There were certainly advantages of being the youngest and only sister of her five brothers.

  There were, however, no advantages to being her father's only daughter.

  He was why she frequently sought out her brothers. For one thing, they would always dote on her and indulge almost any of her slightest fancies. Even when they hesitated to break custom, she often managed in some way or another to sway them.

  Jyr, the youngest, was the one who had surreptitiously slipped her morsels of meat at the table when they were children, and later wine. It was a routine that had started ever since she sulked after Father had told her she could not eat the marmouk stew on the table. Jyr had scampered up to her like a comforting hound and sat down next to her against the stone wall.

  He had twiddled with his thumbs for a few seconds, likely trying to gauge her mood, before he’d said, “I’ve a thought for some mischief.”

  Not desiring much to speak, she huddled her little body closer to the wall and said, “A thought? You’re always making mischief.”

  “Well, yes. And you usually like to join me.” His lips quirked as if unsure whether to smile or frown. “Is this about dinner?”

  “Why can’t women eat meat, Jyr? All this time I thought Mother just chose to eat bread and those unnatural vegetables—I’ve never even seen them grow here!”

  He giggled uncertainly. “Ah—Vell, you might want to ask Levvik that. I guess because it’s heavy food, perhaps? It wouldn’t do well to sit in a little tummy likes yours.” He poked her middle at the words. “Little lady like yourself has to be dignified.”

  She had glowered back at him, and oh how she had hated when his smile only widened at her frown. “Now you, Vell, you’re already quite undignified,” he added.

  Vellurres’s pout had only deepened. “What’s so wrong with wanting to try meat? It smells delicious. And it’s only food. How can one type of food be forbidden when we all must eat? Were there a famine, would I then starve?”

  Jyr had looked thoughtful then, pausing before he responded, “Well, peasants might think like that. I’ve seen maidservants snacking on dried meat. I think most peasant girls get to eat it. And I guess if you’re already undignified—” he grinned again at her scowl, “—who’s to say you can’t also?”

  He had adjusted his scheme then to raid the storage to acquire dried beef, a delicacy from the other worlds. She’d wolfed it down with him right there, both stifling giggles the next morning when they crept to the kitchens to hear the maidservants’ complaints and grumbles.

  They had upgraded to the dinner table the next night, and nights after Vellurres would always wait for that signal: his amber eyes gleaming mischievously under straying strands of tousled brown hair, flashing her a quick grin when Father turned his attention to a guest at the table.

  Tauvynn, the second youngest of the five, was the one who snuck with her into the woods at night to race their horses to their favorite glade, where he would tell her stories of his travels outside the castle. Always eager to hear about the world outside the castle walls, she would continually pester him about his day.

  “I’m just learning to hunt, Vell,” Tauvynn told her with a light laugh the first time she had asked him. The dry blades of golden grass beneath them glistened with vyrgen—little sparks of lightning that coursed through the ground. Levvik had told her once that in other worlds, little drops of water would glitter on the plants instead. Tauvynn, meanwhile, was ripping at the blades and letting the energy flow through his fingers, gingerly flipping his hands back and forth as he played with the vyrgen. “It’s not like Father’s taking us on his regular travels about the dukedom,” he continued. “I have just grown old enough to join in the hunts, that’s all.”

  “Did you hunt a tyrvag?”

  Tauvynn’s golden eyes widened. “Blethrir, Vell—of course not. I’d probably be a scorched corpse by now. We just hunted a couple marmouk and a vulren today.”

  She’d excitedly tugged at his arm. “Do vulrens really move that fast? Do they really trap lightning in their pretty white fur to keep warm?” she asked.

  Tauvynn raised an eyebrow at her enthusiasm. “They sure do.” He spat at the ground at that. “Those damned foxes move near fast as the lightning. They’re a blasted pain to hunt.”

  “Their furs are really lovely, though. ‘Tis probably the only material I like that makes needlecraft less dull,” Vellurres mumbled, copying him now and playing with the sparks. She collected enough to trace little shimmering shapes in the air with her fingers that disappeared seconds after.

  Tauvynn watched her as his brow raised all the further, but now in a comical way that made her giggle. “Is that so? I’ll have to make sure to catch the whitest one just for you. Perhaps Jyr can even nick some of its meat for you.”

  “Jyr said he wouldn’t—!”

  “Relax. He did not tell me. Jyr just can’t hide anything from me. That stupid look on his face always gives it away.”

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  Vellurres laughed then as she tried to draw that very face with the vyrgen, and Tauvynn only laughed harder at her depiction. A week after she was lining a coat sleeve with the purest white vulren fur.

  Levvik, the third eldest, would bring her books to sate her desire to know more about the worlds beyond their own—even read some to her when she could not understand the foreign script.

  One day she was looking for Levvik and found him at his scriptorium, an isolated section in the library where he was supposed to be writing but where she instead found him reading.

  At first he’d rolled his eyes when she found his hiding spot. “And here I thought,” he said dryly, setting his leather-bound book down on his desk, “I could escape my all too inquisitive little sister.”

  “Were you really hiding from me?” she asked, tilting her head.

  He massaged his forehead as he shook his head. “No, more from Father. He thinks I read far too much, that I should join our brothers more in swordplay. I may or may not be expected to be practicing presently.”

