THE HEM OF HIS INKY cloak scissored through tall grass as he moved, his

frantic pace inciting small riots of sound that seemed to scream between his ears with every footfall. Hands of heat grasped at him, his heavy attire stifling. Cyrus of Nara could feel his heart clamoring in his chest, panic breeding panic as he fought the impulse to run. He felt much like rain in search of a river, trying in vain to orient home. Occasionally he stiffened – head turning in sharp, birdlike movements, breath catching as if he’d been startled by a ghost.

No. Not a ghost.

Far worse.

It was unproductive to panic, he reminded himself. There was no benefit to losing one’s mind. If there were, Cyrus would’ve happily mislaid his mind at the palace, where it might’ve lived forever with his father, the king, and the surfeit of oppressions the older man had earlier laid at his feet.

Instead, the young prince had done the more reasonable thing in a crisis and promptly retched into a nearby planter.

Now Cyrus took a shaky breath.

He forced himself to slow down, to assemble his thoughts. The overgrown lane was perforated by gopher holes camouflaged by weeds and wildflowers; he’d twisted an ankle too many times along this path, and no matter his desperation now, he could not afford to be injured.

The route he traveled was marked by the bones of a deserted train track, these origins all but invisible save two parallel beams of steel corroding in

the expanse, the drama of so much floral anarchy ablaze around him. Among other creatures, thick neon snakes were known to doze in the warm grass, their appetites easily awoken. How many times in his youth Cyrus had limped onward in agony from here, poison brimming in his blood, he’d lost count. As a child, he’d found such heart-pounding adventures exciting; he’d learned over time how to catch a serpent by the throat with a flick of

his wrist, how to uncurl smoke from his fingers and send it slithering into the distance. He’d once loved stomping through these wilds: challenging trees to duel, digging for treasures he’d buried himself. Each caper had exposed a new challenge, a new beast, a new agony to conquer. The trek was now nothing more than an essential commute – and nothing short of devastating.

Life, he feared, would never be the same.

His heart thundered harder as he approached the mouth of an obsolete train tunnel, its crumbling interior choked by a tapestry of climbing vines,

the scent of life so fragrant it chafed the mind. Blue-winged birds and shafts of brilliant sun stole through fissures in the rotted structure, drowsy blooms unfurling in this gloss of light, dust motes suspended and glittering. The tunnel was a portal to another world – one in which, once upon a time, he’d intended to live forever.

A green locust latched onto the young man’s shoulder as he entered the underpass, the contrast of bright on black like a shriek in the void. Cyrus pulled his cape more tightly about his body as he moved, something akin to grief webbing between his ribs.

In the narrowing distance, the sight of so much green spiraled into a

blitz of white. A thicket of waist-high clouds rose up from the ground, and he traversed this odd stretch with care, for the experience was not unlike wading through frost. It was just as his legs began to freeze that the cloud path thinned beneath his feet, and Cyrus suppressed a shiver.

A palpable veil of magic hung always above the many acres encircling the Diviners Quarters in Tulan, shrouding the central temple and its many outbuildings. There were few indeed who knew the old train tunnel ran perpendicular to this ancient site, and fewer still who were granted permission to enter from this path.

The Tulanian prince had been three years old the first time he’d visited these hallowed grounds. From birth he’d been a frustrated child: he’d cried

easily, screamed freely, and though he knew himself capable of speech, he’d been uninterested in the performance. The day his nursemaid had lovingly stroked his head and said he was quite beautiful for an idiot, the child had thrown a wooden block at her face. Only when the woman responded in fury did Cyrus remember that violence was frowned upon, and as she rounded on him, he’d bolted for an open window, registering the nanny’s horrified shriek only as he tumbled out the other side like a potato. He’d bounced three times off the hip of the fatally steep roof before plummeting to the ground, where he’d landed with a final, unexpected bounce.

The boy had badly scraped his hands and knees; a bruise blossomed along the back of one arm and part of his cheek. Still, he’d not cried. Like a fern uncurling, Cyrus had risen slowly and with surprise, pushing copper

locks out of his face with small, dirty hands, only to discover himself at the center of a halo.

