Prologue
Elex
Some of my earliest memories are of my mother crying.
The nights when she returned from a summons to the King’s chambers were always the worst. She would bathe as soon as she left his quarters, scrubbing her skin raw if we let her.
One night her sobs woke me, and I followed them into the bathroom. We still had our own cramped, tiny apartment at that time. Though she was still classified as a favored slave the Callings to service the King were fewer and farther apart and the Overseer had warned us that we would have to vacate the quarters at the end of the month.
She was huddled in the bathtub, tepid water pink from her blood, wetting the bits of her beautiful dark hair that escaped the intricate braids she normally piled on top of her head. Her hands were on her knees, her shoulders shaking. Her pale skin was already purpling from the marks he had placed on her.
“Mitera,”I whispered.
She glanced at me, then looked away quickly, using the falling braids to hide her face.
“Go back to bed, Elex,” she said, her voice hoarse as she turned away from me, wiping hastily at her face. She wasn’tquite fast enough for me to miss the split lip and the deep bruising around her right eye.
Instead of obeying, I brought her a towel and her robe, turning my back as she stepped from the tub.
“Do you need the doctor?” I asked, my adolescent voice breaking.
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?” I demanded. Once before she had insisted she didn’t need a physician, and had almost bled to death before we found her.
“I am sure,” she whispered, her eyes downcast. Whenever she came back from seeing him it took her a while to be able to look anyone in the eyes. I went to the outer room and fetched the wine from dinner. It was sour, but it would have to do. I grabbed the pain medicine we’d traded one of her necklaces for and went back to the bathing room. She was seated on a chair near the sink, her head down, unmoving. She looked… worn. Exhausted.
“Here, Mitera, drink,” I ordered.
She took the cup from me and put it to her lips automatically, swallowing the bitter mixture without complaint.
“What happened this time?” I asked. Sometimes if she talked about it, she seemed better afterward.
“He is a vengeful man, the King,” she said, her voice low and broken. “He once told me that if I bore him sons, I could return home. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of asking if his promise was still good.”
The thought of my mother leaving us here alone turned my stomach. She had been taken as a slave from her homeland of Illyria over ten years prior. He had been a prince then and had led the attack. He’d seen her with the other women taken captive and claimed her as a bed slave.
“What did he do?” I whispered.
She was quiet for a long time, before whispering “He burned it. That…monster,” she spat, her eyes growing bright and some color returning to her face.
“He had his soldiers burn my home village to bare stone and brought me videos of the deaths of every man, woman and child within miles. My mother— He forced me to watch them while—while he--”
She stopped and began sobbing again. That “monster” was my father, King Cyrius Alexus, leader of Alexandria. He was the person I feared the most in my life. He was also the one I longed to kill above all others.
I knew there was fury in my eyes, even as young as I was. I knew about sex. The communal living quarters we would be returning to have no privacy. Though it was forbidden by law, some slaves risked the punishment brought on an “unfaithful” slave who had sex outside a Calling.
The thought of the King forcing my mother to watch those deaths as he brutalized her made me see red.
Illyria was a country that had remained independent from Alexandria for hundreds of years. Mother was human, and since her capture by the king, he had forced her to bear three children: my twin Erix and I, and my sister Eila. Little Eila had died the year before of the shaking fever when she was only three. Her death had broken my mother’s spirit.
“I will kill him for you one day, Mitera,” I whispered. “I swear it.”
“Elex…So aptly named, my little defender,” she said after a few moments, her hand taking mine. Her eyes almost seemed to glow in the bare, flickering bulb overhead. “You will, Goddess willing.”
“Drink all of it,” I insisted when she seemed to forget about drinking the wine. She obeyed. As expected, the medicine began to make her drowsy. I helped her to her bed, turned outthe light and returned to the bed I shared with my twin. Erix opened his eyes as I got under the covers and whispered, “How is she?”
Erix couldn’t stand to see her on the nights she returned home from the King’s quarters. I had seen my normally strong and resourceful brother—who stood up to bullies and protected small animals—turn pale and sick at the site of some of the wounds the King inflicted on her. I felt the same sickness, but I didn’t have the option of closing my eyes. If I didn’t take care of our mother, no one would.