  “Why—you, Levvik? Hiding something from Father?” She had only grinned wolfishly at him. “Why, I’d never would have guessed you capable of deceit.”

  “I don’t need to hear that from a little she-wolf like yourself.” His lips tugged at a smile nonetheless as he shuffled through some parchments on his desk. “Why did you seek me out?”

  “The book you lent me has some strange words.”

  “Well, it does originate from Kriaa.” At her blank look he elaborated, “The center of our universal government, remember? Their world is incredibly different from ours.”

  “Ah yes, Kriaa. They have this thing they call ‘sun’, Levvik. What is it?”

  Levvik stroked his chin for a moment. “Mind you, Vell, I haven’t seen them myself. I have only seen pictures. Was there not an illustration?”

  Vellurres had only shaken her head in response. He sighed as he considered how to respond. “The most I can say is that the sun is what illumines their world in the day,” he finally answered slowly. “They say it is a big golden orb of light in the sky. At night the ‘moon’ does this as well, and instead of gold it is a soft silver.”

  “So…they are concentrated bolts of lightning? Is that it?” asked Vellurres, her brows furrowed.

  “Not…exactly.” He scratched his neck absently as he thought again. Then he did what she loved most: he painted it into her mind. “Imagine that the dark clouds over our world were not always there. Imagine that the lightning they held were not there. Imagine that instead, these clouds would clear like a pool of water after dust has settled—don’t look at me like that. You’ve seen a pool of water before—and instead of black, you see blue overhead. This is what the sky normally looks like in other worlds, apparently. And in this blue sky you see an overhanging sphere—like the golden bauble you have—but brilliantly shining. It exudes warmth as well, a ball of fire that warms the world. It is more like fire than lightning in that respect.”

  Frankly her child’s mind couldn’t wrap itself around the objects, those large orbs of light that always kept each world illuminated. Here, the lights ever streaking across the sky, as well as the lights streaking across their metallic soil, was more than enough lighting they could ask for. Levvik had told her that foreigners rightfully saw such a living as perilous, but with the majority of their population being lightning magicians, their people had naturally acclimated to the environment for thousands of years. Though with lightning being such a volatile element, that was not to say there weren’t accidents now and then.

  And then there were her two eldest brothers. She remembered when she would watch them practicing their swordplay in the courtyard as a child. Though Father had already expressly forbidden her to watch, her brothers would still find times to sneak into her rooms and invite her to watch them practice.

  “I wish to learn how to wield a sword,” she had said once to her eldest brother, Fauon, after he’d emerged the victor of his duel with Jarryl.

  He had given her that smile, that smile she knew all too well meant he was being patient with her. “Vell,” he said kindly, “you know a lady should not wield a sword.”

  “I can hardly see why. It takes two hands to wield a sword. And we both have two hands, dear brother. Is that not so?”

  Jarryl, walking up from behind Fauon, grinned at her. “You’ve a point there, little sister,” he remarked. Usually he’d take her side whenever Fauon bested him—that was to say: quite often.

  Fauon looked at him wryly. “Hardly. Don't indulge her. She’s just a child. And it takes more than two hands to wield a sword, little sister. It takes strength.”

  “I’ve the strength, Fauon,” she said with a stubbornly furrowed brow.

  He pointed to her chest. “There, perhaps. But not here.” He tapped her forearm.

  When she still continued to pout, Fauon sighed and said, “Fighting is an aggressive art. Aggression is not ladylike. What would Father say?”

  “What of the tales I’ve heard of those warrior women?” she asked.

  Fauon raised a brow. “Did Lev tell them to you?”

  "Naturally."

  Jarryl now laughed. "Those warrior women are not from our world. They hail from a world run by women."

  His words had only fascinated her, that such a possibility could exist. She’d have to ask Levvik more about this new world later. "If they can learn, then surely I can, also.”

  “Their customs are not our own, Vellurres," Fauon told her with a frown.

  She had always hated that stern tone he gave her, turning from the endearing brother that called her Vell to the admonishing prince that called her Vellurres. He sounded far too much like Father for her liking.

  Jarryl, however, had knelt down and whispered to her, "How of once every week I show you more exciting spells other than those weaving charms Mother taught you?"

  Fauon must have seen her eyes glisten, because he groaned in protest. "Jarryl, Father will disown us both..."

  “Vell's a silver tongue on her. I think she'd make the convincing argument to him for the both of us."

  Fauon shifted his gaze to Vellurres, regarding her warily but with reluctant amusement. "Dear little sister who cannot be content with what we risk for you. Very well. I still think you are far too young to wield a sword, so I will teach you to throw a dagger." He smiled in defeat then, shaking his head at her. "You are indeed growing into a woman if you are already mastering the art of persuasion, sister. You'll be a dangerous one," he said, to which she only granted him her most charming smile.

  There were truths and lies in what they had both said that day. Even then, she disagreed with Jarryl—even if he was in jest of her persuading even Father—though she had not voiced it lest her brothers changed their minds. Father, the great lord of the castle, was the only one she could never sway throughout the years. He would all too often silence and dismiss her before she could open her mouth to speak to him. And it was for that and more that her chest smoldered at the thought of him, especially on this present day.

  However, it was Fauon's final words back then, all those many years ago, that would turn out to be far more prophetic than he had accounted for.