I try to move past them as quickly as I can, like a shadow sweeping across the corner of their eyes. It’s the same each year: two hundred souls ready to be bargained. The line rounds the corner opposite me, so I can’t see how far it stretches, but I know how many people there are. The Festival of Predictions happens once a year, during the month of the Red Moon, where anyone from across the Six Isles can wait for a prediction from the king’s witch. A mix of the poor, the wealthy, and those who fall in between.Īll of them are desperate to cheat death. Most are dressed in rags and dirt that cakes them like a second skin, but a few are smothered in jewels. Outside the Grand Hall, a line of people gathers in a stretch of soon-to-be corpses. To keep my magic at bay until the time is right. They’re meant to be a safeguard for my visions, but sometimes they feel more like a leash to stop me from going wild.
I stride through the stone halls, ivory gloves snaking to my shoulders where the shimmer of my dress begins. The right hand to royalty, free to go wherever I want and do whatever I want, without having to ask for permission first.
I’m King Seryth’s ward and one day I’ll be his most trusted adviser. It’s all I was ever raised to be: a servant to the kingdom, an heir to my family’s power.Īnd because of it, I’ve never glimpsed the world beyond the Floating Mountain this castle stands on. That’s the job of a Somniatis witch, tied to the king with magic steeped in death. All I need is a lock of hair and their soul. I can tell someone when they’re going to die.
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