I tell myself not to open my mouth again. To bide my time so I can recover. Yet as soon as I pass through the archway to the outdoors, the queen’s magic crushes back into me.
As if she somehow knew what I was planning, she suddenly attacks. Her power cinches me like a too-tight corset, cutting off my ability to breathe, making my heart feel like it’s being fisted in someone’s cruel hand.
I gasp, falling over into the Matrons to my right, their robed bodies staying straight and firm, a knock of elbows and shoulder bones smacking me back in my tiny circle between them. It’s a wonder I stay on my feet, taking gasping, short breaths that make me feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. It’s just enough pinching pain to make my body panic, to make it difficult to focus, yet it’s also subtle enough to not knock me down into unconsciousness.
Pain is a pyramid, she said. And she’s stacking more on top of me, brick by brick, like she sees my suffering as some shrine to her own power.
The oppressive heat doesn’t help. It presses down on my wet hair and prickled body, my bare feet burning against the tile as we walk along the outdoor path. I don’t pay attention to where I’m being led. I simply follow the white and gray striped sheep, trying to focus through the pain.
Although the heat is almost oppressive, the sunlight seems to invigorate me. Like it’s tapping into something deeper, sinking into my skin and shining on that beast inside of me.
Because for me, the sun has always equaled power.
And in this world, if you don’t have power, you don’t survive.
I was shut away from it for ten years. Blocked away, kept apart in a snow-doomed kingdom where the sky was always covered with oppressive clouds. Before that, I lived at a harbor that dumped out rainwater and flooded the streets. Yet here…this is where my magic came out. Here is where my gold first came and my ribbons first sprouted. This is where it all began. So even though my time in Second Kingdom was traumatic then, maybe there was a reason why my fae power ignited while I was baking beneath its sun.
Despite the queen’s leash of pain, I channel into the sunlight instead. Think only of that, of it soaking into me and giving strength. Then I try to muster up enough gold, try to tap into it and ignore everything else.
To my elation, a few droplets gather against my fingertips, and I roll the thick beads between my thumb and fingers, finding comfort in its presence, no matter how little the amount, no matter how thick and gunky it seems.
All of my concentration is on my gold, gathering painfully slow drops. I’m hoping the Matrons are taking me back to my room or to continue their gods-awful rituals somewhere else, something to give me more time to gather myself and my power.
But instead, we veer further outside, down the tiled path that’s patched with intermittent shadows cast off from the plants, while an unbroken cacophony of cicadas buzzes through the air. Sweat starts gathering at the back of my neck as I’m herded, my frizzy strands of wet hair sticking to my skin, my cinched sleeves dampened at my wrists.
My feet are on fire. The only saving grace is that the stickiness of the oil has made the fine sand stick to them, giving the only protective layer I have. I try to focus my magic to my soles next, urging the gold to coat the undersides. Yet I can’t get a thick enough layer to do much, though I hope I’m leaving stained footprints behind me to taint their way.
The queen apparently gets bored with my suffering in silence, because she releases the pinch on my heart and changes it until it feels like something has latched onto my spine and dug in its nails, tipped ends pressing sharply into me.
This time, I have no choice but to whimper, back arched slightly, feet faltering. I’m pushed from behind, urged incessantly forward, while every step makes my spine bite and needle.
I know the queen is behind me, watching my every move, probably getting some sick satisfaction from the noise I made. I transfer the small ball of gold from my left hand and add it to the collection in my right, and while it’s only the size of a blueberry, it’s something.
But with all my concentration focused on enduring the pain and keeping my small clump safe in my hand, I realize belatedly that I’m not walking on sandy tiles anymore. I’m walking on clay stairs, and the noise I’m hearing isn’t just cicadas anymore.
It’s people.
A lot of people.
I look behind me, seeing the single-level castle draped across the feather-soft sand dunes and blended with a bounty of vegetation hugged around the sparkling water of an oasis.
But before me, down this steep outdoor staircase, is a sprawling metropolis. Far off in the horizon, I can see just a sliver of the sea. It streaks across the edge, separating the land and sky. All the way from here to there, there are blocks of flat-roofed buildings spread out in such a vast collection that I can’t even fathom how many people must live here.