Chapter Two
“Let’s go, girl.”
Kirwan walked out of my house, his presence imposing and out of place amid our humble home. He tossed a weighty coin purse at Meliora—his final insult upon every exit. Making us take the payments for his time with our mother, even though all payments are supposed to go through the broker.
This is the man to whom you’ll abandon your mother, brother, and sisters.
My fists balled. No.
“No,” I rasped, getting to my feet and taking the children with me. “No crying. I will be back. Nothing will happen to me. I have been there every day since each of you were born. That will never change, faywens.” I meant it with everything in me. “I’ll return.”
Kirwan snatched my wrist, yanking me along.
“I promise.”
Meliora, Jaclan, and Gisela didn’t speak as I was loaded into the carriage. Adan set off before my back hit the cushion, not allowing me a second’s linger in my home. We left Gutter Galley—my faywens becoming still, lonely specks in the distance.
The further we trotted from the Galley, the more noise crowded into the darkened space.
Lyrica passed through the sliver in the curtain, warm and alive with the preparations for the royal wedding.
The coming faeriken brought fear, but they also brought hope.
The hope that the love of a princess and foreign king would save our home and our souls.
I turned away, scooting as far away from Kirwan as the carriage would let me.
Shadows danced on the curves and lines of his face, concealing him as well as the unmarked carriage.
Kirwan tried to hide his frequent comings and goings from my mother’s hut.
Not out of shame. The man did not feel such a thing.
And not out of respect to his wife. Him respecting any woman was the one skill this master of magic did not master.
He did it to hide his obsession. It wouldn’t do for the kingdom to know that Lord Dawnbreaker’s weakness was a thin, frail war wife from Gutter Galley.
I once asked my mother why this bitter, hateful man kept coming back when it clearly wasn’t for Meliora. There were hundreds of other war wives for him to choose. She gave me another answer I didn’t understand.
“Because he loves me, he can’t stay away... and because I don’t love him back, he hurts me.”
No, that did not make sense. If there was one thing I was certain of, Kirwan was not capable of love.
“You will not embarrass me.”
I jumped at his sudden speech.
“When we arrive at the palace, you’re to speak only when addressed. And when you do, it’ll be in a polite, soft tone and not that barking screech your mother should’ve drummed out of you. You represent all of Lyrica from the moment you step onto the grounds.
“The faeriken are little more than beasts, and yet they look down on us. They see us all as low-powered fae who dress ourselves up in jewels and finery to hide our inferiority.”
Are you certain they weren’t just thinking of you?
I bit my tongue, holding in the retort. Once, Kirwan hit me and my cheek swelled up like a dalia fruit.
Mama broke a bowl over his head, and refused him for an entire year.
He returned again and again, offering more money until our empty bellies and blistered shoeless feet forced her to take him back.
Ever since, he was only his most vile where she could not see him. And she couldn’t see him then.
“You’re an ugly girl.” He said it as though it was a simple fact of life.
“You’re too short, too thin, and too mouthy.
And that hair... Only the lowest faeriken with strange tastes will want you.
Whatever they tell you to do, you’re not to fight or refuse.
To do so would disrespect King Salman. I will not stand for shame to be brought upon the crown. Is that understood?”
I tipped my chin, offering no more than that.
Kirwan seemed to accept it because the carriage lapsed into blessed silence once again.
It was a long ride through the winding streets.
Every dip in the road sent a jolt through my heart, taunting me the closer we got.
This was it. Once my name was recorded and the money was dropped in Kirwan’s hands, there was no going back.
After the wedding, my details would be passed among the kingdom’s brokers.
Any soldier or nobleman looking for a too-short, too-thin, too-mouthy companion would have me offered up on a silver platter. If none of them wanted me, I starved in the streets—denied the right to work in any other profession.
The only thing worse than this being my fate, was if it was Meli’s.
The carriage slowed, jolting me out of my thoughts. I chanced a peek outside and frowned.
“What are we doing here?”
“Have sense, girl. You’re not fit to enter the palace in that state. You will shower, change, and be here waiting for me in exactly one hour.” He climbed out and strode inside, giving no further instruction.
