Starsinger

Exile

Queen Tatiana gazed out at the Eastern Sea. Even from this height atop Aster's loftiest terrace, she could smell the ocean brine and feel the faint crust of salt settling over her skin. The steady sound of waves crashing against the cliffs and the city's great walls helped her focus. Though she was banished to this fortress under duress, she had deeply missed the sea.

One of the geoscholars fidgeted at her elbow, flanked by the queen's attendants, each standing several respectful steps further back. Her report delivered, the geoscholar waited impatiently for instructions, but Tatiana would not be rushed.

The scholars' instruments had confirmed the massive spell she had sensed cresting over them the previous morning to be a seeking spell, though exactly what it was seeking could not be determined. It was the range of the spell that troubled her most – messengers sent into the surrounding fields reported that the wave had reached far outside the city, possibly even hundreds of miles inland. Such spells had been recorded in the Ellanoi Conservatory's spellbooks, but none of the Apprentices had been permitted to attempt magic on such a scale for fear of overdrawing their power. Whoever cast this spell was tremendously gifted.

Fatemongers. Years of court diplomacy only just kept Tatiana's rage from reaching her face. This was Edmund's fault. If he hadn't sent her and the Apprentices away, the spellbooks would never have been stolen. If only he wasn't so godsdamned stubborn and set in his ways, if only he'd trusted her—

It was a vain, hypocritical thought, and Tatiana dismissed it immediately. She and the king no longer had the luxury of trust. Not since Raelyn was born, a daughter, the first daughter after a dynasty of sons, and Tatiana had realized to her shock that the prophecy her family had been guarding for centuries was soon to be fulfilled by the babe in her arms. Whenever she tried to tell Edmund, he accused her of hiding her heart behind cryptic nonsense and demanded to know what was really distressing her. The sincerity of his concern only made his dismissal of her truth more painful. By then, he was already Vance's ally – nervous to a fault about the realm's burgeoning magic, about the havoc such changes could wreak. Soon Tatiana learned what generations of Firesly women had long known: some secrets are better kept close.

And some are better sent away. Queen Tatiana wrung her hands absentmindedly around the terrace rail. Raelyn should have reached the Opham Conservatory by now, but the bioscholars insisted she had yet to arrive. Without the amberglass, the queen had no way of knowing if the princess was safe. A mother's gut-wrenching panic rose in her throat, but Tatiana forced it down with a grip made iron by years of practice. She could not afford to think of Raelyn as her baby girl. Raelyn was the Star, the vlynnkhora that would change the world. Any sentimental worry would be futile, and purposeless – the prophecy would guide Raelyn to her destiny, and her destiny could not end before the Astral Cycle reached its climax.

And of course, there was the other one. The scout with lightning in her veins. Tatiana had kept her eye on the girl all these years. The time is coming for her to play her own role as well.

And Tatiana's role? She allowed a slight smirk to crease her lips. Edmund greatly underestimated her if he thought banishing her to Aster would be enough to keep her on the sidelines.

"Take three of the more senior Apprentices and have the geoscholars set to work triangulating the source of the seeking spell." Queen Tatiana drew back from the rail and into her full height. "Show the rest of the Apprentices down to the specimen room and tell them to get to work."

"The, ah, specimen room, your Grace?" asked the fidgety scholar.

Tatiana thought of the cavernous room set deep in the guts of the Aster Conservatory, stuffed full of carefully-labeled samples of geodes, agates, limestones, gems and granites. A hundred thousand kinds of stone sitting dull in the dark, just waiting for a spark. A hundred thousand vessels waiting for a spell.

"Tell them to give it everything they've got." Queen Tatiana smiled, flashing teeth. "We've got a war to wage."