Chapter One
A dragon’s hunger is only satiated by the blood of maidens.
I think about my grandmother’s words now as my sister’s cries of despair echo through the house.
“I can’t marry him!” She’s sobbing in earnest and I do feel bad for her, though I’ve always thought that level of emotion was an expense people in our position can’t afford.
Eve is more fragile than I am. My mom has always said that—she isn’t wrong. But my mom says it like it’s a truth that can’t be changed, and I’m not sure I agree with that. Eve knows she’ll be taken care of—no matter what.
I’d love to be hard now. To leave her to the dragon. The Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean, our feared and reviled King Lucian.
The trouble is, I can’t.
What lesson is she going to learn being wrenched away from the man she loves? I do believe she’s in love with Marcus, even if I think love is a foolish endeavor. It’s certainly never served any of the women in our family.
It’s why my mother has two daughters with two men and neither of them are still here.
Why my grandmother spent all her days living with us.
Why her mother before her left England for Alabria—because she’d fallen in love with a man she’d met in London who told her to come here.
She did. She had his baby. He abandoned her.
So we are three generations of women who have been abandoned by their husbands.
Love seems stupid to me.
I want more. I want to make a difference, to matter, to mean something. Love is fine; you can make a quiet life in a quiet house. I’ve already had that life. A life of struggle, a life where I am in the shadows of other people whether I want to be or not.
What I can’t understand is being so distraught by an arranged marriage since no marriage has historically lasted till death in our bloodline.
Though with Lucian death could come sooner than expected…
On that she has cause for concern. That’s the real worry that I have. The real fear that sticks in the pit of my stomach and makes me feel cold.
King Lucian has been married two times before. Both times to women from other countries. One princess, one duchess, and then he attempted a wedding last year to the Princess of Basilia, but she ran away with her bodyguard.
I suppose you could draw the conclusion that like us—he’s cursed.
Or you could look at it the way I do. Which is that since he’s a man, and a whole king besides, his inability to hang onto a wife feels intentional, and is likely a character flaw.
In his case, perhaps that he’s a killer.
That’s the legend of the Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean. The dragon on the mountain. He is more myth than he is an actual man at this point, and his legend has expanded—some would say to hysterical proportions—through the years.
But he’s done nothing to correct it.
There are rumors he’s disfigured from the wars—which took place before I was born. There are rumors he was cursed by a witch and made half monster—I don’t believe that. That’s ridiculous.
Schoolchildren have rhymes about him. The mad king who might devour his subjects as soon as rule them.
He rules Alabria with an iron fist—he isn’t a dictator by any stretch. But he controls the sky—not allowing planes to fly in or out. Every square inch of accessible coastline is patrolled heavily. No one gets in or out without him knowing. We’re allowed in and out, but…
There was a war when he was born. Way before my time—he’s forty years old to my twenty-two.
I came along after the violence stopped.
I don’t know how it would have shaped me.
My mom did what she does best during that time.
She smoked and drank and had a nice time; she met men she liked and some she didn’t.
She worked—waiting tables or doing nails and hair for a while—she always took care of my grandmother and our modest house.
It’s Eve’s beauty that put her on his radar. He was determined—or so it was whispered—to marry a woman from Alabria this time. A woman to represent the people, from the people. His scouts looked far and wide for the right woman—and they happened upon Eve in the salon she works at.
“The Beautician and the Beast”—the headlines write themselves.
My family doesn’t want headlines.
Mom has never really wanted to elevate herself, though the situation with money is a continual stress. If she didn’t have to worry about bills, then things would be easier for her. If we don’t do this, we may lose everything. If we do, my mother will never have to worry about money again.
Maybe then she wouldn’t want for anything.
I suppose she would have liked to fall in love. I hope for her sake she still will.
She’s cheerful about our lot in life, even as she struggles. Grandma wasn’t cheerful so much as she was determined.
Eve is a dreamer.
I’m a planner.
I never planned to stay here. I’ve always wanted to leave.
I wanted to go to Paris. To London. I wanted to see New York City.
I’ve been saving and trying to arrange to get to university in another country.
