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I made my way through the trees, lifting my chin, or a hand, or calling hello to sisters I passed, pushing these thoughts into the back of my head.
I was not surprised to see Lucinda and Agnes, two of my mother’s lieutenants, standing at the base of the grandly carved, wide wooden steps that wound around the trunk of the stately, tall oak tree where my mother’s palace was built high amongst the leaves.
“My princess,” Lucinda greeted when I stopped before them.
“My honored sister,” I greeted back, not liking such a formal greeting from a woman who I regarded as an aunt to me, that me being a woman she regarded as mostly a daughter.
“My princess,” Agnes said, and I felt the same about Agnes, and she me.
By the goddess.
What was happening?
“My honored sister,” I repeated and looked up to the leaves. “She awaits me?”
“Rise,” Lucinda answered.
I did just that, walking between them and rising to the palace on the grand steps.
I found her not in her personal chambers higher, but in the receiving chambers on the first floor.
This did not bode well either.
What made matters worse was that my sister was there.
Serena didn’t look happy, but unless she was going for blood, or carousing, she rarely did.
We each had much of our unknown fathers in us, but you could tell our mother had a certain kind of male she enjoyed.
Our mother was petite, not frail, but not tall. When her hair was not white, as it was now, it had been an ash blonde. Her eyes were still a sharp blue.
My sister was tall, as was I. She had curves, as did I. Her frame had a willowy feel, even with her strong, toned, trim, fit muscles. As did I.
Her skin, however, held some freckles.
And her long, full hair was the color of shined copper, her eyes a deep, dark brown.
My hair was the color of honey, as was my skin.
My eyes were an unusual shade of violet.
We looked like sisters, even with the mismatched coloring.
And our polar opposite dispositions.
“Mum’s finally in the mood to share her secrets,” Serena drawled after I’d fully entered through the beaded door curtain to my mother’s receiving chamber.
I took my gaze from my sister.
“Good morning, Mum,” I said to my mother.
“My daughter,” she murmured from her place on her cushion in her hanging basket.
I didn’t look too closely at her. She got cross when I tried to read her state, this being the state of her health, something she flatly refused to discuss.
Instead, I again looked to Serena. “Hello, sister.”
“’Lo,” she muttered.
“I don’t suppose you’d sit with me,” Ophelia asked, mostly to her eldest daughter considering I’d absolutely sit with her.
I hesitated, not wanting to get whatever comment would come from my sibling if I did as asked without demur. I’d learned it wasn’t worth it, and regardless, who wouldn’t want to sit a morning with their mother?
Serena sneered at me.
She knew I wished to sit with my mother.
I sighed and moved to the deep-seated sofa basket that was much larger and sat on the ground but was of the same fashion as my mother’s basket, the grand swoop of the top coming over the seat, the inside at the back fit with many comfortable pillows.
I climbed in and sat cross-legged, facing my mother.
Serena moved to the side farthest away from me and crossed her arms on her chest.
This was when my mother sighed.
She, too, had learned what was worth the effort with Serena, and what was not, for she sallied forth without delay.
“Six nights past, I went to the standing stones.”
That got both mine and my sibling’s attention.
It had been a night with a tremor.
And after the last, the strongest, Mother had given her orders.
“The Beast rises,” Ophelia declared.
Both Serena and I jerked alert.
“Goddess be damned,” Serena snapped.
Mother’s face grew tight and she bit, “Do not speak such profanity!”
“That cannot be true,” Serena retorted, unrepentant.
“If you can say that, then your senses are not opened, and your body’s functions are not at their best for you cannot miss the vibrations of the veil nor can you miss fortnightly earthquakes,” Ophelia returned.
As was my wont, I forged into the opening breach.
“Is this why you ask us to conserve magic and drill?”
Mother looked to me. “No. We travel to Firenze and perform in parade before all the kings and princes of Triton for Mars weds, True weds and Cassius weds.”
I felt my heart thump hard in my chest.
True weds?
Who did True wed?
“Bloody parade?” Serena asked snidely. “In front of the entire realm?”
“Yes,” Ophelia replied. “As celebration for an alliance unseen or unheard of since beings walked upright. The entirety of Triton merged in peace.”
“Merged?” I whispered.
My mother looked to me and shook her head. “The nations stand. The Enchantments, my daughter, will stand. But forevermore, from these unions on, the blood of Firenze will flow through the royal house of Wodell. The blood of Wodell will flow through the royal house of Firenze. The blood of Airen already flows through all of Firenze. And the blood of the Nadirii will flow through the royal house of Airen.”
Naught was said to that as both Serena and I froze in horror and shock.
Queen Ophelia did not take her eyes from me.
“You will wed Prince Cassius,” my mother whispered.
Unable to stop myself, I burst from the basket, shouting, “No!”
“Dear goddess,” my sister breathed.
Ophelia raised her hand my way. “My daughter, I know you hold feeling for True.”
