Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 48

A R I

"Ari, I think I should have had a package delivered. Would you fetch it from the post room?"

Ari looked up from her assignment. She was lying on the soft rug in front of the fire in the sitting room of the princess's chamber. Katja was standing by the window, painting on canvas, while Sanna was sitting on an armchair, reading. Tom, meanwhile, was in the middle of the room, doing push ups on the floor. It was a free afternoon, but the whole school was in lockdown, because of a ferocious gale outside. No one was allowed to let their kinnlings out of the kinnhouses, and they weren't allowed out beyond the main school buildings. Tom, out of all of them, was going the most stir crazy.

Ari gathered up her assignments, folding the paper neatly, and stood up.

"I'll go with you," Sanna said. "I have a letter to send."

Ari was surprised. The wind was howling outside, and she hadn't expected Sanna to want to brave the cold. But Sanna left her book on the sofa, and stretched her long arms above her head as she stood.

Katja went back to her painting without a word, and Tom was still exercising on the spot, so Ari followed Sanna from the room. She took her coat from its hook inside her bedroom door, and met Sanna at the landing. Sanna was now wearing her winter coat, which was elegantly tailored, detailed with luxuriously soft grey fur. Ari's coat was a size too small, with a torn seam. One of her foster parents from years ago had given it to her.

Downstairs, common areas of the house were alive with activity, as most of the students were remaining indoors. It seemed that all two-hundred winter students were sitting in the grand hall, or on the lounges in the drawing room, or occupying every desk in the study hall. It was why Katja, Sanna, Tom and Ari had retreated upstairs, to the quiet of Katja's private chambers.

Ari had found herself spending more and more time with the winter trio, who were usually never apart from one another. They'd been attending the same social gatherings for years, usually with Prince Raphael, and they were close friends.

Ari had been working for the princess in every respect - changing her bedding, cleaning her room, washing and folding her beautiful dresses and her school uniforms, and even helping her with assignments. But somehow she had also found herself becoming more than that. Katja seemed to expect Ari to take every meal with them, as if she were a friend as well as a servant.

Ari heaved open the heavy wooden front door, and immediately the icy wind clawed at her face and lips. She pushed her scarf further up, so that it covered her nose, and Sanna and Ari stepped out into the frosty torrent.

The two girls hunched against the biting winds, almost running through the deserted streets of the campus, towards the Old Building, where mail was delivered every morning. Just inside the front doors, across from the dining hall, was a mail room, attended by a ward.

It wasn't until they got inside, that Ari suddenly remembered Taikku Tsukasai taking the letter outside the kitchen doors. She'd been so caught up in what had happened afterwards - the attack in New Hamilton, and then the attack by Tai and his friends, and then detention - that the fire prince's suspicious behaviour had completely slipped her mind.

Ari made a surprised sound as she remembered.

Sanna said, "is something wrong?" as she gracefully unwound her scarf from her neck. She looked over at Ari and then without warning reached out and plucked a leaf from where it was stuck in Ari's tight curls.

Ari stared up at Sanna, as Sanna dropped the leaf to the ground.

"I just remembered..." she said, and then wondered if she should in fact tell Sanna, or whether she should wait to tell Katja first. But Sanna's deep brown eyes were inquisitive, and Ari couldn't resist sharing her information.

"On the day of the attack in New Hamilton... that very morning, I went to the kitchens for breakfast."

"You mean the dining hall."

Ari shook her head. "I went downstairs, to the kitchens. There's an external door that leads to the courtyard, where deliveries are accepted. A man with a cart was delivering vegetables. But then the fire prince... Taikku Tsukasai... he appeared, and the man gave him a letter."

Sanna turned to the attendant in the mail room. "Any mail for Katja Koningssen?" she asked the young boy on duty.

As the ward disappeared behind the stacks of parcels and packages, Sanna turned back to Ari. "Tai took a letter from a delivery man?"

"You call him Tai?" Ari asked, surprised.

"He's in two of my classes. His friends call him Tai."

Ari took a moment to process this information, imagining Sanna van Dael, with her long brown hair tied up into its elegant twists, sitting at a desk in a classroom opposite the fire prince. Somehow she couldn't even imagine the two of them beside each other - perfect Sanna, pale and tall, icy yet soft as snow, was so opposite to Tai, who was everything dark, sharp and simmering with fire.

"He took the letter. The delivery man bowed."

"So the letter must be something he didn't want in the hands of wards," Sanna said, nodding to the nervous mail attendant, who was struggling under a pile of packages.

"Sign, please, Madame Koningssen," the young boy said finally, when he'd retrieved the correct package. He was talking to Sanna. Sanna didn't correct the boy, who clearly thought she was the princess. Ari watched as Sanna wrote a perfectly looping signature, spelling "Katja", on the form.

"I memorised Katja's signature when I was thirteen years old," Sanna said quietly, as they accepted the packages and walked away.

Ari didn't comment.

"So it seems our prince of fire has some secrets he wants to keep," Sanna mused, just before they stepped into the cold. "I wonder what they are."

Outside, it was too windy to continue their conversation without yelling, so they walked in silence back to the house. But before they reached it, Sanna indicated that she wanted to check in on the kinnhouses.

"I'll take this back," Ari said, but Sanna didn't hear her over the wind, and then somehow Ari found herself following Sanna through the big doors of the kinnhouse.

• Author's Note •

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to vote!

What's better, summer or winter?

elle xx