Never before had he seen Diviners up close.

They’d stared down at him, faces obscured, black cloaks so dark they seemed to leave holes in the world.

There you are, little one, he’d heard someone say.

The child had rubbed his head in wonder, marveling that they’d managed to put the voice inside his mind. It was only then that Cyrus laughed, that he spoke aloud his first words with delight.

“That was magic,” he’d said.

The nanny was still screaming as she ran out into the gardens, half the palace staff at her heels, all wild with hysteria. Her services, she’d later discover, would no longer be required.

It was that fateful day Cyrus had decided who he wanted to be, and every year the conviction had rooted more deeply inside him. The king and queen had felt this a fortuitous discovery, for the boy had not been born to ascend the throne and would require some lesser, dignified preoccupation in life.

Cyrus of Nara was the spare, of course; never the heir.

It was his older brother who’d shadowed their father from infancy. It was his older brother who’d prepared for a life of decadence and power.

Cyrus, on the other hand, had spent every free hour in his youth tearing down the secret train tunnel with abandon, flowers blooming in his hair as he hurtled himself through the clouds and into the arms of the Diviners.

Over the years, he’d devoted himself to the study of divination, forsaking the high shine of the material world for the hazy wonders of the ethereal –

and was endlessly mocked for it by his royal family. Learning the basics of magic they could understand, but no one believed a prince would willingly strip himself of a title and refuse an inheritance of riches only to join the

ranks of nameless Diviners.

Cyrus hadn’t cared.

He’d locked away his gold and jewels, cut off his hair, and whittled down his wardrobe to simple black garb. He took preliminary vows on his eighteenth birthday and spent the next year and a half living exclusively at the temple, seldom leaving the grounds as he prepared for the final ceremony. He was among the youngest students allowed to advance to this first rung of priesthood, and now, as he approached his twentieth year, he was only weeks away from being given official robes, from having his lips sealed with a magic that would bind him forever to –

Stop.

Cyrus froze, his breath catching. The icy cloud path had connected, ultimately, to the roof of a stone cottage, one of several in the crescent of outbuildings on the Diviners’ land. The young prince stood atop one such building now, a spongy rug of moss yielding under his boots. His fears hardened as he lifted his head; never had Cyrus been denied entrance to

these grounds.

Slowly, he looked his old teacher in the eye.

The man glided forward, his dark robes mesmerizing in motion. Tulan’s Diviners were distinguished by their black cloaks, the curious material shimmering like liquid metal, heavy with secrets. The elder pulled back his

hood an inch, baring a hint of his face to the cold light. What was visible of his brown skin was smooth despite his advanced age, though his eyes were milky with cataracts. Still, there was no censure in his energy; in fact, there was a compassion that emanated from deep within the man, even now. At once, Cyrus understood.

You already know, he said soundlessly.

The Diviner canted his head. We have always known. But we were not meant to interfere.

The young prince felt his heart wrench at this revelation, the words landing as a betrayal even as his mind knew better. To be a Diviner was to be burdened by knowledge and bound by brutal limitations; powerful as they were, the priests and priestesses were not allowed to obstruct the free will of others, and they were not allowed to offer unsolicited guidance.

Cyrus understood this better than most.

Still, his eyes flashed with heat as he stood there, for he knew now, with a categorical certainty, that his dreams had died; his role had changed forever. Never would he become a Diviner. All he’d ever wanted, all he’d ever worked for. His life, his future –

The teacher tilted his head once more, this time the small motion delivering Cyrus to the ground, where the violet walls of the temple rose behind them to breathtaking heights. With fresh heartache the prince registered the press of a barrier between their bodies, magic keeping him at bay.

These hallowed quarters would never be his home.

Please, he said desperately. I’ve come to seek your counsel.

Slowly, the Diviner shook his head. There are only two choices, little one.

Cyrus moved to speak, a fragile hope gathering in his chest, but his old teacher lifted a hand to stop him. It was with unmistakable sorrow that the man looked him in the eye and said –

Few can die. Or many.