“I don’t hold feelings for him! I’m in love with him!” I cried.
She shook her head again. “My darling, you don’t know what love is.”
“She cannot wed an Airenzian,” Serena hissed into this exchange. “It’s revolting. Vile. It cannot be borne. Especially not a prince. Not that blood. Never that blood. It’s treachery.”
“There has been much loss over the years. So much loss. It is time we lay down our arms, my daughter,” Mother said to Serena.
“Really?” Serena rocked back on her heels, her eyes firing, her skin firing, everything about her firing. “And am I unaware, Mother? Have they recently passed a law that allows women to bear title to land?”
“Serena—” Mother began.
“Or that it’s unlawful that a man raise his hand to his wife, his whore, his maid?” Serena carried on.
“My fierce daughter—”
Serena did not give up. “Or that he cannot discard a wife, a whore, a maid, turning her to the streets with no money and no possessions as he finds another to see to his needs?”
“Serena—” our mother kept trying.
But Serena spoke over her.
“And what of when he forces himself upon her? Wife, whore, maid, woman who is but a stranger to him that he passes in the street? Will he face punishment for such heinous violations?”
“Prince Cassius is much different than his father, or the father before him, or the one before him,” Ophelia pointed out. “He took a wife. Only one and she was all he needed. It is told wide and with great heartbreak, stories of his open love and respect for her before she perished.”
“So Cassius is going to be the shining star in Airen’s sky who will change centuries of the degradation and subjugation, debasement, harassment, sometimes even torture and death of our sisters?” Serena demanded with open disbelief.
She did not wait for our mother to answer.
She drawled acidly, “Really, Mother, the Sisterhood was formed on the
Night of the Fallen Masters. Spending decades amassing magic to put the males of Sky Bay to sleep so our sistren could slit the throats of their tormentors and steal into the night. It is direct of your blood,” she leaned forward on that, then back, “and mine, that our great mother was hung for petitioning the crown repeatedly, and when that went to no avail, organizing the women to protest and revolt. It was her daughter, again our direct blood, who hatched the plan that found our escape, our freedom, built our sisterhood and raised The Enchantments.”
“I do not need a history lesson, Serena,” Mother sighed.
“Yes, well, thousands of their retched men were assassinated that night, as was their due, and the Airenzian still did not learn. No, Mother, they punished the females left behind and continued their oppression,” Serena returned.
“This happened two hundred and seventy-four years ago, my daughter,” Ophelia reminded her.
“And there is not a patrol that returns who has not encountered a woman from Airen beseeching The Enchantments to let her in,” Serena replied.
My sister warred. It was her way.
I patrolled the edge of The Enchantments. It was my duty.
And she was not mistaken.
Airenzian women did not come in floods, they couldn’t. They couldn’t get away.
But the ones who could, came.
Regularly.
And we let them in, without fail.
I moved to one of the glassless windows and gazed out unseeing at sunshine and green.
“Elena, do you have a bloody voice?” my sister shot at my back.
“He loves another,” I said to the window.
“Another who is no longer of this earth,” my mother said to me.
“They think Serena killed his brother,” I shared again to the window.
“They are wrong, and I feel Cassius understands this,” my mother shared with me.
Cassius was not yet king.
I’m in love with True.
It would seem that Unicorn was not about bliss.
Just about change.
But how could that be?
“Are we honestly considering this lunacy?” Serena demanded to know.
“We are not only considering it, it’s done. The Nadirii ride for Firenze in two weeks. And it is my understanding, the others are already in route.”
I turned at that.
Serena let out a grunt of anger.
Mother kept speaking.
“We present ourselves. We celebrate the betrothals. We attend the marriage of Mars and Silence…”
Silence?
True’s quiet (but interesting and sharp, and when you spoke to her, quite lovely and spirited) cousin was going to marry the barbarous Firenz king?
Dear goddess.
“After that, Serena and I will ride home,” Ophelia continued. “Elena, you will have your lieutenants and a guard of one hundred and ride to Wodell for the marriage of True and Farah of the Firenz.”
I felt a stab wound to my heart.
Mother carried on, “You then ride to Airen for your own nuptials. Serena and I and the Nadirii contingent will join you there. And just so you’re aware, the King and Queen of Mar-el, already wed, will be at all of these festivities.”
“Dora comes with me,” I declared.
“Are you bloody out of your mind!” Serena shouted, not to me, but to our mother.
But Mother said to me, “No, my daughter. It would be—”
“She comes with me,” I said firmly, “I promised. I promised Tiana should she fall in battle, I would raise her daughter as my own.”
“Melisse will—” Mother began.
Melisse, my mother’s lieutenant, my beloved mentor, would be a magnificent surrogate.
But that was not what I promised my friend.
“She comes, Mum, or I do not go.”
“You do know, it was one of Trajan’s personal guard who struck Tiana low,” Serena bit out. “And you’ll be consorting with that very-dead arsehole’s goddess-damned brother.”
