Chapter One #3
A fist pounded on the door, snapping both our heads up. Meliora and I exchanged a look.
“What?” A mother’s eagle eyes missed nothing. “What is it?”
“Nothing, Mama.” I got to my feet and tucked the sheets tight around her. “You eat. I’ll see who’s at the door, and get them acquainted with Savia’s wrappings if they dare shove another recruitment letter in my face.”
A chuckle sounded from beneath the blankets. “There’s that fire.”
I mouthed stay here to Meli and left, softly closing the door behind me. Our small little hut claimed only two bedrooms. One for Mama and one for the young children. I picked up Jac’s and Gisela’s bowls and sent them all to their room. I crossed to open the—
The door banged into the opposite wall, rattling half off the hinges. A man in a silken tailored coat stepped over the threshold, wiping his hands on his coat as if the mere act of his magic touching our home sullied him.
His coldly handsome face swept our living space, his mouth curling up at the edges.
I wished I could stop describing him at cold, but there was no denying that Kirwan Dawnbreaker was the handsomest of men.
Streaks of silver wove through his raven locks, giving him distinction instead of age.
Lily pads floating in a clear stream did not come close to the crisp green of his eyes, and when he smiled at those he deemed worthy of his attention, the wonder of his full lips and teasing amusement knocked you on your back.
Yes, Kirwan earned the turned heads he collected everywhere he went, and it wasn’t just because the hem of his coat was lined with coudarian crystals bigger than my fists.
He was handsome. But to me, I’d never seen a more hideous creature in all my days.
“Where’s the girl?” he asked by way of greeting. Kirwan pushed me aside and came in. “I told her to be ready.”
“Which girl are you referring to?” I got in front of him, halting Kirwan with his mere refusal to be touched by me. “There’s no girl here who answers to you.”
Kirwan looked me up and down, then dismissed me. “You will be silent, kakka. You were not given permission to address me. Meliora? Meliora! Get out here now.”
The hairs on my neck stood on end, giving rise to choking rage. It was one thing to be called kakka by a squawking man-boy covered in baby waste, but for the likes of Kirwan to call me such?
Kakka was the worst of insults. Scrapings from a horse’s hooves. Flies that feast on rotted dung. Old chamber pots left in the sun. All of these had more value than you.
“There is only one kakka in this room, and for all his money and station, he’s little more than a soulless broker.” I sniffed. “What am I saying? Even brokers have more honor than you. They don’t barter with their own blood!”
Meliora’s father stiffened. “How dare you. The girl is stepping up in service for the king himself. It is her honor and her duty to aid in the union that will bring our kingdoms together.”
“Strange how her honor and duty fattens your coin purse. You wouldn’t deign to remember her name otherwise.”
Kirwan brushed a thumb over the crystal on his chest, and I went flying.
Screaming, I was blasted off my feet and thrown onto the table—tipping us both over with a resounding crash.
“Haeowen!”
“What’s going on!”
Meliora raced out of the room amid Mama’s shout. She ran to me and Kirwan snatched her off her feet, hauling her back by the wrist.
“Let’s go. The carriage is waiting.”
“No, please!” Meliora strained against his hold. “I don’t want to do this. Please, don’t make me, Kirwan. Please!” She cried in earnest. “They’ll kill me!”
My head lolled, wetness running down my forehead. “N-no...” I tried to get up and pitched forward on my face. “Stop...”
“Meliora?” Mama screamed. A loud thud sounded from her bedroom. “Children, what’s wrong?”
“Enough!” Kirwan dragged her to the door. “You will be silent or I’ll spell your mouth shut.”
Meliora was not silent. She sobbed and wailed, fighting her father harder than she ever had. His mere presence, and the swirling cloud of disdain he brought with him, used to strike her quiet. Not that day. “I won’t go! I won’t!”
I crawled over the splintered wood, vision spinning. “Meli!”
“Leave Haeowen alone!” Jaclan burst from his room, wielding his wooden spoon like a club. He struck Kirwan between the legs, doubling him over.
“Argh!” Snarling, Kirwan raised a backhand to Jaclan.
“Don’t—!”
“I’ll go!”
My scream stopped everything.
Kirwan spun on me, hand still raised. “What?” he barked.
“Take m-me.” I rose on shaky knees. “I’ll do it.”
“No one wants you, girl.”
“No, you don’t want to offer up Meli.” My gaze burned him where he stood.
“Advisor to the king. Lord of the House of Dawnbreaker. One of the highest-powered fae in Lyrica... and his daughter can be had for three coppers. You’ll never hear the end of it,” I rasped.
“Your comrades will laugh and taunt you of the taste of her, and don’t pretend they won’t. ”
Frowning, Kirwan looked from me to her. No denial came.
Kirwan knew well what would happen if Meliora wound up in the grip of men as vile as him. Not for her sake, but for his reputation. His only love in this life and the next.
“I’ll do it,” I repeated. “I’ll become a war wife, you won’t be known for selling your own daughter, and you’ll still get your one hundred and fifty kiruna. Surely you have no objection? You’ll get everything you want.”
