Chapter 1

This day is unlike any other.

I can feel that as I watch one of my father’s advisors climb the steps, a rolled up scroll in his hand. He places the paper on the top of the podium, unrolling it, and clearing his throat. My father has waited three days to give everyone in the kingdom time to arrive, so they can all hear these words. My curiosity increases along with my anxiety over what is to be said. My father’s announcements are rarely about anything good. I find myself wondering where all these people will sleep since my father only had rooms prepared for the nobles, but even at my young age, I know that my father doesn’t care for the commoners. He never has. He is the king over all that I can see, and yet, he only cares for those in our kingdom who can increase his wealth.

“By royal decree, from this day forward, The Unspoken One is banished from the Kingdom of Nur. He is an enemy to your king, and therefore an enemy to you. Anyone who so much as speaks this enemy’s true name shall receive a punishment of no less than twenty lashes and the loss of a year’s wages.”

The nobility and commoners alike gasp at the words, looking at each other with wide, shocked eyes. But my own confusion dampens my shock. Who is being banished? Who is The Unspoken One? How are the people supposed to know who is banished and an enemy, if his name is not spoken? And what harm could there be in saying his name? What power can it possibly have? My mind reels with the many questions racing through it.

“The Unspoken One shall not be remembered in any aspect. It shall be as if he never lived or existed at all. So orders our sovereign, King Qarun.”

The advisor faces the paper outward, and raises it high, as if anyone can actually see my father’s signature on the decree. But I can, and I swallow, knowing it seals someone’s fate. For my father holds the power to elevate or destroy someone’s life, and I’ve rarely seen him use it for the former.

The people below us grumble as the advisors gather into a half-circle near the podium. I try to listen to them discreetly, too fearful to ask anything of them or the man sitting next to me. But I want to plead so badly for the answer to what horrible thing this person has done to be banished. For his very name to be erased from our history. It must have been something unspeakable to deserve such a punishment.

I peek at my father out the corner of my eye and find him watching me with the usual disgust shown on his face whenever his gaze settles upon me. His top lip curls up on one side, eyes full of downright contempt. I’ve become sure over the years that when he looks at me he only sees that, while he got the daughter he wanted, he did not get the daughter he hoped for. I am not powerful like my mother, like he thought his union with her would produce.

But now, I am his only hope.

Everyone ceases speaking all at once, and I don’t have to look behind me to know she’s here. The witch. The very air vibrates with darkness and something that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. Soon she’s beside me, so close her dark cloak brushes against the arm of my chair. I’m unable to suppress my shiver at her proximity. I never knew my mother, but I cannot look at her portrait in the halls and imagine her ever seeming so ominous. Cannot imagine that her magic felt so violent and cold.

I see my father gesture impatiently at the witch, and she steps forward to the podium. Although I tell myself not to look up at her, my neck cranes of its own accord, and I regret it the moment I meet her eyes. They are completely white, devoid of any color, and yet still frightening in the way that they seem to see all. They have no irises to tell me what she’s looking at and still I can feel her staring right back at me, so intently I have to swallow to keep the fear from crawling up my throat and making me scream. The hard set of her thin lips and the sharp point of her nose makes her face just as unwelcoming as her eyes. Her skin is stretched too thin, like it wants to peel away from her face, and she refuses to allow it. I shudder to even think of how old she is.

Her power calls to the spark of my own. I look at Maryam out the corner of my eye, and she discreetly shakes her head, a reminder to control myself. If my father ever knew there was even an ounce of my mother’s magic flowing through my veins, I know that I would and could never be free of him. I grip the arms of my chair, suppressing the magic trying to rise from the base of my abdomen. The witch’s head turns slightly, her eyebrows furrowing, while her eyes fervently seek out the magic she senses.

Although she has lived in the palace since my mother’s death, this is only the third time I’ve seen her. The first was when she presided over my older brother’s funeral two weeks ago. He’d been stabbed, why and by whom, no one knows, but there he lay, lifeless, his once bronze skin pale and ghostly. I could not bring myself to spill any tears for him as I barely knew him. A little sister was of no significance to him, and so my dead brother was of no importance to me.

