Over the years, as the princess grew, so did her differences. She looked nothing like her cousins—a trio of velvet-eyed beauties whose hair glistened auburn in the candlelight, whose ivory skin freckled from time spent outdoors. The elder two’s figures were sure to be shapely and sensual like their mother’s one day, but the cousin closest to her age, Lustacia, shared Lyra’s willowy build.
However, no one shared her odd characteristics. Lyra had iridescent eyes—mother-of-pearl prisms that shifted from the rich amber of autumn leaves to a lilac so gentle and serene it was almost transparent; moonlit skin—the color of hydrangea petals faded to the lightest shade of blue—too spectral to hide the delicate network of veins beneath; and hair, eyebrows, and lashes so silvery-white and glistening, they rivaled the spiderwebs which draped the corners of the castle where even the candlelight couldn’t quite reach. Over time, her lashes grew so long they stretched above her eyebrows and often tangled within her hair. Thus, any strands about her face were kept drawn into plaits, allowing her to blink freely.
To everyone but her doting father, she remained a creature of otherworldly strangeness. Her skin burned with excruciating pain when sliced by the slightest strand of sun. Her eyes had never shed a tear. They guided her through shaded corners and antechambers, glistening gold with the precision of a cat, yet shifted to purple-tinged and left her blind as a mole in daylight.
Outside of her brother’s earshot, Griselda poisoned the servants against the child. “Her blood is contaminated. She walks in shadows like the gloom-dwellers. Already, we’ve lost the queen to her. Now her demon wiles have bewitched my kingly brother. And when it’s her turn to reign, what then? What purpose can she serve to a kingdom where the sun shines eternally from our victory centuries ago? Will we all live locked up indoors, indentured to darkness for her comfort? Or will she split the earth so night can seep in once more to contuse our skies?”
On Lyra’s fourth birthday, she toddled down the corridors, the floor cool and slick beneath her bare feet. Heavy drapes cloaked the windows; only candles were lit on the north side of the ivory castle in respect for her tender skin.
Three servants peered around the corner, dim light flickering across their faces. Upon seeing them, Lyra waved. They shook their heads.
“I miss the sun’s warm glow,” whined Brindle, the court jester. The bells on his hat jingled with each bob of his chin.
“Must we always live in hiding?” seethed Matilde, the head cook, her crossed arms cradling a soup ladle that dripped with a mouthwatering scent.
“Just for her?” snarled Mia from behind a basket piled with bed linens. She had served as Queen Arael’s faithful lady’s maid but was reluctant to do the same for the odd little princess.
Lyra didn’t quite understand the septic bite of their words. All she knew was their murmurs tickled her ears like the tiny chattering mice in the storybooks her father read. She ran to greet them with a melodic giggle. All three servants’ expressions changed . . . frowns becoming smiles, eyes once dim with mistrust brightening with optimism.
Matilde caught a breath and Brindle spun in place, his bells jingling merrily.
“Her voice . . . it be like sitting in the shade on a blanket of spring flowers, ain’t it?” He laughed.
Mia set aside her basket. “What are we all standing about for? It’s the princess’s birthday, and as her lady’s maid, I intend to see ’er pampered and spoiled.”
The other two servants agreed. Matilde baked a honey-iced cake and tickled Lyra’s feet with plucked goose feathers as she ate; Brindle crafted a chime of glittery, tinkling tin triangles to hang over her small bed; and Mia gave her a bubble bath scented with rich, woody magnolia and vanilla brandy. Lyra laughed as the bubbles perched weightless on her lashes and hands, thrilled by the candle glow captured inside. Nothing held more fascination for her than light.
From that point on, the cook, jester, and maid aimed to elicit the princess’s laughter as often as possible. Hidden from sight, Griselda watched their loyalty grow and her grudge burned deeper and darker, branding her heart with an irreversible smudge.
Three more years tumbled by. Preoccupied with his daughter’s needs, King Kiran was oblivious to his sister’s darkening moods. He failed to notice how often Griselda stayed with her daughters on the east side of the castle, isolating her small family and half of the castle’s servants where the curtains remained open to the never-changing sun.
One day, in the north wing, as Lyra stared sadly at the heavy drapes on the windows, the king stopped beside her to stroke her satiny hair. “Wishing for greener pastures, little lamb?”
She bowed her head low. Something was amiss with her tongue. She couldn’t form words—only those lyrical sounds that seemed to make everyone either happy or confuddled. She’d given up trying to speak. Better to make no sound at all than be misunderstood. But she and her father had a special bond. He could read her gestures and expressions. No answer to his question was needed; she knew he understood better than anyone how she longed to go outside and feel the sun on her face, or the wind in her hair.
“Well,” the king answered her silence with a cheerful note in his voice. “It just so happens I’m bringing the pasture to you. I’ve sent for the three royal mages. They’re on their way from Mount Astra’s peak to find a means for you to stand in the light.”
So overcome with happiness, Lyra threw her arms around his leg and nuzzled the spiced scent of his royal robes.
The immortal triplet brothers arrived, walking barefoot and soundless through the castle halls like tethered spirits. Their feet and hands glittered, resembling pale beige sands that slipped through an hourglass. Descended from ancient seraphs, they were so bright and beautiful, no mortal could look upon their faces for fear of going blind. Thus, they wore shimmery, cowled robes and birdlike masks. Lyra studied them in reverent awe as they measured her head and neck. Renowned for combining their magic in clever ways, the mages designed a hood made of nightsky, a fabric woven at the hands of enchanted seamstresses—one part midnight shadows and one part stardust. Being customized for the princess only, it followed her every movement without touching, like a school of fish darting to-and-fro about her head.
With her hood in place, Lyra scampered to a window her father had opened. A floral-scented breeze wafted through the swirling fabric and she basked in its sweetness. She gestured toward a tree in the garden with a thick white trunk and twisty, twining branches adorned in feathery crimson leaves. It stood out like a flame in the center of the lush green backdrop, so bright she could see it even through the muted screen protecting her face.
King Kiran knelt beside her. “That is a sylph elm. Before your birth, the leaves turned red. Your mother told me the legend, that the leaves only bleed when an elm hides the severed wings of a sylph. If an air elemental brings an injustice upon someone pure of heart, they’re cursed to be earthbound in their two shifting forms.” He paused, and Lyra sensed him trying to keep his voice strong. She wondered if he was doing what she was: envisioning her mother in the garden right now. “But the sylph can be freed one day, once all the other leaves become richest gold—the color of your eyes cloaked in shade.” He tweaked Lyra’s nose. She giggled, knowing the chiming lilt would snuff out his sadness. His answering smile was her reward. “During that time—when only two red leaves remain among the gold—if the sylph performs a selfless deed out of the kindness of their heart, they can reclaim their wings and return to their true form.”
As if prompted by his words, a red butterfly perched upon the windowsill. Forgetting the light’s danger, Lyra reached farther than she should’ve with her bare hand. A strand of sun grazed her moonlit skin. Her fingers sizzled and charred. She howled in agony, her own cries mocking her with joyful lyricism.
Mortified, the king caught her up and watched somberly as the mages treated and bandaged her blisters. He commissioned an entire suit of nightsky. However, the hood had taken all of the materials preserved in jars from centuries before. The mages could find no current source of moon-born shadows or stars because Nerezeth had been hoarding the nights for hundreds and hundreds of years.
“Gather all of the shadows from the castle’s corners and hearths! Dig them up from the dungeon if you must!” the king shouted.