Of Fates & Ruin (Kingdom of Shattered Vows #1)

Chapter 1 Amarissa

AMARISSA

Soon, they’d dress me like a doll for my court’s pageant of death and call it mercy.

The syrup from the lirefruit had pooled at the edge of my plate, congealing around a slice of honeybread I would not be able to eat. Who could on the Day of Mercy?

Bile surged up my throat, and I rushed from my chair, racing to the bathing chamber where I lost what little I’d consumed last night. Water. A few bites of fruit.

Finished, I cleansed my teeth and stared into the mirror.

“This has to end,” I croaked. “No more pretending this is kindness.” I wanted to be brave, but bravery here only got people killed.

Every time I’d tried, I was beaten back so badly I feared there’d be nothing left of me to make a difference. Yet how could I stop?

My hands shook. I could almost feel my dead mother watching, as silent as her grave. I pressed a palm to my belly, half-expecting to feel her steady hand there, the way I used to when I was young.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered. “I keep failing them.” I dreamed of those I couldn’t save. They haunted me with silent eyes that asked why they were chosen while others lived. Including myself.

I staggered back to my sitting area. Lifted the honeybread and took a bite.

In my adjoining bedroom, servants murmured over lengths of ash-silk. They were nearly finished preparing my ceremonial robes. I’d have to join them and try not to wince as they transformed me into the Lady of Mercy.

When I was little, I’d stand along the wall of Queen Marlane’s room while my mother’s ladies adjusted her costume, dreaming of a time when I’d be old enough to participate in this sacred duty.

“The mask doesn’t change who you are beneath it, Isi. Remember that,” she’d say.

She’d died when I was ten. My father placed her mask in my hands and told me I would now carry out her duties.

I was fourteen the first time I tried to stop the ceremony.

After four years of wearing the mask, of watching people drink poisoned wine and fall, I couldn’t bear it anymore.

The night before that year’s Day of Mercy, I crept down to the wine cellars and replaced the ceremonial ashwine with ordinary red.

I thought I was clever. I thought I was merciful.

Until I was caught by the cellar master, who recognized immediately what I’d done.

Father didn’t rage when they brought me to his study, though I wished he had.

I could’ve handled that. Rage would mean I’d gotten through to him, if only for a moment.

Instead, he’d looked at me with such disappointment that my insides hollowed out.

“Why, Amarissa?” he’d asked, his voice terribly soft. “I thought you understood your duty.”

“They don’t deserve to die,” I said.

“And who are you to decide that?” His eyes had turned to flint. “The laws have protected our people for generations.”

The next morning, as punishment, he made me deliver the cups personally. Made me look into each condemned person’s eyes as I handed them their death. One woman, only a few years older than me, grabbed my wrist after taking her cup.

“Be brave,” she said. “One day you’ll find a way.”

After they’d all fallen, Father had the woman’s parents brought forward. “For encouraging rebellion in the royal house,” he announced to the crowd, “these two shall join today’s ceremony.”

I leaped between them and my father. Told them to run. Raced to my father and dropped to my knees, begging him not to do it. The guards grabbed me and held me back while Father himself tipped the cups to their lips.

That night, I couldn’t stop vomiting. Couldn’t sleep. My magic flared so violently that the tapestries in my chamber caught fire. Commander Thorne found me huddled in the corner, rocking, sobbing.

“Breathe, Princess,” he said, removing the scorched evidence himself. “You must survive to change things. You cannot help anyone if you’re dead.”

It took three days before I could keep food down. Three weeks before I stopped seeing their faces when I closed my eyes. Three months before I stopped flinching whenever Father touched my shoulder.

Even now, I still dream of that woman’s whisper. Be brave. And I wake up tasting tainted wine on my tongue.

I didn’t dare outright defy my father again. I learned to be careful. To wait. To look for tiny ways to fight that wouldn’t get more people killed.

When I was twenty, I slipped sleeping herbs into a guard’s drink and helped a man escape.

When I was twenty-two, I “accidentally” spilled wine on the execution list, making two names unreadable.

They weren’t called forward and I hadn’t seen them in the village since.

At twenty-four, I pretended to faint on the dais, creating enough of an uproar that three people slipped from the group and fled town.

All of those people lived today because of what I’d done. Small rebellions, dangerous gambles that could cost lives if Father ever discovered the truth. These secret victories were the only things keeping me sane, tiny sparks of hope in the darkness.

