The Sand Prince by Kim Alexander Page A

They don’t have the capacity. It was.... it was a secret battle. Fought out of sight by the Mages. Who ultimately were defeated."
    Hellne raised a brow. "Let the Mages take the blame?"
    He shrugged. "I rather doubt they’ll raise any objections, since they’re all dead. The old ones, anyway. The new ones? Time will reveal their worth."
    "A war," Hellne mused. "The War of the Door?"
    He smiled his cool little smile. "Well done. Control the message, Hellne." He tapped the desk. "Or it will control you."
    She’d finished the speech, and prepared to introduce the young prince to his remaining people.
    On the occasion of the Naming Party, everyone who survived the Weapon (who was of the right clan, of course) was invited to share sarave , water, and bread. As a treat she'd even had the Mage's work for three days and nights to put meat, and greens, and even bites of sweet ices on the tables. That nothing tasted quite like it used to, well, things were different now. And the story of how Hellne had sent a complaining courtier to the Crosswinds was making the rounds as well. It was said the young man had remarked over a small state dinner that the bread tasted like sand, and the cheese tasted like a different flavor of sand. Everyone around him at the dinner table had laughed, but Hellne hadn't smiled. She had called one of her family guards over, whispered something in his ear, and the guard had escorted the apologizing man away. His increasingly hysterical sobs echoed down the corridor behind him and no one had seen him since. No one said anything unflattering about the royal table now, not even in private. The food they ate, it was generally and loudly agreed, was superior in every way to whatever had gone before. There were quicker and less embarrassing ways to dispatch oneself than to insult the Queen.
    The Great Hall of the Royal Quarters was decked with her family colors—black and cream (the old colors, black and scarlet, had been retired after the Weapon). Not like the old days, when the crowds on a Naming Day would fill the Hall and spill onto the grounds outside, and there would be as many gifts handed out as received, and everyone tried to outdo their fellows in the fineness of their silks and the brightness of their decorations. The parties would last for days, with food and drink sometimes brought over from the human world—marvels like ice cream and something called beer. She wondered if her unnatural proclivity for the humans had begun with a taste of their food. No need to worry about that anymore, at least.
    Well, it may not outshine the sun, but it’s a start , she thought. And these people need something to look at that isn't covered with dust . There were even black and white flowers, her own design, materialized by the Zaalmage himself. Hellne had to force herself to visit the Raasth, but understood the value of keeping an eye on one’s tools. Helping to design the flowers had been a good excuse to see what they were all doing down there. As far as she could tell, it was all scribbling in books and experimenting—on sand, on jumpmice, on each other for all she knew. They'd created a flying mouse, and a small flock of the little winged creatures had been debuted at this party. In the new prince's honor, they'd been dubbed Rhuumice. Of course, the Mages had never seen her son, nor would they. It was far too dangerous.
    At the moment the Rhuumice were grazing on the flowers. She'd have to dispatch a maid to shoo them away.
    She eyed the crowd, a nicely balanced mix of old families who'd survived the Weapon and the rising families who'd abandoned their now-dead fields to live in Eriis City. It looked to her like a river of sand, a moving field of grey, brown, and ashy colored silks. She’d written the colors into law with Yuenne’s assistance but thought she needn’t have bothered. Whatever she wore was copied at Court and in town. Many of the ladies wore black and cream hair ornaments, and some of the