Page 6 of Wings of Starlight

Here it comes.Clarion schooled her face into neutrality as she braced for her lecture.

“Your coronation is one month away.”

Clarion bowed her head. “It is.”

“You still have not mastered the most fundamental skill of our magic.”

“I haven’t,” she said, with the barest hitch in her voice.

The Queen of Pixie Hollow required a mastery of politics, organization, and leadership—but also the magic unique to governing-talent fairies. A magic that Clarion had been struggling to perfect since her training officially began. She could not teleport. She could not produce more than a flicker of light. Evidently, she could not even help a singlebeewithout horrifying her subjects.

After a brittle moment, Elvina asked, “Where were you?”

What sense was there in hiding it? She sighed in defeat. “The Summer Glade.”

Elvina’s lips thinned. She did not need to speak for Clarion to feel the full weight of her disapproval. The look in her eyes said,It is long past time to set aside childish things.“Why did you not return here after your meeting?”

“I’d meant to come back on time, truly. But just as I was leaving, there was—” She cut herself off before she could get lost in details Elvina did not want or need. “I thought I would offer my assistance to an animal-talent.”

Elvina’s surprise was palpable. “That is not your business. I am certain that fairy had their affairs very well in hand.”

“But she thanked me,” Clarion protested. “Perhaps she needed—”

“I understand you feel constrained by our role. But you cannot help every fairy in need, and you certainly cannot befriend them all. A good queen must focus on the task at hand—and help atscale. This is a vast queendom.” Elvina floated to the window. Here in the highest branches of the Pixie Dust Tree, they could see half of Pixie Hollow stretched before them. “All of it is your responsibility. You understand what this means?”

“Of course I do.”

“You are young.” Elvina frowned. “You have not known conflict—notrealconflict, one that threatens all of the people under your protection. You must be prepared. Until you have mastered the basics, you cannot attempt to solve problems that are far more complicated than they seem at first glance. I am entrusting all that I have to you.”

Her tone left room for something unspoken. There were so many things she could fill in.I will not see you squander it. I do not feel you can handle it.

“To be a good queen—”

“Is to be as cold and remote as the star from which you were born,” Clarion finished for her. It was the tenet that grounded Elvina’s philosophy of governance, one that had been impressed upon Clarion since the day she arrived.

Elvina leveled her with a flat stare. “I know it does not come easy to you. But that is the only way you can maintain impartiality—the only way you can make the calculations you need to rule fairly.”

But if that was truly the only way, why had she arrived likethis? When she first emerged from her star, a sense of purpose had smoldered within her. That certainty felt so far away now. Sometimes, she suspected she’d gotten worse at magic the closer her coronation loomed. Sometimes, deeper down, she worried that maybe any day, a new star would crash to the earth and a new heir would emerge, as perfect as Elvina herself. As perfect as Clarion failed to be.

“I understand,” she murmured.

Elvina’s stern countenance softened. “You are under a great deal of pressure. But it will come to you, Clarion.”

But when?The thought stung more sharply than she expected. “Thank you.”

“Go and get some rest,” said Elvina. “You’re set to run the council meeting tomorrow.”

She’d nearly forgotten. Weekly, the Seasonal Ministers met to discuss the state of affairs within each of their realms. Anything, from disputes to requests for resources, was brought before Elvina.

And starting tomorrow, Clarion supposed, beforeher.

Tomorrow, then. Starting tomorrow, she wouldtryto act like the queen Pixie Hollow needed.

The next morning, with Elvina’s admonition still ringing in her ears, Clarion prepared for the council meeting: the first she would ever run alone. For good measure, she shuffled one last time through the papers on her writing desk, a collection of briefs from her ministers. Today’s agenda was mercifully—and surprisingly—light. Pixie Hollow was at its most bustling in the weeks leading up to each seasonal turn. With the solstice a month away, late spring hardly constituted a lull.

Not to mention, there was the matter of her coronation.

Her coronation.The very thought of it made her nerves flare with renewed intensity. Soon, Clarion would make the decisions that ensured the queendom functioned as it should and that the seasons changed without a hitch. Not only Pixie Hollow depended on her—but also the Mainland and all the humans within it.