my inner life
is a sheet of black glass.
if I fell through the floor
I would keep falling—
One day I will be a Halcyon warrior.
This is indisputable. I am the daughter of two warriors, and I have been born and raised here, and I have wings, and to imagine being anything else is simply a pipe dream.
I don’t think it’s that my mother would stop me, exactly, if I tried to take a different path. She is kind in ways I can feel but not fully understand; this is one of them. I could apprentice with the Fosters if I wanted to become a bookkeeper. (Mother says she even knows a nice girl who’d say yes to teaching me if I sent a nice letter. Her name is Isabella. I think.) Or I could wade my way into the swamps to find the moss-carpeted house of the Silvas. They could teach me which herbs to gather, which berries are poisonous, the recipe for panacean tinctures. I think, if I really tried, I could even land myself a spot with the De Clares: I’ve always been awed by the oil paintings of the sea we’ve hung up in the main hall, and a talent like. that never goes to waste.
(They’re scary, though. I’ve met the headmaster once, and I think once will be enough. At least until I’m more grown-up.)
I could do all these things. But all my daydreaming and fantasizing, all these thoughts of could and want and might, are irrelevant in the face of the knowledge that is:
My mother is Queen. My mother is Commander. She wants me to become a cadet. And I love her—fear her?—too much to do otherwise.
So it is the barracks I flee to after our argument—was it even an argument?—simply because it is the place I know best. I know the path from the castle to its front doors well enough to run it without fear, even now, when the cobblestones are slick with black ice. I know which doors lead where; which rooms belong to who. I know the pattern of the scones and the lanterns on the wall. A light, a door. A light, a door. A light—
Gunhilde?
I stop so sharply I almost trip. My back legs slide all the way under me until all four of my hooves meet; I let out a little noise, almost a squeak, that is no way befitting of a princess, and by the time I scramble back to my usual, carefully practiced posture, my whole face is hot with embarrassment. My heart beats in my throat as frantically as if there were any real danger.
But there is nothing to be scared of. I repeat this to myself until my pulse abides to a normal height inside my chest: there is nothing to be scared of. Slowly the blood rushes down from my ears. And when I finally collect myself enough to peer down into the hallway and find the source of the voice, I realize that I was right.
It’s only a girl.
I recognize her. I think. She’s taller than me, and older, I’d guess, from the way she’s a little more filled out. Her auburn hair falls in damp ringlets, capped at their ends by pieces of ice; her eyes stare out at me from the darkness, and they are a soft blue so winter they’re almost gray; but the rest of her is obscured by the gentle, flickering darkness that surrounds us. I can only pinpoint to height of her face by the slashes of white on her nose and her forehead.
I recognize her, I think. But not enough to remember her name. And—and I don’t know why, or how, but I’m less embarrassed by that fact than I am desperate to resolve it.
“Oh,” I say. My voice is froggy; I wince when I realize that, between that raspiness and the redness of my eyes, she will probably be able to tell at once that I’ve been crying. But I clear my throat, stubbornly, and continue. My tone is soft and timid enough it might only come through halfway. “Hello. I hope—I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
I bite my lip.
I'm not sure I'm sorry at all.
