji Ytger joked dryly, helping her slip a few blades into the folds of her bags and clothes.
"I am Nehemia Ytger! The Light of Eyllwe! The Princess Hei-" A pillow was thrown at Kharis, muffling his next word. "You are beneath me, Adarlan scum!" He waved around her staff, head tilted up. Kharis was the older of the two brothers, but he was more skilled in the arts of flirting and getting his way that court talks and war strategies. That was fine by Nehemia, she did not want them to shoulder the weight of a country.
"I'm not going to say that…Not in Adarlan's language, anyway," she laughed, picking up the thrown pillow. They grinned knowingly at each other.
Deji, the quieter of the two, slung her bag over her shoulders and helped carry a case down to the courtyard. Kharis reluctantly handed her the staff and hugged her.
"Good luck," Deji kissed her cheeks, helping her into the coach. She smiled and waved as the carriage started rolling forward until the Eyllwe palace was nothing but reflections of the hot sun against glass domes, and the pale Wrydmarks, invisible to all others eyes.
The Light of Eyllwe was going to remake Erilea.