I looked to my sibling. “She is my daughter. You do not leave your daughter. And I will not leave Theodora.”
“I cannot believe you’re agreeing to this,” Serena clipped. She turned to Ophelia. “And what does all of this have to do with the Beast?”
“These alliances, these matches, are prophecy,” our mother answered. “I do not know the outcome. But I do know it’s our only defense. So we shall see.”
That was not very much.
To commit me to an Airenzian, our mortal enemy.
To tear me from True, who I had hoped to find a way to talk my mother into allowing me to make him my chosen one, something no Nadirii did and ended that able to live amongst The Enchantments. If you took a male chosen, you lived in their land, not amongst the Sisterhood. You were not forsaken, but your male was not welcome.
True had been let in because, well…True was True.
True of word.
True of thought.
True of heart.
He was one of the only males, not of Go’Doan, who’d been allowed behind The Enchantments in nearly three hundred years.
And I had wanted him to be mine.
I turned back to the window.
“Elena will cow to your will, as ever, but I do not agree with this,” Serena declared behind me.
I heard my mother’s basket moving, and at the sound, I turned to watch her rise out of the cushions.
“You will, my daughter,” she returned, her voice strong and unwavering. “You will ride to Firenze with your sisters. You will participate in the parade precisely how I tell you to. You will behave yourself amongst the people of Firenze, the kings and princes of the realms. You will act befitting the Sisterhood. You will represent your station, your mother, and your title exactly how I wish. Or I will banish you, daughter. I will give The Enchantments to your sister, and as she will be bound to the next King of Airen, he will have leave to lay claim to them.”
I held my breath at these scandalous words.
“That’s treason,” Serena whispered.
“I will commit treason to see the Beast restrained,” Mother hissed. “There will be no Enchantments, no Sisterhood, nothing if we do not all sacrifice. Elena sacrifices. I sacrifice. And Serena, you will sacrifice.”
She took a step toward her eldest and stopped, her face twisted, and at that, my heart did the same.
“Do you not think I die inside knowing she will be amongst them?” she asked softly.
Serena looked away.
She very well knew.
So did I.
“Mum,” I called gently.
My mother looked at me.
“Much will be expected of you, Elena,” she shared. “He has a daughter who cannot ascend due to her gender. He will expect an heir. And you should expect from him grave and vital change in his lands. But you will not have the power to do this. You will only have power over him. Perhaps. If you can earn his regard. That is,” she returned her attention to Serena, “only if we defeat the Beast.”
“So my virgin sister not only has to take his cock, she has to push out a son?” my sister asked with a sneer.
“Do you not think a future king of Airen, born of a man who has no love of battle, only duty, but who did have the love of a wife, something he earned, at the same time that son is born of a Nadirii, and raised by them both, will not much change the blackness of Airen?” Ophelia asked.
Serena saw the shrewdness of this, for she shut her mouth.
I only saw the impossibleness of this, and this was now my burden.
Direct engagement within the lands of Airen with that realm’s bloody crown prince.
I drew in a deep breath.
Mother kept speaking.
“I regret this, my daughters, I truly do. But life often offers us limited choices. It is what we do with the cards that are dealt that is our measure.”
The cards that are dealt.
Definitely a rancid fail wit
h that Unicorn.
Probably because I could not clear my thoughts before it made itself known. The cards rarely were confused.
In times like this, however, it was not a surprise they were.
“Now, sit,” my mother commanded, moving back to her cushion. “And I will tell you how my sisters, and especially my daughters, will share during that parade in a way it will be spoken of for centuries, the beauty of the Sisterhood.”
I sat.
And Serena sat.
It was then I would know why I was ordered to conserve my magic.
And it was then I knew the Unicorn was an error.
Because when I left my mother’s house, I was no longer simply alarmed.
I had a break in my heart.
And I was significantly uneasy.
9
The Little Sister
Farah Magos
Front Gardens, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
I kept my head held high as I, and my mother, walked up the palace steps.
This was not a place I expected we would ever be again.
But two weeks earlier, the messenger had come, with the guards, demanding we pack our meager belongings from our adobe lodgings deep to the south of Firenze, and go with them to the Fire City.
They did not explain at all during that long journey why we had been summoned by the king.
My mother, I could tell, was terrified.
For good reason.
Therefore, I had to behave as if I was not.
Even though I was.
Outlandishly.
But in the rare rational times I had during the long ride across our grand, sandy country, I could not imagine Mars would punish us further than he’d already done.
Absolutely, the people of Firenze were shocked my father’s sentence did not extend to my mother and me, as Mars’s father would not have done, but his grandfather most assuredly would.
But we had nothing to do with what my father had done. It was proved. It was known.
In fact, King Mars had known it long before the investigation was complete.
So our punishment was just.
And all of Firenze agreed, calling this out with joyful voices, sending flaming missiles in the sky—because this stated their new king was the same as his father.