Fate’s Wicked Oath (Mirrors of Fate #3)

Prologue Thief

Twenty-Four Years Ago

The lock was easy enough to pick, and the door’s hinges were silent as she slipped through.

There was another long corridor, the air cool and dank against her skin.

Her breathing came in short puffs, echoing off the walls like a chant.

Fury made the fine hairs on her arms and nape stand up; it felt like static, electric, racing through her with the pulsing of her blood. An angry whooshing in her ears.

Rage led her deeper into the depths of Castle Might.

At eleven, she didn’t understand Lord Haron’s dealings nor political logic.

She understood only the cruel amusement of his expression, his unapologetic “No,” her father’s flushed face, and her family—back home in their too-small cottage—with pinched stomachs, praying to the Fates for relief.

She understood only the rationale of childhood: of hunger, of mischief, of taking someone’s toy because they took your dinner roll.

As she snuck through the belly of the castle, past lazy guards and down narrow, underground corridors, she sought a toy worth taking—a Fortune. Something the Lord would regret losing. Something that would make him change his mind about her father’s taxes.

Beneath her feet, marble became stone and stone became dirt and then—through another unguarded door—the floor became marble again.

The ornately carved threshold—its frame tooled with pretty lettering—led into a grand and spacious chamber.

Inside, the air was still and thin; it smelled sweet and earthy, like old paper.

She would’ve shivered if it weren’t for the wrath coursing hot inside her. The desperation.

There was an oil lantern hanging by the door; she took it, lit it. The tiny orange glow of the flame illuminated more of the grand hall. Rows of massive pillars extending into the dark. Vaulted ceilings with extravagantly ribbed, fanlike arches. Many, many shelves of books.

The tomes themselves were massive, some thicker than her straw mattress back home.

Each was caged in iron and chained to a bar running along the length of the shelf, like the foot traps her father set for the predator that massacred their pigs last winter.

She half expected the books to yowl or snarl when she crept closer.

As she ran her finger through the dust on one of the covers, she thought of the livestock her family raised, and it occurred to her that animals were also sometimes caged to keep safe.

The lantern’s metal handle squeaked as she lifted it higher, searching for her prize.

She crept farther into the stacks, passing row after row of formidable shelving.

Then she came upon a lone pedestal, carved not unlike one of the columns leading up to the ceiling.

Cradled atop it was a book. This one was average in size, not chained, but splayed open, its pages parted by a string of white clay beads.

Her fingers tingled at the sight of it.

Due to malnourishment, she was small for her age; she had to rise up on her tiptoes to read the book—only, when she tried, she found that its contents were inked in an alphabet she recognized but had not learned.

Though she did not know what it said, she knew in her bones that she’d found a prize worth taking.

So that’s exactly what she did.