Kana woke to sunlight painting lines across her bedroom walls.

For a moment, she lay still, listening to the birds chirp. There was a quiet tension in her chest, lingering. Her mother's story of Narobei’s words brushed the edge of her thoughts the way they had all night, repeating with the insistence of a heartbeat:

Your child will carry fire I could never hold.

She turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. The bells that marked first light chimed faintly somewhere in the palace, their tone softened by stone and distance.

Kana exhaled, the breath clouding softly in the morning air. She flexed her fingers. Frost did not bloom across her blankets this time. Her hands were steady.

She rose.

Her bare feet met chilled stone, and Àse stirred in response, a quiet hum beneath the floor. She crossed to the window and drew aside the translucent curtains. The world beyond greeted her in layers of white and blue-ice-clad peaks, catching the first touch of the rising sun, the valley still wrapped in shadow. The full moon was sinking, pale and ghostlike in the brightening sky, stubbornly refusing to disappear.

Kana’s pulse quickened at the sight of it.

“Tonight,” she murmured to herself. “By tonight, I will have stood before them.”

The knock at her chamber door was soft but precise.

“Enter,” Kana said, straightening her posture without thinking.

The door opened to admit a young servant girl with brown braids gathered into twin tails. She carried a folded gown over her arms, the white silk so bright it seemed almost luminous. Pearls and tiny silver medallions were sewn into the fabric, catching the light in delicate constellations. Behind her, another attendant followed, bearing a shallow stone bowl filled with thick white paint that smelled of crushed herbs and ash.

They bowed in unison.

“Princess,” the first girl said, her voice careful. “We’ve brought your ceremonial garments.”

Kana nodded and let some of the morning’s tightness melt from her shoulders. “Thank you. Set them there.”

They laid the gown across the low bench near the hearth and arranged the other items beside it: the headdress with its woven white silk ribbons and silver chains, the arm cuffs, the layered necklaces with ice-blue gemstones that shimmered in the light. A separate bundle of white leather boots was unwrapped with reverent hands.

The bowl of paint was set on the small table near the standing mirror.

Silence settled over the chamber, but it was a sacred kind of silence, the kind that held words rather than lacked them.

Kana stepped forward, letting the attendants help her out of her night robe. The air kissed her bare shoulders with a chill, raising a line of goosebumps down her arms. The first layer of the ceremonial robes brushed against her skin gently, the cool silk gliding over her body, heavier than it appeared, carrying the significance of tradition woven throughout.

The attendants fastened the ornate silver arm cuffs from wrist to elbow, cool and unyielding. The belt came next, etched with spiritual charms carved in miniature wolves, snowwood leaves, and veve-like symbols of the spirits. Each charm chimed softly when it touched another.

“Raise your head, Princess,” the second attendant murmured.

Kana obeyed. Pale fingers slid through her long black braids, which had been carefully loosened the night before. The girl worked fast but precise, separating and gathering the braids into an intricate updo. Silver chains laced through the plaits, catching stray beams of morning light. White silk ribbons intertwined with her hair, threaded with beads that clicked softly as they settled into place.

With each tug and twist, her scalp tingled. She watched in the mirror as her reflection blurred and reshaped: Kana the daughter, Kana the student, slowly dissolving into Kana the vessel.

When the headdress was placed atop her braids, its weight settled like a hand on her crown.

The girl with the paint stepped forward next, dipping her fingers into the bowl. The mixture was cool and slightly gritty as it touched Kana’s skin. She closed her eyes and let the girl work, feeling each line drawn across her forehead, down her nose, along her cheekbones and chin.

The patterns were ancient, older than memory. Esharian spiritual markings meant to tell the spirits who she was, where she came from, what blood ran beneath the surface.

When the girl stepped back, Kana opened her eyes and studied the face in the mirror.

For a heartbeat, she saw her mother staring back.

The same deep brown skin, luminous and unyielding. The same pale blue eyes, though her mother’s were sharper, colder, honed by years of rule. The face paint turned her features into something almost otherworldly, a map of lines and curves and sigils.

“I look like my grandmothers,” Kana whispered. “Like every woman who’s ever knelt in that chamber.”

The attendants glanced away, as if the intimacy of that confession was not meant for them.

The door opened again without a knock this time.

Queen Kanaé stepped into the room, and the air shifted around her.

