Daughters of Ruin - K. D. Castner Page 0,14

some kind. But none of the girls were interested in spycraft. They just knew Endrit and the other performers couldn’t come to the celebratory dance. After all his work.

Rhea was heartbroken too. But she knew the others would blame her for the whole thing.

And she had the least to complain about. She’d be dancing with Endrit anyway, at the exhibitions. Even so, she had hoped to dance with him later, when fewer eyes would be upon them and they weren’t trying to kill each other, when—maybe—she could close her eyes, feel warm hands about her, and calm her anxious thoughts for just a short while. Rhea bemoaned the loss quietly, to herself.

“It’ll be just us and a bunch of inbred nobles?” said Suki with a pout.

“They don’t inbreed in Meridan,” said Iren.

“Then why are they so scrawny and weird?” said Suki.

“Because they’re pampered and boring,” said Iren.

“Well, I’m not touching any of them,” said Suki. Sometimes she still sounded like the five-year-old brat who had been spoiled rotten back in the court of Tasan. The high emperor had five children. The sycophant Tasanese nobles treated all of them like a pantheon of insolent gods.

As soon as Rhea rolled her eyes, she regretted it. Suki—of course—had been watching Rhea as she insulted Meridan, to measure the success of her needling.

“I hope there is a Findish revolt. Then we can finally go home.”

“Suki!” said Marta. Rhea bit back the obvious retort, as she always did with their baby sister. If Findain instigated all-out war, the last thing the girls would be doing was going home. But if Rhea said it—even though Iren and Cadis already knew—it would destroy the last vestige of their relationship. They stabbed and stabbed the dragon, but if Rhea ever breathed her fire, they would act shocked and claim they always knew dragons to be so vicious.

“What?” said Suki. “How long do we have to do this? I have my own little siblings to condescend to.” She cast unsubtle glances at Rhea as she spoke.

Is she foolish or delusional? Even if she returns after ten years, which of her siblings would even recognize her? In such a formal court, would they ever bow to a Meridan-raised queen, even if she is the oldest now?

For a tense moment only the shinhound made any noise, chomping on some other treat that Iren must have given from a hidden fold in her sleeve.

Endrit—thank the gods for him—finally broke the silence by giving Suki exactly what she seemed to be mewling for. He reached out, put a hand on her waist, and pulled her back from her battlefield. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders—so obviously as a big brother would, though Suki wouldn’t know it—and said, “There won’t be anything so exciting as a revolt. The Findish have their future queen to fight for them at court.”

The stable hand is no diplomat, thought Rhea. Cadis had no sway in the Meridan court. It would only make them feel like hostages. But Rhea was tired of caring how her sisters felt all the time.

“Come on, girls,” said Marta. “To bed. You’ll be up all night tomorrow.”

“Not if those Findish radicals attack,” said Cadis bitterly. The barb wasn’t as funny as she might have expected.

“And not if I have to dance with nobles,” said Suki.

Rhea felt them all avoid her gaze. They blamed her, though they would never say it. She was the daughter of the man who’d conceived of the Protectorate—the nature of their entire relationship. Their captor—if they wanted to think of it so ungenerously. Rhea was certain that Cadis felt so. She had a seafarer’s wanderlust, always consulting maps and travelers’ accounts of the wider world. She was the one already fit to rule—the only one among them rightly called a woman. But here she sat. Of all of them, Cadis seemed the most shackled, the most caged. Rhea would happily open the cage, if she could, and wish good riddance of her so-called sister.

At least she would not be treated as their constant villain, even though she was their sister and friend and advocate.

“I could speak to the king,” offered Rhea. “Maybe we can bring guests.”

Suki scoffed, “If I wanted your dad to listen to someone, I would have asked Cadis.” It was Rhea’s mistake to ever hold out an olive branch.

“Has anyone considered that maybe I’m not so keen on dancing with a bunch of termagants who do nothing but abuse and boss me around?” said Endrit.

“Endrit!” said