Daughters of Ruin - K. D. Castner Page 0,5

battle horn that very night. Meridan charged the field. More soldiers died in the battle than at the siege of Blantyre, or even by Rotter’s Plague. Most were Tasanese farmers, conscripted by the emperor to take up their sickles for war. The Findish supply lines were also caught unawares. When the sun rose that day, the chroniclers say the dew on the grass was bloodred. The ‘mourning fog,’ they called it. Outside these walls, they say everyone was present at Crimson Fog, because everyone felt the loss of someone they knew.

“Only Declan could unite the kingdoms and make peace. He paid for the mass graves Findain caused. He sheltered the war orphans Tasan created, and Corent ignored. You three,” said Hiram, nodding at Cadis, Iren, and Suki, “are lucky you’ve been allowed to live under his protection, here in Meridan. And you’re lucky to grow up alongside his own daughter.”

Hiram finished his account and put Suki down. Marta glared at him with open disgust. It had all been whispered before in the bathhouses and empty chambers of Meridan Keep, but it had never been said. And never to the girls—the future sister queens of the four empires.

A silence that follows thunder hung about them. None of the girls would look Rhea in the eye. Everything had shifted between them.

Suki looked from Cadis, who wiped a tear from her cheek as quickly as she could, to Iren, who clenched her jaw in silence, to Rhea, who finally understood why Marta was trying to stop her.

At that moment the little girl realized that all the pain in her short life—her sissy’s death, her good-bye to her parents—the massive nightmare that she wished and wished she would wake from, all of it was supposedly her own fault.

A black shroud seemed to fall over Suki’s vision.

The five-year-old shattered the silence.

“It’s not our fault!”

She charged at Hiram, battering his legs with her useless fists.

Hiram didn’t respond. Any response would have made it worse.

In the ensuing tumult, Rhea stood by and watched as Cadis and Iren ran up to grab Suki. She knew now they would never be truly sisters, the way her father wanted. They would never reign together and usher in a generation of peace among the four empires. His great dream of a Pax Regina—peace of the queens—would be a disappointment he would have to endure. And she would be to blame for it.

She watched Cadis, the natural leader, peel Suki away from Hiram’s leg. And she saw Iren quietly sidle next to Hiram, reach into his robe, which had fallen open, and steal a roll of parchment full of the magister’s notes.

When everything had finally settled:

The carriage reset and doused of its flames.

The horses calmed by Endrit’s soothing words and bribed with his apples.

Two new soldiers called to play the bandits.

Only then did the servants return to cleaning the coliseum as if they had seen nothing.

Hiram’s shinhound returned from delivering his message. The king’s man nodded at Marta and bade the sister queens farewell.

So the four girls from four countries found themselves again in a new royal carriage, riding peaceably along, awaiting an attack.

Rhea wished desperately that they could go back to the first run and work it out among themselves. She had never had siblings before and didn’t know how permanent the damage could be.

She tried to break the silence.

“Maybe we could do the same plan again?”

It was the best olive branch she could offer, admitting that Cadis’s idea had worked for the most part. Though, of course, it was doling out tasks that caused their fight in the first place.

Cadis stared straight at a button in the upholstery. She shook from the intensity of her focus on that one point—a taut rope on a ship at storm.

Rhea added, “But this time I’ll go on Iren’s side, so we don’t get in each other’s way.”

Iren glanced up, nodded silently at Rhea, and then returned to picking her nails with her dagger. Suki sniffled. Her job was to stay in the coach until the bandits were fought off. Then she would crawl over the rigging and saddle one of the horses to bring them to a stop. She had been raised on horseback and could do the job even while pouting.

The very first unveiling of the hitherto queens would make a glorious climax to the festivities of King Declan’s Revels. The entire coliseum would marvel at the martial skill and cunning of the future rulers of the world. But most of all,