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A memory flashed through my mind: Jules’s stave. She’d been so excited, choosing the path of mage, remaining so still and brave when Arkmage Kolaya had cut her wrist to begin the process. Her stave had been produced, a beautiful twisting of moon and sun wood with her name magically carved into its side. It was supposed to have been a sacred moment, the first showing of the magic that had been bound inside her body since she was born.
But the only magic Jules had ever performed was forbidden—vorakh. She’d immediately fallen into a vision, fear and terror gripping her as she’d seen something none of us ever could or would see. The stave had fallen from her hand and rolled onto the floor. I’d been so embarrassed when she’d first dropped it, not having any idea at the time what it had meant. And then she had been arrested, taken away, and was now gone from my life forever.
The tears were back. How was it I could cry until I was all dried up, and then out of nowhere, one simple question, one comment, one memory was all it took to summon the tears back in full force? My stomach twisted over the fact that we’d have to repeat the charade all over again at Morgana’s Revelation Day. Eleven months from now, she’d be nineteen and eligible for the Revelation Ceremony like Jules and Meera, our eldest sister, had been. Eleven months were all we had before we relived the horror. By then, I’d have turned eighteen and reached a whole year of my life without Jules.
“Look, Lyr, I’d clean this all up for you if I could, but I don’t know where anything goes. Or how to clean. And I—I just can’t do this,” Morgana said. “Ugh, I miss the maids!”
“You know why they’re gone,” I snapped.
“Doesn’t change the fact that I miss them. And clearly,” she gestured around my room, “you do, too. Now, make a Godsdamned decision. Are you seeing Tristan today or not? Because if you are, then I’d get my ass up and march straight into the ocean. That’s the size of the bath you’re going to need to get this shit off you. You need to do it before he sees you,” she sniffed, “and smells you.”
“He said she was better off dead,” I cried. I couldn’t shake the memory of the moment he’d told me so callously to move on.
“Half of Bamaria said the same thing,” Morgana said.
My chest tightened. Half of Bamaria had said far worse. Even though we’d all been as still as possible during the arrest, keeping our faces stoic and neutral, Jules’s vorkah was Bamaria’s biggest scandal in years. For the past month, it had reignited the flames of distrust Bamarians felt over Father becoming Arkasva after Mother died. He’d ruled our country, sitting in the Seat of Power, wearing the Laurel of the Arkasva, for most of my life. But it had taken years for our people to accept him as ruler—many still didn’t.
Traditionally, Bamarian rule had always transferred through the direct bloodline of Ka Batavia—a bloodline of women. Power transferred from mother to daughter, sister to sister, aunt to niece or to female cousin. Father was not in the bloodline, and he was a man—and no man had ever ruled Bamaria before.
We’d always had a High Lady, and now for well over a decade, we’d had our first High Lord. A mob of angry Bamarians had formed right after he’d taken the Seat of Power. He’d been making his first public appearance in the streets when the mob had nearly killed him. Arrests had been made, traitors killed, and the rebellion squashed. Years had been spent cultivating the perfect image of Ka Batavia and regaining the trust of our people.
Aunt Arianna had been instrumental in that. She’d been the one the mob wanted in power—and she’d been the one to quell the unrest and stand by Father’s side. As my mother’s youngest and only surviving sister, tradition said the Laurel would go to her. But it hadn’t. Still, she protected our Ka as fiercely as she could even after she’d learned her husband had led the rebellion.
She taught us not only to smile and wave but to control what our people saw, to master the art of public perception. Aunt Arianna had trained us to be public figures even as toddlers. Soturi fight disobedience with swords; nobles fight with appearances, she’d say.
And it was for this reason—to separate our Ka from scandal, from vorakh—that I continued my relationship with Tristan. To keep Ka Batavia from losing everything, from becoming the next Ka Azria.
Arianna assured us that my actions the past month had been instrumental in bringing our Ka back into favor. As an Heir to the Arkasva, I wasn’t simply courting a nobleman, I was shaping public opinion. I was keeping Bamaria’s most famous vorakh hunter distracted, and thus the people distracted as well.
I received fewer glares every time I ventured out. Nobles who’d shied away from talking to me the first days after Jules’s vorakh had been revealed now greeted me warmly and invited me to parties and social gatherings. But it wasn’t getting any easier.
Morgana shifted beside me. “Look, Lyr, I get it. Tristan’s a piece of gryphon-shit, but he was a piece of gryphon-shit before Jules was—”
“Don’t!” I finally sat up. “Don’t you say it.”
“Before Jules died!” Morgana said. “Myself to Moriel! You’re the one courting him, not me!”
I launched forward in bed, ready to scratch and claw at Morgana. “You know exactly why I’m doing it! What I’m giving up to protect us! To keep us from—”
Morgana’s hands wrapped around my wrists, and she pushed me back. “You can’t fight me, little sister. You’re not strong enough. You haven’t eaten in days. You’re weak,” she snarled. “And I don’t care if you court him or not. You can shape public opinion without marrying your reputation to his.”
“You know that’s not true.” If it had just been Jules, I could have ended things with Tristan and moved on. But it was also Meera who’d revealed vorakh.
“Fine,” Morgana said. “Then do it already. Get up.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand?” Morgana seethed. “I don’t fucking understand?” She released my wrists and sat back, her arms folded across her chest. That was when I looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time in weeks. Her notoriously shiny black hair was dull and frizzy. There were black circles under her eyes, and her pale skin was white, gaunt, and pulled tight against cheekbones that hadn’t been as pronounced last month.
“I know,” she said slowly. “I know that you…Gods. You and Jules were closest. It’s always been the four of us, all together all the time. And I get it. I have a special bond with Meera. You had one with Jules. But she was my cousin, too. My friend, too. Maybe I’d be in bed looking like a fucking akadim victim if it had been Meera who’d been….” She sucked in a breath. “But it doesn’t change anything. We’re all upset, and we’re all doing the best we can. And if we want to keep it from being Meera next time, or me, or you—especially if you keep up this circus act of courting a vorakh hunter—then you need to wake the fuck up, go see him, and convince him again that you’re fine.”
I knew she was right. I knew we had a duty and a secret to protect.
We four keep this secret. We four die by this secret.
I had given my oath in blood—I had promised to protect Meera. And laying here in bed, crying, grieving, and sobbing, didn’t do anything. It didn’t help anyone. It didn’t change the circumstances.
Jules was dead. Meera, my eldest sister, was alive because we were willing to sacrifice everything to keep her so. I wasn’t going to lose one more member of my family or renounce my Ka or our claim to the Seat of Power in Bamaria no matter what happened. I was willing to sacrifice everything.
