I snapped the flute in half across my knee. Junko’s scream drowned out the faint whistle and much louder crack of the flute coming apart. He dove toward me, nearly incoherent in rage. Kenji managed to trip him as he hurtled past, and Junko went sprawling, though he quickly scrambled back to his feet. “I’ll kill—”

"An Imperial Princess uses her curses sparingly," said Tib, but the narrow-eyed look she gave Safy was more skeptical than remonstrative. Safy knew that Tib doubted her affection for the arrogant Phenole very much--even more so since she had just met him--and could not see how such a curse would help Safy or anyone she did care about. Safy smiled. Let her wonder.

Before last Rain Day, he had thought any dreams of Manyara to be folly. He wasn't the tallest or the strongest among the near-men, and it was just him and his father since his mother's family had abandoned them after her death. What did he have to offer? A one-room hut, one crumbling fish-drying shed, a mere handful of frayed catch-baskets, and only one Fisher to fill them.

Something deep within her stilled and she thought she would fall, because the world was tilting. But there was solid stone beneath her, and she set one foot upon it, then another, and then she was running back to the palace, heedless of everything but reaching her rooms. There were doors in her way; she flung them aside and halted only to snatch up the crown.