Daughters of Ruin - K. D. Castner Page 0,4
about it for a moment. “I’ll stop crying,” she said.
Hiram wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “That’s a shame,” he said. “We could have used your small hands for the really grimy crevices.” Suki squished her face in grossed-out amusement.
Hiram stood up and faced them all once again. Marta had joined the other girls. Hiram reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a blank roll of parchment and a sharpened piece of graphite. “So then, let’s begin at the moment in the exercise when our expertly trained soldiers, acting as common rogues, take over the carriage and somehow manage to snap the breaking lever, to drop the reins, and spook the horses.”
Cadis and Rhea looked at their boots, unwilling to start. Iren finally spoke. “They didn’t spook the horses. The fire in the baggage rack did, which we started.”
“Why?” said Hiram.
“To spook the horses,” said Iren, as if it were obvious.
“So your plan was to create havoc and hope that it would all come to rights?”
“We didn’t have a plan,” said Rhea.
“Yes, we did,” said Cadis. “We did.” She gestured at herself and Iren. “You wouldn’t listen.”
“Why should I listen?” shouted Rhea, shrugging off Marta’s hand from her shoulder. “You keep acting like the boss, and you’re not. You’re a cheating Findainer.”
“Rhea!” shouted the tutor.
But Rhea was already weeping. She whirled back on Marta, a whole world of confusion and pain darkening her expression. “Why are you defending her? She threw me from the carriage.”
“Wait, what?” said Cadis.
“Don’t lie! You stomped on my fingers.”
“I didn’t,” said Cadis. “I swear.”
“And you cut me!”
She held up her forearm, covered in a blood-soaked bandage.
“But you attacked me first,” said Cadis to no avail.
Nothing would stem Rhea’s fury when she felt small and weak. Even if they believed her, Rhea knew her father would say she was begging for pity.
Hiram scribbled notes onto the sheet of parchment in the palm of his hand. Marta reached out to calm Rhea, but the young queen pulled her arm away. “Don’t,” she grumbled. “We all know what the dirty Findish did.”
For the first time that morning, Cadis’s composure broke, her face reddened, and she took a step toward Rhea. Iren, who had been shaving the fine hairs on her arm with her exhibition dagger, snapped a hand out and held Cadis back with the flat of the blade.
From the ground came Suki’s entreaty. “I don’t know what the dirty Findish did.”
Hiram looked down at the queen sitting at his feet, fiddling with his bootlaces, and smiled. “Very well,” he said. “You’re old enough for the truth.”
He reached down and picked up Suki so she’d pay attention and so she wouldn’t cut herself on the pincer sheathed in his boot.
“The war began when the treacherous Findish assassinated our own good King Kendrick and Queen Valda.”
“Of Meridan,” corrected Suki.
“Yes, the king and queen of Meridan. Our king and queen.”
“I’m a queen too,” said Suki.
“Of course, and we’ll get to that,” said Hiram. “King Kendrick was my friend. He was a good man. And those gold nobles, jumped-up merchants, had him slaughtered for commercial gain.”
“That’s not true!” said Cadis, her whole body trembling.
“I’m sorry, but I was there,” said Hiram. He seemed genuinely torn at the idea and took no joy in hurting Cadis. All the wounds were fresh for everyone. Perhaps it was still too early for such ugly history.
“Fighting alongside the traitors were the Tasanese.”
“I’m Tasanese,” said Suki.
Hiram continued. “They seized the opportunity to rise up and steal the crops of the lowlands, belonging to Meridan, and the hill-country ranches belonging to Corent.”
“My daddy doesn’t steal. He’s king of the world,” said Suki.
Hiram laughed. “Ah, but he does invade and annex and put farmers who disagree into the trees.”
Suki didn’t understand what execution by hanging meant.
“But the Corentine—” continued Hiram, rounding on Iren, “were the most devious. The ever-aloof Corentine, Meridan’s only true allies, refused to honor our treaties and enter the fray. They holed themselves in their spires.”
Iren shrugged. She didn’t particularly seem to care.
“Meridan was gravely wounded, without king or queen or heir—enemies in every direction and friends in none. So, Declan the Giver, a lowly noble, rose up and took back the country he loved.”
Rhea beamed with pride for her father.
“At the Battle of Crimson Fog, he survived an assassination attempt by the Tasanese, who sent their own princess to turn the coward’s knife.”
“Tola,” whispered Suki.
“But Declan was too clever. And though it broke his heart, he sounded the