“And yet here you are. Awake after a night risking your life for the scum of Khargis.”
“You act as if you did not train me yourself,” I counter, raising a brow as I mirror his position, leaning against a black velvet couch. That gets him to smirk, though it quickly falls.
“I could help you—”
“No.”
“Myla—”
“Enough, Navin,” I cut in, letting my voice drop as I glare at him. I know he means well; he always does when it comes to me. There’s a reason he took on training me, and he knows better than anyone else roaming this palace that sneaking into the city and finding those who deserve the end of my blade isn’t about feeding some aching thirst for blood.
At least it didn’t start that way.
It is a way to gain control. To help females and children who are already considered second-class citizens amongst males andfree them from a hell that they have never deserved. It’s the only form of vengeance I can claim, so I hold onto it with a white-knuckled grip. It’s a version of freedom forme, and though Navin’s intentions are honorable and born purely out of the need to make sure I am alright, what I do in Khargis is mine and mine alone.
I watch as his words pile up behind his pursed lips, his hand twitching at his side while he bites his tongue. Voices sound in the hall beyond our room, and with a sigh, Navin jumps over the back of the chair he was leaning against and transforms into the arrogant but aloof prince that he plays well. “I’ll buy you some time.”
I rush to my room, slipping past the door and shutting it just as I hear Leesi’s voice filter in. “You’re up early, Your Highness,” she trills. I’m too far away to hear Navin’s answer, but based on her high-pitched laugh, it was probably something flirtatious. Though we grew up together, Navin is over a hundred years older than I am. He was born just before the Spell was cast, his parents—my aunt and uncle—dying on the same day Shah did during the war. My own parents made sure he was taken care of, a royal though not a prince by blood. They officially claimed him as their heir the day after I was born. It’s a role he’s never wanted, one that he knows should be mine. But until I bond a dragon, I cannot attempt to claim it.
Crossing my bedroom, I pull open the double doors to a large wooden wardrobe, the front covered with an intricately carved dragon in mid-flight. Pushing a divider that separates the hanging clothes from the cubbies below, metal clicks, and it pulls open to reveal a hollowed-out space. Unrolling the towel on my bed, I gather the daggers and methodically lay them into the small hidden niche, pushing the façade back before shutting the wardrobe, shoving my boots under the bed, and heading to the bathroom.
I undress as the shower warms, tossing the towel and my nightgown into my own laundry basket before stepping beneath the water just as Leesi enters my room.
“Good morning.”
I don’t respond to her curt tone, dragging my soapy hands over my face and hoping that any lingering blood or dirt will be washed away before she sees it.
“You’re once again curiously up before the sun. I know that you stay up too late to warrant such early rising.” Rinsing my face beneath the water spraying from above, I work to quiet my thoughts.She can’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve done. She has no way of knowing.I’d prefer not to kill her, as hiding a body in the palace is a much more difficult task than doing so in Khargis. “Perhaps you need more devotional time.” Blinking the water from my lashes, I turn to look at her. She holds a bundle of towels, her slender face showing only a small hint at her age with the short wrinkles that surround her currently squinted eyes. “As a proper princess would do. Not spend her evenings with her nose stuck in a book,” she continues, shaking her head.
Years ago, when the urge to venture outside the palace walls first struck, I knew I needed to come up with an alibi should anyone try to enter my room in the middle of the night. Locking my door was the easiest solution, but it took a while to convince the head maid that it was simply because I didn’t want to be disturbed while reading. It was a pathetic excuse, one that likely should have caused me embarrassment, but my reputation was already tarnished with rumors that were far worse than being a female whoreads.
Reaching for a washcloth and the bar of soap, I turn away from Leesi’s glare as I begin to clean the rest of my body.
“It’s a busy day. Your mother hasn’t forgotten that you missed your last tea date with her.”
Unsurprising. My mother and I are not close, the fundamental differences in our ideologies of what females should be subjected to in our kingdom makes it difficult to connect as a daughter should to her mother. She wishes for a daughter who is content milling about the palace and gossiping with nobles similar in age about the flowers or handsome nobles or whatever the fuck it is they talk about. Instead, she is stuck with me and the taste of shame that my name leaves on her tongue.
