Kinza was up before dawn the next morning. She got dressed in her usual routine and sat waiting in the main room of her little house until it was time to leave. She brought in the little gifts that were left for her, flowers, a silk robe, and a box of candies.
Mikah had taken her around more of the city yesterday, and she wasn’t sure of the last time she had laughed that hard. The jokes and charm that poured out of him were like a tap that never turned off. It didn’t make her stop thinking about the meeting with the Elders, though.
She hadn’t realized the Rhaptan monarchy—really the entire Rhaptan culture—was so complicated. When Zaid and his friend Haris had originally told her about the city and its people, she had imagined a primitive group of magical people that lived in the woods. B