If Kana was a young flame, then her mother was a winter blizzard. Her ceremonial regalia stole the breath from the room. the magnificent white silk robes heavy with ice-blue and silver embroidery, the dozens of circular medallions gleaming across her chest and shoulders, the massive white wolf fur cape trailing dramatically behind her. Her face paint was even more elaborate than Kana’s, covering most of her face in intricate patterns that emphasized the cold brilliance of her ice-blue eyes.

Her long locs had been gathered into an elaborate crown, threaded with silver chains, white wrappings, and blue gemstones that caught the light like frozen tears.

In her hand, she carried the ancient ceremonial staff of Eshari’s queens. Its shaft was carved from dark wood so old it had gone almost black, veined with faint lines of glowing blue symbols. At the top, a crystal jutted out a rough, jagged thing that pulsed softly with light, like a captured shard of glacier.

“Ti cheri,” Kanaé said, and somehow the simple endearment survived the burden of all that finery. “You are ready.”

Kana straightened reflexively. The staff’s reflection glowed in the mirror behind her, a vertical line of light.

“I… think so,” Kana replied. Her voice came out calmer than she felt. “I slept well.”

“Good.” Her mother’s gaze swept over her, evaluating, then softened. “You look like a queen.”

“I look like you,” Kana said. “And Narobei. And all of them.”

Queen Kanaé stepped closer and reached out, one thumb gently tracing the edge of a painted line on Kana’s cheek, careful not to smudge it.

“That is the point,” she said quietly. “You go to them as yourself, but also as all of us. You do not kneel alone.”

The words settled deep, anchoring and terrifying at once.

Kana nodded. “I remember what you said. About your ceremony. About the voices.”

Her mother’s lips curved faintly. The memory was still there in her eyes, somewhere between wonder and fear. “Do you remember the other thing I told you?”

Their gazes locked in the mirror.

“That the ancestors don’t judge,” Kana recited softly. “They guide.”

“Mhmm.” Kanaé’s hand moved from her cheek to her shoulder, a brief squeeze of warmth through the layers of fabric. “Whatever they show you, ti cheri, you breathe through it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Good.” She stepped back and lifted the staff, presenting it. “Take it.”

Kana turned fully, bowing her head as she reached for the carved wood. The moment her fingers closed around it, the symbols along its length flared brighter, responding to her touch with a soft thrum that traveled up her arms.

Àse swelled in the room, faint but unmistakable.

Kana swallowed. “It knows me.”

“It has known you since I first placed it beside your cradle,” Kanaé said. “Come. Elder Aruya waits.”

—

The palace corridors felt different dressed like this.

Every footstep sounded louder, echoing off the stone like the closing of heavy doors. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as Kana and her mother passed, heads bowed, eyes lowered. Some murmured blessings under their breath. Others simply watched her from the corners of their gazes, the way one watches a storm building on the horizon.

Kana held the staff in her right hand, letting its weight steady her.

They descended through familiar halls at first, past carved arches and frostglass windows, past beautiful tapestries that told different stories. The warm glow of everyday braziers lit their way. The air smelled of baking bread from distant kitchens, of lamp oil and melting snow.

Then the path shifted.

They turned down a narrower corridor, one rarely used, its walls bare and unadorned. The air cooled perceptibly. The floor beneath them dipped, sloped, then began to angle downward. Small lanterns took over where large braziers ended, their flames blue-white and still.

The sounds of the upper palace faded behind them. No more clatter of dishes, no more distant voices.

Only the hollow rhythm of footsteps.

Elder Aruya waited at the mouth of the hidden passage.

She wore ceremonial robes in muted shades of gray and white, her hair wrapped in layered cloth marked with Kelama script. Her face paint was simpler than the queen’s or Kana’s, but it had the same deliberate symmetry. A string of bone and crystal beads encircled her neck, each piece worn smooth by time.

“Majesty. Princess,” Aruya greeted, bowing. The candles around her flickered in response to her voice, as if recognizing something old in it. “The moon will be in place by the time we reach the Chamber.”

“Then we won’t keep it waiting,” Queen Kanaé replied.

Aruya turned and led the way.

The passage beyond narrowed further, hewn directly from the mountain’s interior. The walls gleamed where veins of ice ran through rock, catching the lantern light and scattering it in fractured patterns. Their breath began to fog more heavily in the colder air. Kana’s bare fingers tightened around her staff, the wood pleasantly warm against her skin.