Adan climbed down and waited in his infinite, stoic patience.
He was a bit older for his position. Streaks of gray weathered his burnished locks and crow’s feet stamped the corner of his flat, blue eyes.
But what value was there in replacing a loyal servant who’d never betray your secrets?
A faeriken cut out his tongue decades ago.
I stuck my head out, gaze traveling up, and up, and up to the towering chimney stacks—each stamped with the Dawnbreaker crest.
I knew Kirwan’s home from the one time Meliora and I followed him back, curious about where he existed outside of our small little hut.
He led us to this place with its gold-painted doors; rough, umber sand bricks, and large grand windows that were all shrouded in heavy drapes, giving no hint to the lives of those inside.
Adan led me around the back to the servants’ entrance. The least amount of time and kiruna was given to decorating this part of the home, and it was easily grander than anywhere I’d been.
It struck me that Meliora and Mama could’ve lived here—spending their days in a manor within the richest part of Lyrica, where the floors shone with their reflections and painted hills rolled along the sandstone. This would’ve been their life, if there had been no me.
Kirwan made such an offer when Meliora was two and I five. He would end their poverty and bring Mama and Meliora into the manor, if my mother put me—the child of another man—in an orphanage.
Mama sent me and Meli out of the room to give her hot, shouted reply. After that day, Kirwan hated me all the more. My mother had no trace of love for him, but she had it all for me. I would always be the one she chose over him.
Adan bowed beside a door at the end of a short hallway. I crossed the threshold and found myself in a communal bath.
I bathed myself, giving special attention to my hair.
The water ran brown, shaming me. Of course Kirwan wouldn’t let me near the palace as I was.
The public baths cost coin, and I saved my share so that Meliora and the little ones were never without a bath.
That left the rainwater I collected in buckets behind the hut for me.
Maybe it will be a good thing to have another income to fill the family purse. I sat before the mirror, weaving my shining onyx crown into a web of braids. It’s been hard to find decent work since anything that needs to be done, can easily be completed with magic.
My reflection tried for a smile. “You will get back to your mother and faywens. All they’ve known their whole lives is that everyone will let them down or abandon them... except you. That is a promise you will always keep.”
The words cheered me, even while tears mixed with bathwater ran down my cheeks.
After dressing in the simple dress and slippers Adan set out for me, I went out to wait next to the carriage. The correct carriage that proudly boasted the occupants inside.
Kirwan returned in his finery. Red slippers with threads of gold, satin tunic, and red breeches. Red and gold—the colors of Dawnbreaker. He flapped an irritated hand at me, ordering me inside.
I climbed up, suddenly hit with the nervousness my anger at Kirwan blanketed. It’d be no time at all until we were at the palace. Forbidden to the likes of me, it would become the place where I would sign away my life in service of a king who’d done nothing to serve me or my family.
It was silent during the jostled ride up the hill. For once I wished Kirwan would speak and distract me from my thoughts, but I dare not voice them to him. What were faeriken truly like? Were the stories of their unhinged brutality true?
Letting him know in any way that I was scared would not return compassion or kindness. On the contrary, it would delight him more than the sumptuous feasts and ever-flowing wine on Meya’s Day.
All through the ride I repeated to myself the only thing that mattered. No matter what happened, I would get back to my family. I would not leave them alone with him.
Lyrica was a monument to fae beauty and advancement in the last two thousand years.
Once, we were nothing but slinking, mindless beasts until Mother Meya blessed us and created the fae race.
The first pack became a community. Then a small village.
Then a bustling town. And finally, a kingdom to rival the human empires in the east.
The stories say the first queen was a traveling farmer.
She traveled to different fae settlements, teaching our new species to grow and live off the land.
She went far and wide, learning everything there was to know—not just about farming, but about everything needed to prosper.
During her travels, she saw how the humans lived.
With their frail bodies, stunted lives, and not a trace of magic within them, they built grand cities and made huge advancements with no more than their minds, and many hands willing to turn an idea into reality.
How much more could the fae do? How much more did we deserve?