Book 5: Home Again?

Amval

I slow Cloud to a walk at the foot of Som Palace. The sky behind the castle is gray with the rising sun, and every inch of my body moans for a rest. For nearly two days, I’ve been awake. I look up at the star-shaped outer wall, toward the equally jagged bluestone castle within. One dark window on the southernmost point hides my bed, waiting for my safe return. I would give almost anything to stumble inside and drop into it.

“Anything but the safety of my family,” I tell Cloud.

He’s gotten used to my talking by now. He’s even gotten used to my fiddling with his mane.

I adjust the thick cobalt veil covering my face. The only delay Cloud and I suffered on the journey—a stop in a religious town my family spent a few months in once, home to the largest cloister of the Starlit Oath in Lightning Cape. The makeshift cape I wore there wouldn’t have protected me for more than a few minutes inside the palace walls, but the brothers’ embroidered fa