Vhalla stared up at him. This was the prince she had expected. Not the mysterious intellectual phantom, and certainly not the awkwardly kind man who had first entered her room.

“So stay there, with the filth you so happily chose.”

He stormed out of the room. Vhalla’s face stung, and she swallowed hard. The minister hovered uncomfortably.

“Leave, please,” she whispered. Ignoring her wishes, the minister knelt by her side. “Don’t,” she said, staring at the shattered glass from the window. “Just...leave.” She had no right to command him but there was nothing in her left to care about that fact.

“Vhalla,” he said softly.

It was too kind for what she felt. She wanted nothing more than for him to scream at her and leave too. Or throw her out the window and finish what the prince had started.

“Go,” she demanded. He stayed. “I said leave!”

Finally, with an audible sigh, the minister stood and left.

Vhalla never heard his footsteps walking away from her door. She knew that he stood right outside as she collapsed among the broken glass and cried out, sobbing, until she had nothing left to feel and the darkness took her again.

VHALLA TWITCHED HER fingers. There was a bug on her that was intent on disturbing her sleep. When it refused to go away, she twisted in the opposite direction; it frustratingly followed her hand. Almost fully awake, she tried to withdraw and heard a low shhh-ing noise come from the bedside.

Cracking her eyes open, she realized that she was back in the bed. It irked her that they had lifted her off the floor and placed her back among the soft pillows and blankets. She would’ve rather spent the night on the ground. Thinking of what she said to the prince’s face, she groaned.

“Does it hurt?” a faint voice whispered next to her.

Vhalla turned back. It was the Western woman, Larel. She was changing the bandages on Vhalla’s arm.

“What do you care?” Vhalla remembered what the prince had said. Larel was to spy on her and report to him. The Westerner before her fraternized with the enemy.

“I care very much,” Larel replied easily. “Does it hurt?”

“Why?” Vhalla continued to ignore her question. Everything hurt. But she wasn’t certain what was physical and what was emotional.

“Because you are to be my protege.” The sorceress had a flat way of talking, thick with a Western accent.

“I don’t want to be your protege.” Vhalla looked away in childish protest.

“Very well,” the woman said lightly. “We can change that after you’re healed.”

“What?” She turned her head back slowly to the dark-haired woman. The movement was accompanied by a deep ache in her shoulders.

“After you’ve healed, you’ll meet others in the Tower,” Larel explained. “If you do not wish for me to mentor you, then you can have your pick of a new mentor, someone you are more comfortable with.”

Vhalla stared at the bruises and scratches on her flesh. It was true, she was a mess. Underneath the bandages her skin was a grotesque rainbow of red, yellow, purple, and blue. Wounds were so prevalent she could not even catch sight of the natural yellow tint of her skin.

“Have you done this every night?” Vhalla finally asked. The woman had a gentle hand.

“Almost.” She said it as though it was nothing.

Despite herself Vhalla cringed. She didn’t care about this sorceress, she told herself. But the idea that someone had been changing her soiled clothes and tending to her needs naturally put guilt in her mind.

“I’m sorry to be a burden,” Vhalla whispered. Magic had only made her a more pathetic being thus far. A soft breeze brought her eyes to the window; the glass had not been replaced and the crisp smell of winter was beginning to change the night air. Summer was gone, and fall was already upon them.

“Prince Aldrik told us not to fix it.” Larel missed little. Vhalla winced at his name. “Are you cold? I could bring you another blanket.”

“It’s fine.” Vhalla was cold, she was always cold. But her lingering pride would not allow her to be more of a burden. “I guess he’s going to make my life as uncomfortable as he can.”

“If the prince wanted to make you uncomfortable he could, and would, do far more than not replace a window,” Larel pointed out.

It was a truth Vhalla did not want to believe. To believe it meant the woman was right. The fact that Vhalla was still in bed receiving treatment meant the prince did not want her to be uncomfortable, even after what she said.

“What relationship do you and the prince have?” Vhalla asked boldly. The prince had appointed this woman as her mentor. Larel was the one who gave Vhalla the book that the prince left his notes within.

Her gold-ringed hazel eyes met Larel’s dark ones. Vhalla may be a bad liar but that wouldn’t stop her from looking for a lie in others.

When Larel spoke there was no sign of hesitation or fear. “We were apprentices in the Tower together,” Larel said simply, returning to rubbing salve on Vhalla’s skin.

“The prince was an apprentice?” Vhalla blinked. She expected apprenticeship to be something that was below royalty.

“How else would he have learned?” Larel had a small grin. “I know how he seems. But he’s not truly malicious, not normally, and almost never to people like us.”

“People like us?” Vhalla repeated doubtfully.

“Sorcerers.” Sweeping dark bangs across her forehead, the woman glanced up.

Of course, Vhalla thought. She was one of them now, and there really was no more denying it. The fall should’ve killed her, and if the prince hadn’t intervened, something did.

“Magical people are often feared by Commons. Even you feared us,” Larel said thoughtfully.

Vhalla could only nod. She was conflicted over the woman’s use of past tense with regards to her fear. Though, at this exact moment, Vhalla did not feel afraid. She felt sad. Something in her was different. Roan, Sareem, Master Mohned, they wouldn’t understand, even if she tried explaining.

“The prince knows this,” Larel continued. “He knows how hard it is, better than most. He’s had more than his fair share.”

“So now I’m supposed to feel sorry for him?” Vhalla spat, becoming far more venomous than she would’ve wanted.

Larel stopped and looked up at Vhalla strangely for a long while. “Yes.” She returned to her work, and Vhalla felt her jaw go slack. “And he should feel sorry for what he put you through,” Larel added faintly. “Awakenings can be scary, but they shouldn’t hurt, at least never this bad. I think, I think he was caught up in the promise of what you are.”

“What I am?” Vhalla mused, remembering the unexpected conversation she had overheard. “You mean a Windwalker?”

Larel nodded. “I don’t think you understand, Vhalla. You are the first Windwalker in generations. Many theorists have gone so far as to postulate that the East is magically dry. That the source of magic for the Windwalkers had been destroyed with no one connected to the Channel for so long.” Larel picked up a bottle of the salve and worked it across Vhalla’s still open wounds. “You fly—no pun intended—in the face of everything people have been saying for well over a century.”

Vhalla wanted to feel special. She wanted to feel important. She wanted to feel she was special and important to the crown prince, of all people. But she only felt like an object. She was jarred out of her destructive cycle of thought when Larel placed salve into a particularly angry gash.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.” The woman continued on with her work.

“I’m sorry you have to do this,” Vhalla replied. On the scale of sorcerers, Larel had wronged Vhalla the least, and she seemed to be cleaning up the mess of everyone else.

“I don’t mind.” She began padding a few wounds with cloth scraps before starting on the clean dressings. “Yes, you have been more work than most of my peers’ Awoken apprentices. But I think your story is already far more profound than most of us can ever hope for.”