Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(13)

I choose three jewels for each ear—blue, green, and silver, the colors that symbolize peace between the last three Adjacent Realms. I swipe gray powder over my eyelids and mauve over my lips, and for the first time in a long time I look in the mirror and smile.

My bedroom is at the end of the Fiordenkill wing, a big room with a dormer window facing west. The view of the sunset over the mountains is the best in Havenfall, and as a bonus, there’s a shortcut—a narrow, out-of-the-way staircase used mostly by the staff, but which takes me past the hallway where the Solarian guest rooms used to be.

Now the hallway is sealed off with pine boards, since no one else wants to sleep in those rooms. It would be cowardly to take the long way around just to avoid passing a covered-up doorway, so I rarely do, but just walking past it on the landing always makes ice cascade down my spine. There’s something about the idea that Solarians used to sleep in rooms just like mine, with cedar eaves and windows looking out over the mountains.

The wooden boards have warped with age, opening up cracks between each wide enough to see through. After the Solarians were banished, my great-great-grandmother painted the walls and ceiling in that part of the dormitory a pleasing light blue, scrubbed the floors to a high shine that still glints underneath the cobwebs, but no one was willing to stay there. Annabelle couldn’t erase the memories of rough places where claws gouged the walls, bloodstains on the floor.

As kids, Brekken and I once dared each other to peek through the cracks and see what we could see. But when I knelt and pressed my face to the wood, a shadow scurrying across the floor scared me so bad I jolted back and almost fell down the stairs. Brekken caught me and held me to his chest until I stopped shaking, already chivalrous at ten. After that, I looked up what happened in the library. Back when Havenfall’s tunnels opened up to three worlds instead of two, back when guards surrounded the grounds both to keep humans out and Solarians in—because unlike the rest of us, they can travel throughout the worlds without getting sick—a political disagreement ended when a Solarian delegate murdered a Byrnisian princess and ate her heart right out of her chest.

After the war that followed, the door to Solaria in the tunnels beneath was closed, and the Solarians’ old guest rooms have stood empty ever since. Too many bad memories and mojo. Even the human cleaners, who don’t know what happened, are put off by this part of the inn, as evidenced by the thick layer of dust on the floor of the stairwell, thick enough that as I walk past, I leave footprints behind me. The Solarians are gone, I remind myself.

But they aren’t, not entirely. One killed my brother in Sterling eleven years ago. It might still be out there. Who knows how many more might have slipped through the dragnets.

We don’t talk about such things at Havenfall, though. The guests would be horrified if they knew how Nathan died, why my mother ended up in Sterling Correctional when, despite all her flaws, she didn’t kill my brother. I’ve never told anyone except Brekken and Marcus about that, because the important part of the story is something that would threaten the very peace that was brokered here so many years ago, the reason for the summit every year. Marcus just told the rest of the delegates that his nephew had died and his sister had moved away. It wasn’t technically a lie.

Marcus always told me the purpose of the summit is to remember the Accord that allied Byrn, Fiordenkill, and Haven. But if you drill down deeper, if you read the Accord, the real reason behind it is darker. It’s Solaria.

I shake the dark thoughts away. Now isn’t the time to get dragged into a dark mood. I have a job to do. And someone to see.

When I come down the stairs, the ballroom is filled with people. They’re spread out below me, and even though I’ve seen this tableau so many times before, I stop for a second and drink it all in.

Havenfall. At last.

The peace summit officially begins tomorrow, but it looks like most of the delegates have already arrived. The denizens of the three worlds practically glitter, the crystal chandelier shedding light on their bright hair, feathery hats, and silk scarves. Staff, human and otherwise, flit between them with trays of prettily arranged snacks and bubbly drinks. Voices and laughter in three languages rise up to me. A handful of guards—mostly humans who report to Sal Fernandez, Marcus’s trusty head of security—are stationed at intervals along the mirrored walls. More a formality than anything—Havenfall hasn’t needed defending since before I was born—but their presence makes me feel safer.

In the corner, the Elemental Orchestra plays—three musicians using strange instruments with Byrnisian magic. One plays something like a harp, but instead of plucking the strings she plies them with small flames spurting from her fingertips. Another produces tinkling sounds by spinning ice over a wooden frame and smashing it with a mallet, over and over. And a gold pipe contraption wraps the small stage, emitting mournful notes whenever the players send air into it with a thrust of a palm. It looks like a steampunk game of Mousetrap, but the sound is wistful and wild all at once. The elemental magic that flows through Byrnisian blood never ceases to amaze me.

The ballroom is huge, and it seems even bigger because of mirrors lining the walls on either side, while the far windows show a magnificent moonlit view of the mountains and Mirror Lake. I should be looking for my uncle, but I can’t stop my eyes from scanning the crowd for someone else instead. For broad shoulders and hair that flames red in the light. His name is stuck in my head like the song of the summer on the radio. Brekken. Brekken. Brekken. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I find him, but my gut says this is the year to do something, say something, make something happen. Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline from the motorcycle ride, or my fears about not being welcomed back, but I feel brave, maybe a little reckless.