Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
“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.”