Petra of the Shazastar is a thief on the run from an unforgettable past. But, like all thieves, her luck cannot last forever. When she is caught, she's given a choice: either face execution or become the fortune teller to the Mad Queen.
Not surpri...
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GRAM HAS ALWAYS TOLD ME not to trust a man with a beautiful face, for more often than not, their beauty covers something sinister.
"A smile and a sweet word. A touch or a caress. Do not get fooled, Pet. Do not get fooled."
At first I had believed she spoke of Sven.
Innocent and loving Sven – he should have been wary of me, he should have feared me, and done as his people did and avoided me.
I float away from the past, high above Ethban, to a place of clouds and stars – away from the insignificance of land. What are we when compared to the stars? Bounded and chained; freedom is in the sky, away from pain and confusion, from longing and lies.
But it is also cold.
Perhaps what my Gram should have warned me from is a man who radiated the heat of the sun—
A shiver runs through me, his touch, his voice – the longing I thought I had escaped reaches for me from far below, from somewhere in the Ethbanian palacio. Slowly, I float back down from the clouds, like the first timid leaf in autumn, cautious and dead.
A phantom, I float around the ceiling of my room in the Ethbanian palacio, watching all below, but invisible to them. A pale, pathetic girl lies bundled on the bed. Her face scrunched in pain and drowning in her inky hair. She shivers and sweats and mumbles words too incoherent and soft for me to hear.
I watch Annabella hold the girl's clammy hand. "Per favore, Petra. Please... Please wake up..."
Petra?
Was that pathetic pale thing me?
"Sad, no?"
I whirl around to the voice.
Saboykan floats beside me. Silver hair flowing, pipe in her mouth.
"Did you do this to me?" I ask the old Zingari, but she just laughs.
"I had to summon all my energy just to communicate with you like this! I do not have the power for something this grand."
"It was the man," I whisper. "He touched me and then everything became cold and I do not remember the rest –"
Saboykan slowly removes the pipe and narrows her eyes. "What man?"
"I don't know what he looks like – only that he is beautiful and glorious –"
The old Zingari's strange eyes widen. "Your return to your body is even more pertinent. You must! I cannot tell you much, but I can tell you this, Petra, that this magic is all your doing. For if you were anyone else...anyone with lesser magic you would have died. Yet, here you are..."