I have some money and I have a collection of scholarships and aid awards, and a few different options for school.
I’m older for a university student, but it’s taken time for me to piece all of this together.
I want to be a scientist, a medical researcher. I want to matter far more than a peasant in a near-forgotten country. I want to change things. To make life better for other people.
The churn of humanity overwhelms and comforts me in equal measure. We are, by turns, expendable and infinitely precious all at once. But I had thought that if I could change something for the better…
It doesn’t matter now.
In my mind I see a picture of my own closed fist. Holding onto everything I’ve ever wanted. Everything I was so close to having.
I imagine myself letting it go.
“I’ll do it,” I say.
I stand up from the dinner table, planting my hands firmly on the surface. Eve is still wailing and neither she nor my mom seem to have really heard what I said.
“I’ll do it.” The wailing stops. My mom looks at me. “I’ll marry him instead.”
“Lilith…” My mom looks like she pities me for a moment and I can’t figure out why that would be.
“It isn’t like he knows Eve. Why should he care?”
Eve exchanges a look with my mother. “He has seen me,” she says. “In photos.”
Oh. It’s about Eve being prettier than me. They aren’t wrong. She’s redheaded with bouncy curls and vibrant green eyes. She looks a lot like his attempted-wife who ran away from him, actually. I saw her picture splashed all over the news afterward.
Eve is curvy and tall, and I’ve heard that King Lucian is six-five. I would look ridiculous with him. I’m plain. There’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t consider beauty a virtue, nor do I care overmuch about my looks.
I make myself as presentable as possible in every situation. But my blond hair is straight and fine and best served in a ponytail so it isn’t just hanging lank around my face. My style is best described as: woman saving money to try to get to university out of the country.
Meaning: thrifted, and not in a trendy way.
I’m short. I’m petite with bony wrists, ankles and knees—I would never have really noticed that but Eve had a particular affinity for calling out the various prominent bones on my body when were children, to the degree where she once spent a summer calling me Knobby instead of Lilith—and I’m certainly not what you’d ever call a siren.
“I know I’m not as pretty as Eve,” I say, because I’m nothing if not realistic about who I am.
Eve doesn’t lord her beauty over me. She’s always teased me the way a sister should. My mom and sister aren’t trying to be mean in the veiled observation that I’m not the physical prize Eve would be. These are just facts.
But I’m not wounded. I know others might be, but I’ve never valued physical beauty.
“If he’s just planning to kill you what does it matter if you’re prettier than me?” I point this out, the ultimate pragmatism, I think.
“He didn’t choose me for my brains or personality, Lil, which means he may have an opinion on you going in my place.” She bites her bottom lip. “You’re very pretty. But we don’t look alike.”
A testament to how much Eve and I have matured is that she isn’t actually trying to tease me; she’s framing it in practicality. She isn’t wrong; even if we were equal in beauty we aren’t the same, and men have types. I’ve heard.
Eve and I aren’t the same type.
I realize that what Eve has just implied is that if he’d chosen her for her brains and personality, he might have taken me instead.
Which is a bit unfair to her. She’s a lovely person. She’s fun in a way I’ve never been, certainly.
“I know we don’t, but honestly, his wives seem to come and go very quickly.”
Eve starts to tear up again. “Lil, it’s medieval!”
“I know,” I say.
We don’t have a choice. It was made very clear that he is expecting a bride—now. That Eve was not being asked, and it was heavily implied that a refusal would mean the whole family might spend the rest of their lives in prison.
It’s hard to know if he would make good on the threat, though the legend of the man supports that, certainly.
One thing I also know is that if he is a killer, if he is a very, very awful man, I have a stronger chance of surviving than Eve.
I’m not victim blaming, or saying the other women should have done something to protect themselves.
I know my sister, though. She’s soft. If it’s too difficult she won’t even want to live.
But I do.
I want to live and I want to do things. I want to make an impact. I could marry him, and maybe I could change things for the better. What if I could convince him to open up the skies? What if I could convince him to fund our university and fund more medical research?
What if I could take every change I wanted to make in myself, and bring it to Alabria?
Maybe I’m self-aggrandizing. My grandmother would probably say that.