I was the Lady of Mercy, born from the ashes of a girl who learned the true price of courage.

My sitting room door burst open, the wooden panel smacking against the stone wall, and my lady-in-waiting, Mae, rushed in from the hall.

“Princess—” Her voice cracked. She staggered across the room, wild-eyed, her face blotchy and wet with tears.

I rose and rushed to her. “Mae…”

The open door to the dressing room caught my eye. I threw out my hand, and the panel slammed shut. The latch caught at my command. Stillness settled over the room.

Magic. Uncontrolled, instinctual, and, fates help me, visible to whoever might be watching. It often flared when I felt others’ pain.

Dread crept up my spine. Was this how it started, moments when my magic acted without my permission? How long before I lost control completely, before I became like the woman who destroyed half the southern slope?

Mae didn’t notice, but the cinderhawk perched on a branch outside my window did. The bird tilted its head before launching into the sky with a shriek that scraped across my nerves. It vanished beyond the southern castle spire.

“They took him,” Mae sobbed. “They took my Leo.”

I wrapped my arms around her. “To the reformatory?” I’d seen him revive a wilted flower. Carefully told him to keep his ability hidden. But those hunting magic collected anyone who showed even a hint of power.

“Mother turned him in,” Mae said. “She told them he made the garden vines grow too fast. She said the old laws are clear. Said if I wouldn’t protect the court, she would.”

Mae had placed Leo in my arms when I visited her the day after he was born. I’d been nineteen then, already wearing my mother’s mask for five years but still finding joy in simple things like a newborn’s tiny fingers and toes.

“He’s only seven,” I said. “Young enough that they might help him.”

But how could they save him, when I hadn’t been able to save myself?

Mae’s sobs finally quieted into sharp, ragged breaths. She pulled away, wiping her sleeve across her face. Her eyes darted to the closed bedchamber door. “They didn’t hear me, did they?”

“I don’t think so.”

I poured tea from the pot and made her sit and drink it.

“Princess?” one of the other women called from beyond the door. “It’s time to get ready.”

“Stay here,” I whispered, giving Mae another hug. “I’m going to get him back. I promise.”

“How?”

“I’ll find a way.”

I’d saved six people from the Day of Mercy over the years. Six out of hundreds. I would save Leo, but I’d have to be careful. If I drew attention to him, Father would know. He knew everything. And he’d do something worse to Leo than whatever they did in the reformatory.

I made my feet carry me into my bedchamber, where the scent of hot-pressed cloth and griveth moss swirled through the room. I closed the door behind me.

My three ladies dipped into curtsies.

I stripped off my dress, shivering in my undergarments before they tugged the sapphire blue robe over my head and smoothed it across my shoulders.

Blue would show my status.

The fates help anyone wearing white today.

The color made my pale blue eyes look almost silver in the mirror’s reflection. Mother’s eyes, in a face that grew more like hers with each passing day.

One of the servants gathered my long blonde hair, twisting it into a simple knot at the nape of my neck.

Unlike my younger sister, Addie, who’d inherited Father’s dark curls and needed an hour with a hot iron to achieve any semblance of order, my hair fell in natural waves and didn’t need much attention.

I rolled my shoulders, feeling the familiar ache from yesterday’s training session with Commander Thorne. The fighting forms he’d brought from his homeland required stillness and control, so different from the traditional swordplay many in the court mastered.

My ladies adorned me with jewelry. Earrings. A bracelet. And a glittering ring on each of my fingers.

The final touch was the mask. Everyone knew who I was beneath, of course, but it was time for me to fully become the Lady of Mercy.

One of the servants stepped forward, cradling it in a deep-red cloth. Bone-white and polished to a mirror sheen, it had been carved into the shape of a woman’s face, one blank and silent. Only the eye openings would reveal the true me.

I wondered if Addie felt equally hidden behind the elaborate court fashions of her new home. My sister had left a month ago, her trunks filled with silks and jewels rather than ceremonial robes. Father had commissioned an entire wardrobe for her new life.

“Perhaps your sister’s new husband will appreciate her sharp tongue if it’s accompanied by a sharp style,” he’d muttered after another of their arguments. Addie had laughed, that fearless sound I’d always envied.

Mae opened the door and entered the room, her face no longer splotchy and her eyes filled with fury.

At my nod, she lifted the mask.