Daughters of Ruin - K. D. Castner Page 0,6

the people would find comfort in the fact that the heirs to the four thrones and four armies loved one another like sisters.

Rhea tried to intercept Cadis’s stare by leaning into it. “Cadis? Does that sound good?”

It was Cadis’s plan. Of course it sounded good. Rhea realized too late that making Cadis speak wasn’t an olive branch, but just another kind of knife.

Cadis snapped her gaze to Rhea. Her eyes shimmered but held strong.

“Yes,” she said, unblinking. “That’s fine.”

THE KINGDOM OF MERIDAN

TEN YEARS LATER

CHAPTER ONE

Rhea

First from the others was Meridan’s own

Lost a mother when she won a crown

Her daddy jumped up and defended the throne

Dance little queen, but don’t . . . fall . . . down.

—Children’s nursery rhyme

Rhea put up her hair as Endrit took off his shirt in the chamber below the private bedrooms of the castle.

Her maids were sent away.

The candles lit the room with warm halos floating a-pixie in the dark.

Rhea’s thick black curls took dozens of jeweled floral pins, stabbed in every direction, to stay aloft in the formal style.

As she fumbled in front of the full-length mirror, Rhea glanced at Endrit’s reflection. The years of assisting his mother in their training had made him the envy of all the noble sons at court, who seemed to be made of lesser mettle. Where the young lords would call for water and stop their coddled sword work at the first pain, Endrit had been the sparring partner—and punching bag—to the sisters, without the luxury of raising two fingers and storming off.

He was seventeen and looked like the flattering portraits hanging in the royal hall. Shoulders broad and tapering down across a barrel chest, and a taut abdomen. Rhea knew he kept his light brown hair a medium length because it looked soft and sandy when he lay under the trees in the orchards, regaling the swoony village girls with tales of castle comforts. And he knew it looked menacing when it hung wet over his obsidian eyes, in the heat of a fight.

After he pulled the linen tunic over his head, Endrit reached up and ran a hand through his wet hair. The third reason he kept it that length was to reach up and flex his arms and his abs and catch the princesses watching him in their mirrors.

Endrit smiled with mischief.

Rhea flushed and looked away. “Put your shirt back on,” she said.

“Excuse me, Princess, but it’s stifling in here. Some of us aren’t used to castle fineries.”

“Like clothing?” said Rhea.

“Like indoor heating,” said Endrit.

Rhea parried the jab with an unimpressed eyebrow. “Do you suffer a lot of cold nights, curled up with the old tabby cat?”

Endrit’s romantic exploits were the subject of endless teasing from the sisters . . . and endless speculation.

“I don’t know about that,” said Endrit. “Mrs. Wigglefoots never scratched so hard.”

Endrit turned to show a crosshatch of scars on his ribs stretching across the muscles of his back. Each was from Rhea, Cadis, Iren, or Suki missing their mark, swinging wildly, or losing control during their blade work over the years.

Rhea had no witty riposte.

The scars were deep and irregularly healed, as if some had been carved into already-scabbed tissue. Rhea remembered when she was first learning to throw her weighted knives, when she didn’t know to aim at the smallest target possible and was easily distracted. Endrit provided the human prey.

And if he wasn’t so skilled at diving clear, she would have skewered him a dozen times. As it was, she knew she was responsible for many of those graze marks along Endrit’s ribs. “Don’t feel bad, Princess,” said Endrit as he walked about the room, lifting the wooden dummies back onto their stands. “Some of these I remember fondly.” Endrit was the only one allowed to call the sisters “princess” in that puckish tone, and only in private. Rhea liked it when he did, because it made him feel like more than just the servant they had abused all these years so they could become masters of their arts. It made him feel like a friend.

Rhea finished with a last pin in her hair. Her head almost wobbled under the weight. Rhea didn’t spend any more time in front of the glass, not to admire herself as Cadis did. She simply used the glass to make sure her hair was ready for a royal ball and turned away. Not in disgust. Though maybe when she was younger. No, not disgust. Duty. Drive.

She was too busy to fuss about