Once, she’d been meant to revive an entire civilization.
The painful frost growing inside her veins was a primitive phenomenon, one thought lost to her people a millennia ago. Alizeh knew only a little of the abilities she was rumored to possess, for though there was an inherent power in the ice that pulsed through her, it was a power that could not be tapped until she came of age, and even then would not mature without the assistance of an ancient magic buried deep in the Arya mountains, where her ancestors had built their first kingdom.
And then, of course, she would require a kingdom.
The idea struck her as so preposterous it nearly made her laugh, even as it broke her heart.
Still, it had been at least a thousand years since there’d been news of a Jinn born with ice in their blood, which made Alizeh’s mere existence nothing short of miraculous. Nearly two decades ago whispers of Alizeh’s strange, cold eyes had spread among the Jinn the way only a rumor might, expectations building every day upon the slopes of her young shoulders. Her parents, who knew she would not be safe until she came of age at eighteen, had removed their daughter from the noisy, needy world, secreting her away for so long that the whispers, without fuel, were soon reduced to ash.
Alizeh, too, was forgotten shortly thereafter.
All those who knew of her had been killed, and Alizeh, who had no ally, no kingdom, no magic, and no resources, knew her life was best spent simply trying to survive.
She no longer had any ambition beyond a desire to live a quiet, undetected existence. In her more hopeful moments Alizeh dreamed of living somewhere lost in the countryside, tending to a flock of sheep. She’d sheer them every spring, using their wool to weave a rug as long as the world was round. It was a dream at once simple and implausible, but it was an imagining that gave her comfort when her mind required an escape.
She promised herself things wouldn’t always be this hard. She promised herself that the days would get better, bit by bit.
In fact, things were already better.
For the first time in years, Alizeh had company. And as if to remind her, the firefly nudged her neck.
Alizeh shook her head.
The firefly nudged her again.
“Yes, I know, you’ve made it very clear that you’d like me to come outside with you,” she said, scarcely breathing the words. “But as you can plainly see, I’m not allowed to leave this house at will.”
She could almost feel the firefly grieve. It wilted against her neck, rubbing one little arm over its eyes.
The creature had snuck into Baz House last night, during the brief window of time it took for the prince to open and close the back door. It had flown hard and fast in her direction, pelting her in the cheek with its little body.
It’d been so long since Alizeh had seen a firefly that, at first, she hadn’t recognized the creature. When she did, she smiled so wide she hardly knew herself.
Alizeh had been sent a firefly.
A communiqué.
From whom? She did not know. Though not for a lack of effort on the part of the insect. The poor thing had been trying to drag her outside since the moment it found her.
There was a special relationship between Jinn and fireflies, for though they could not communicate directly, they understood each other in ways unique only to the two species. Fireflies were to Jinn what some animals were to Clay. Beloved companions. Loyal friends. Comrades in arms.
Alizeh knew, for example, that this firefly was a friendly one, that it already knew who she was, and that it wanted now to guide her to a meeting with its owner. Though it appeared neither the firefly nor its owner understood the limits surrounding Alizeh’s freedom.
She sighed.
She took as much time as she dared scrubbing each delicate windowpane, enjoying the expansive view to the outside. It was rare that she was afforded so much time to take in the beauty of Setar, and she relished it now: the shattering, snowcapped Istanez mountain range in the distance; the frosted green hills in between. Dozens of narrow rivers fractured the landscape, the valleys blue with turquoise and rainwater, bookended on either side by miles of saffron and rose fields.
Alizeh was from the very north of Ardunia—from Temzeel province—an icy, elevated region so close to the stars she’d often thought she could touch them. She missed her home desperately, but she could not deny the splendors of Setar.
Without warning, the bell tolled.
It was noon, the morning now officially at an end. The sun had slid discreetly into position at the apex of the horizon, and Alizeh marveled at it through the glass, at the jolly warmth it emanated across the land.