The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,25

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 with 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.

Just.

As his father had been, Mars was a much different sort of ruler for Firenze.

Innocents did not walk into the tarpits for no reason but to be