She could feel the temple ahead of them, even before the passage opened. It wasn’t a sound or a sight, but a pressure, as if the mountain itself lay awake and listening. Each step they took downward made that awareness grow.

Mbaya’Wolé warriors knelt along sections of the corridor, spaced at intervals, each one lowering their heads as Kana passed. Their white fur capes brushed the floor, their spears planted firmly beside them. Their faces were painted in sharp geometric patterns of white over brown skin, eyes steady and bright.

White wolves sat beside some of them, massive bodies coiled like patience, ice-blue eyes reflecting the crystal light. Their ears flicked as she passed, some noses lifting to test the air around her as if confirming her scent.

Kana’s heart rate quickened.

They know, she thought. They can feel it too.

The air temperature dropped again as the passage narrowed one last time, then widened abruptly.

They emerged onto a platform cut into the outer face of the mountain.

The world opened up in an instant, sky stretching vast and high above them, clouds drifting in slow procession, the full moon now high and round despite the lingering light of day. The snow-capped peaks around them rose like silent sentries. Far below, a waterfall carved a glittering path down the cliff face, its spray catching sunlight and moonlight both.

Ahead, the temple clung to the mountainside like something grown rather than built.

Enormous stone archways framed its entrance, each pillar carved with swirling spiritual symbols that glowed faintly, pulsing in time with Kana’s heartbeat. The doorways themselves bore elemental motifs: water flowing in etched lines, earth rendered in layered stone and roots, fire captured in twisting flame-carvings, air in spirals of wind and cloud.

Waterfalls cascaded down around the temple’s outer walls, feeding small pools at different tiers. Mist lifted from them, drifting through the air in soft veils.

Stone braziers lined the grand steps leading up to the entrance, each one holding blue and white spiritual flames that burned without smoke. The light they cast painted everyone in shifting shades of ice and shadow.

The Mbaya’Wolé were already in formation.

Two parallel lines of warriors flanked the staircase, male and female alike, each standing at attention with a spear held upright. Their white wolf fur capes hung heavy down their backs, their ceremonial armor gleaming with polished silver medallions. The white paint on their faces added sharpness to their features, making their eyes seem even darker, more intense.

White wolves sat beside each warrior, perfectly still save for the occasional flick of a tail or twitch of a muscle. Their fur glowed blue-white in the braziers’ light, their eyes a mirror to Kana’s own.

As Kana stepped onto the base of the stairs beside her mother, the entire formation bowed, not deeply, but in a precise, unified lowering of heads that transformed the space between them into a living corridor.

The wind rushed past, carrying with it the distant roar of the waterfall and the high, thin chime of wind flutes set somewhere along the cliffs.

From below, from the valley, faint chanting rose; a crowd gathered outside the palace and along the lower paths, singing old songs of blessing. It drifted up like incense.

To anyone else, the scene was glorious: a nation gathering to watch their princess step into destiny, their queen luminous with power beside her.

To Kana, the beauty was suffocating.

Mist clung to her exposed skin, settling along the edges of her face paint, dampening the silk at her throat. Her breath fogged visibly in front of her, short and quick despite her efforts to slow it. The staff in her hand pulsed, its glowing symbols brightening with every step.

I am the daughter of storms, she told herself. I am spirit-made. I can do this.

They climbed.

One step, another. The world seemed to hush in proportion to their ascent. The chanting from below became a distant echo. The braziers’ flames flickered as they passed, bending inward as if bowing.

Kana counted her breaths, aligning them with the measured rhythm of the drums that started somewhere behind the walls of the temple. The sound was slow and heavy, each beat landing deep in her chest, as if her ribs had become the drum’s skin.

At the top of the steps, Elder Aruya paused before the massive doors and turned to face them.

She lifted her hands, palms outward, and began to chant in Kelama, her voice rising and falling with practiced cadence.

“Retounen kote ou soti, wè sa ki mennen w isit la,” she intoned. Return to where you came from, see what brought you here.

The warriors responded as one, their voices merging into a low, resonant reply that Kana felt in the soles of her feet more than she heard it. The wolves’ ears pricked at the sound.

“Zansèt yo ap pale,” Aruya continued. “Nou dwe koute.”

The ancestors speak. We must listen.

The last syllable faded into the cold air. The symbols carved into the door glowed brighter.

The temple doors swung inward.