His lips peeled back from his teeth. It was the hard, unfeeling monster in him that wanted to say no just because I asked this of him. But—
“Fine. You’ll do just as well.”
“No!” Meliora broke from his loosened grip and ran to me. I gently dried her tears. “Haeowen, you can’t do this. We promised we would never.”
“I promised that you would never be forced into this life,” I whispered. “I promised we would choose, and I choose to protect you. That’s what I’ll always choose, faywen.”
“But not faeriken. They’ll k-kill you. We’ll never see you again.”
“Let’s go,” Kirwan ordered.
Ignoring him, I forced a smile on my lips. “Of course you will. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be back after the wedding, and when I do, I’ll tell you all about the palace. Its grand rooms, luscious feasts, and the queen’s famous gardens. It’ll be like you were there with me.”
Meliora cried harder. Of course she didn’t believe me. She knew I was a liar.
Mama’s door banged open. She huffed—chest heaving and hair hanging lank over her face. The effort that short distance cost her, left her clinging to the doorframe. “What has happened?” She took in the scene, and my weeping wound. “Kirwan, what did you do?”
He sniffed. “The girl’s clumsy. She tripped over the table like a one-footed fool. You should be thanking, not scolding me, Olene. Your circumstances will be improving. You’ll either have two incomes for the household... or one less mouth to feed.”
“Excuse me? What does that mean!”
“It means Kirwan has offered me a job,” I rushed. “A housekeeper in his household. I am to leave now for training, Mama, but I’ll return in a fortnight.”
Her lips drew tight. “If that’s true, why is Meliora crying?”
“Because she knows her father as well as I.” I gave him a hard look. “I will not be treated well.”
“That’s not true, faywen,” she said, voice sharp. “He will treat you well. He’ll care for you better than his own, or I’ll know why. Isn’t that right, Kirwan?”
He smiled. “I can swear no harm will come to her by my or any fae hands.”
Meliora’s nails pierced my shoulder. She understood the meaning behind his word choice clear as day.
“In the carriage, girl,” Kirwan said. “Don’t make me change my mind.” And take Meliora instead.
I untangled from my sister and bent down, opening my arms to Jaclan. Gisela took that moment to shoot out from behind the cracked door. I hugged the twins tight.
“Be well, my loves. Listen to everything Meli says.”
Standing up, I brushed a kiss over Meliora’s forehead. She was crying too much. Mama would figure out something was wrong soon. I had to be gone before then.
Chin raised, I walked to the door without looking back at my family. Kirwan’s smirk taunted me the whole way.
“Tell Adan I won’t be long.”
“What—?”
Kirwan advanced on my mother.
“No, you leave her!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “You know she’s not well.”
Kirwan threw me off. His strength enough to toss me across the room again. I grabbed my siblings as he slammed Mama’s door shut, hurrying them out of the house.
We didn’t make it far down the path. Meli turned on me, clinging tight and tripping me up.
Her weight pulled me down onto the earthen lane.
I suffocated under Meli’s, Jac’s, and Gisela’s embrace.
The twins did not understand what was wrong, but they knew enough to be worried about anything that made Meliora cry.
I opened my mouth—to give them reassurance. Tell them everything would be okay. Say that their worry was silly.
Nothing came out.
A war wife. The polite, official term for what I would be. The actual term. The one that would be yelled at me in the streets. Branded in the stares I received in the marketplace. Hissed at me as I descended back staircases and crept out of darkened rooms.
Was whore.
Decades after King Kazimir decreed that all women must have their magic bound and rendered unusable by age ten, his son set down another decree.
The men who now had to fight alone on the battlefield deserved comfort in the long months and years they spent far from home.
They deserved a body to warm their bedrolls, soothe their aches, and sweeten their nights.
Naturally, their actual wives had to stay home and fulfill the only role still available to them in a magical society—raising the next generation of sons to fight and daughters to bear them. Thus, a contingent of women would be sent along with the regiments. The war wives.
Over the years, the soldiers would make more demands of their king—binding the chains tighter around women.
A war wife could not be claimed by one man.
They were to be shared among whoever wanted them.
War wives were not only for soldiers. Nobles and high-powered fae could make use of them how they wished.
A noble can take a war wife into their home, imprisoning them with the man who now owned her, and his true wife who hated her.
And the law that they fought the hardest for—any children that resulted from their union would be her responsibility.
The men were required to do no more than pay for their sons’ education.
But if Jaclan went without food, clothing, and a roof over his head, Xandros Waterdancer was not obligated to do anything about it.
A sentiment he proved when we went without all three, and I begged him to help the twins—his children—at the very least. He had me thrown away from the carriage and continued on to his grand manor on the hill.
In the end, when a war wife got too old, when they had too many children, when the sickness took them as it would take every woman of Lyrica, all that was left for a war wife.
.. all that would be left for me was to lie ill and broken in a little room, while my children cried outside—covering their ears.
I opened my mouth to tell my siblings that if I survived the beastly men who slaughtered our soldiers in droves, the life that awaited me afterward was nothing to fear...
...and a sob tore from my throat.
I cried—squeezing them tighter than they squeezed me. I had finally done it.
I ran out of lies.