The second time I saw her was when my father signed the decree naming me his new heir, I’m sure purely because I am his blood, and not because he has any actual desire for me to rule. Even as the crown of the heir was placed on my head, he could not stop himself from laying out my flaws. Too weak, too compassionate, too merciful. His hands balled into fists at his sides as the witch sealed the decree, making it so none could change the wording after my father’s death. And now, seeing her for the third time, I am no less afraid of her than I was before.

I sink further into my seat as I watch her dig her too sharp nail into her pointer finger. Once she’s broken through the skin, she tilts her head back and brings her finger to the space above her open mouth, and I watch as a single drop of blood slowly falls onto her outstretched tongue. The moment the blood makes contact with it, the skies darken, clouds rushing in like they herald a storm to end all storms. When I look back at the witch, her eyes are completely black, and I shrink back in my seat in fear. If I thought her white eyes were frightening, seeing them all black now is terrifying.

She exhales and smoke releases from her mouth like breath on a cold day. I’ve never seen a spell the likes of this. Not in any of the books Maryam managed to hide away for me to study. The books with pages full of words that only call out to those with magic in their blood.

The sky begins to crackle, lightning flashing through the gray clouds, but no thunder sounds, no rain falls. There is only a violence in the air, a feeling that whatever the witch is doing should not be done.

But she proceeds, ignoring the warning that makes my eyes constantly dart between her and the sky, not knowing which to watch or where the danger lies. The witch steps closer to the podium, touching her bloody finger to the decree, leaving a red fingerprint behind when she removes it. She raises her arms high, her wide sleeves falling back and revealing pale, frail arms. A low grunt leaves her, as if the effort this takes is more than she can bear. Even that sound is gravelly, like her voice is rarely used. And why would it be? My father only permits her to speak to him and other witches. But there are only a few witches left, and the ones who remain have good reason to avoid her. She has killed almost all of witches in the kingdom, consuming their power for herself, using their deaths to prolong her life. But now there are hardly any left to kill, hardly any to use to preserve her youth. Her greed will be her downfall.

She brings her hands to her chest, and her air cuts off with a sharp intake of breath. Even the sky silences, as if it’s waiting to see if she will truly finish this spell, to carry on with this foreboding deed. Her eyes close, and her head dips until her chin touches her chest. Then she spreads her arms wide, and a spark too bright to look at without squinting emanates from her chest. It stretches between her hands until it passes from her, racing towards the sky, growing wider and covering all as it progresses. The people on the balcony and below scream as it passes over them, but it doesn’t harm them, simply continuing on, traveling until I can no longer see it’s glow.

“It is done,” the witch says hoarsely, her body now sagging against the podium, exhaustion clear on her weathered face. “He is banished.”

I scrunch my eyebrows at her sudden old and haggard appearance. When she did the spells at my brother’s funeral and the heir decree signing, they did not take such a toll on her. In fact, they didn’t appear to take anything from her at all. But this spell, this banishment, seems to have used every ounce of power she has.

And she’s searching for more. She inhales deeply, and I feel a pull at my center. Her cold, now white-again eyes are searching once more, snapping from one face to the next until they settle on mine. They narrow, her head tilting as the pull inside of me turns in to a painful tug, then a tight, crushing grip. My chest begins heaving with the effort of me using what little training I have to resist her, all while trying not to prove that her suspicions that the magic she senses is coming from me are correct. Maryam must realize something is wrong because she comes to stand between me and the witch, placing her hand on my shoulder and squeezing. Without the witch’s gaze on me, I feel her power release from within me. I slump back into the chair, a bead of sweat trailing over my temple.

My father simply grunts as he raises, the sound he usually makes when someone has done his bidding. Oblivious to his fatigued daughter beside him, he passes me and walks towards the door of the balcony. The others standing near us slowly follow him, and the witch staggers back into the palace. Her footsteps are slow, her feet dragging as she uses her hand on the wall to keep her upright. Only then does Maryam remove her hand from my shoulder and go inside as well.

The people below begin to slowly filter out of the courtyard and beyond, casting worried glances over their shoulders as they go. I stay in my seat, content to look over the balcony, not wanting to return to the uncertainties of the palace just yet. And although my eyes glance up at the sky, wondering if that spark has faded yet, at the courtyard, and the guards directing the people out, my mind keeps whispering to me.

Who was banished? Who is The Unspoken One?

I could never have known how much the answer to that question would change my life.