Though the mention of the missed tea date reminds me of my upcoming meeting with the siren. To have survived an attack by the foul creatures was, in and of itself, some sort of miracle. But to then owe a life debt to one?Unfathomable. Gaps in my memory when I fell from the sinking ship to when I woke up on the beach make my chest tighten in anger. The wide-eyed stare of that red-headed siren, her freckled nose crinkling in confusion at my mention of the life debt oath I now owed her almost made me believe she genuinely had no idea what I was talking about. But their kind is manipulative, just as their magic would suggest.And now I owed a fucking life debt to one.
“You’re as clean as you’re going to get,” Leesi says from outside my shower, the steam doing nothing to hide her judgmental glare. “Out.”
My skin crawls with the urge to defy her, but I know from experience that it won’t give me anything but temporary triumph now and more attention I do not want later. Turning the water off, I step out of the shower and stand in the cold room as she runs a towel over my body, the rough strokes of her hands leaving my normally pale skin red. Once I’m dry, I follow her back into the bedroom, where my clothing is already laid out. “Before tea, you have a meeting with the Divine Father in his office.”
My chest tightens at the mention of Father Yamin. So much for avoiding unwanted attention.
Leesi waits for me to stand in front of her, my arms spread out wide. Today’s gown is a satin pink monstrosity, the wide sleeves hanging past my fingers as she slips it over my arms. I keep my gaze on the wall across from me, above the standing mirror and in between two portraits of some goddesses I am sure I’m supposed to know the name of, as she cinches the wrap gown around my waist, tugging on its straps until a burst of breath is forced from me. Panic flares briefly, my nails digging into my palms and vision blurring before I force myself to calm as she reaches for my headdress. Tiny pearls on transparent strings tickle my forehead where they dangle, a veil in matching pink draping over my shoulders to hide most of my hair. She connects the piece that covers the lower half of my face with small clips, only my eyes and the bridge of my nose fully unobstructed. As she works her way around to my back, ensuring no thread is out of place on my gown, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Lightless eyes glare back, the dark depths of them as empty as the space between my ribs.
Visiting Father Yamin is nothing new. It has been encouraged by the king since the moment I was born.The gods so hated that we put our faith in our neighbors to the west that they cursed us with a princess instead of a prince. And they gave her the spirit of the traitors who tricked us.There is only one way to fix what has been done. We must pray, and we must show the gods that no matter how far a fae has strayed from their teachings, we can bring them back. Our faith in the gods must be strengthened, and all those who oppose their reign must bear the consequences of their actions.
I had spent a lifetime hearing that prophecy. My skin bears the scars of those consequences, to the point that not even faehealing abilities could rid me of the evidence of them. Of the pain that still flares from time to time.
“You are set. Now go before Father Yamin is kept waiting too long.”
Incense is heavy in the air, the cloying scent churning my stomach as I continue deeper into the bowels of the inner sanctum wing of the palace. I pass framed pictures of moments in our history meant to inspire piety. A hand wreathed in light reaching down from the heavens to pour liquid gold onto a dying field—the ground coming to life where the light touches it. Another shows a woman, her dark skin and curvy figure glowing against the white sash that is wrapped around her body, concealing it all except for the swell of her belly. White light glows in the background of another, a trio of fae females staring longingly at the goddess dressed in black and white in front of them. The farther I continue down the corridor, the cooler the air gets and the more that the natural light is replaced by flames flickering in sconces on the black stone walls.
I have dragged my knife across the throats of countless fae in the past five years, all without hesitation. Yet as I near a familiar black metal and wood door, my steps nearly falter.Get it the fuck together. I have already been through the worst that the father and his brethren can do. I have experienced their wrath—anger and power disguised as righteous indignation under the council of gods that are supposed to protect us. But there is no protection here, only the will of the males who have always viewed themselves above everyone else.
The guards that follow me—two males dressed head to toe in burnished silver, their swords peeking up over both shoulders—come to a halt, metal creaking from the weight of their steps. My knocking is loud in the cavernous space, making my ears ring.
