Look Beyond What You See

Truth Revealed

To my beloved sister Kyla,

I am glad that you have spoken to your husband about the way your in-laws treat you. Such treatment as you have described truly is not to be borne, and I am glad that he is taking steps on your behalf to remedy your situation. I only wish, for your sake, that he deemed a more expedient course possible and desirable. I'm sure he knows best, however, having lived with his parents all his life, and I understand that your wifely duty according to God's Holy Word is to submit to your husband in all things.

I am also thrilled to hear that you will be permitted to be my Matron of Honor, whenever my wedding does take place. Unfortunately, it has been postponed indefinitely, on account of the possibility of war. If war does not break out, our original plan was to be married late in October, or perhaps early in November, depending on how the planning process went. However, Dmitri's father feels most strongly that planning a wedding in wartime would only distract us from our duties, as would any strengthened feelings between us that they say are natural in the "honeymoon phase." Nevertheless, I have already spoken to one of my attendants, who has become a dear friend of mine, and she is not only willing to travel to Kashmir to be your escort, but she is most excited about the prospect. Her name is Malina, and she is as resourceful and spirited as I am. I think you will like her very much, if and when you ever meet.

This is, however, the end of my gladness in writing to you, and now my pen moves sluggishly across the page in dread of what must follow. You have asked me about the Berkeleys, for the truth about their "warrior" status and the rumors that so disquiet you, and I will tell you, but I sincerely hope that you are true to your word and love me the same in spite of this truth. Regardless of that, I must swear you to absolute secrecy. Please tell no one of what I have written about my new family, not even your husband.

Kyla, dear sister, my intended and his family are not practitioners of magic, at least not in the same way as our deplorable grandmother (about whom I will write more later). However, you may find the truth harder to bear and to accept. The Berkeleys are in fact not even human, but members of the humanoid species of elementals. I know this seems incredible, too much to believe, but I have never spoken falsely to you before and swear on my life that I never shall. Dmitri has sway over fire; his father, over electricity; and his mother, over air. Lord Berkeley's family is intimately connected with the British throne and they all serve the King in whatever capacity he calls them to. Lady Berkeley, maiden name Saltikov, is similarly connected to the Russian tsar and serves him in a similar capacity. Fortunately for this family, Russia and the British Empire will be on the same side in the war that currently seems to be brewing between the European powers.

I understand that this must all be a great deal for you to take in, and I apologize that it must be so difficult. But worse things are yet to come, and I pray that you will be strong as you read this.

I suppose I must start this next bit of unpleasantness with our grandmother. You know she has been arranging marriages for us, as we have previously discussed. Well, it seems that Grandfather and Dmitri's (late) grandfather were once quite good friends. Grandmother of course knew that the Berkeleys were elementals, and knew that Grandfather was (and probably still is) given to gambling. I'm told she had been plotting to solve Grandfather's debt problems with marriages since before he had them; perhaps she is gifted with foresight or clairvoyance of some kind, as part of her dark arts. She also knew that ordinary humans cannot be suitable mates for elementals, and so she...made arrangements to have a grandchild who was not an ordinary human. She somehow induced our father to have an affair with one of her protégées, a young woman who also practiced magic and had a talent for manipulating water.

I am that woman's daughter, Kyla, not the daughter of the woman we called Mother. Grandmother had me switched with Mother's third child shortly after our births. I know not what became of the other girl, and pray that I cannot be held in any way responsible for it. As you have probably guessed by now, I have inherited my birth mother's talent for manipulating water. I have magic, somehow, and I phrase it that way because I can feel it as a separate entity inside myself, one that I can influence and control but that has its own will and motives. It has influenced me from the very beginning--Zira was right about the way I move being unnatural. It is, for a human. My musical talent may also be owing to this magic. I know not how far its influence extends, only that it is a part of me that, whether I know of it or not, is evident in everything I do and everything I am, whether I mean for it to be or not.