1. Leela
LEELA
The paper had long wrinkled and frayed in Leela’s hand.
She couldn’t count how many times she’d sat and stared at the charcoal outline of the weapon that would lead to her revenge.
She also couldn’t tell how long she’d been hoping, waiting for this night to finally arrive so she could escape.
All these years of planning, and she would be free.
She just had to escape a loveless marriage first.
Sighing, she turned to the city. There was something alluring about the opulent oranges and reds lighting the Nihikian City tonight.
Perhaps it was the hope swimming within Leela’s veins like a violent Flame, or maybe it was simply the fact she was staring at yet another sunset from the dreaded palace windows.
Thank the Flames it was going to be her last.
Leela leaned against the cool sandstone window overlooking the desert city, The City of Nihikia, trying to sort her thoughts before night fully blossomed.
Warm desert wind swept in and tugged the loose black hair away from her round brown cheeks, allowing her a moment of reprieve from her restless thoughts.
She took one final glance at the city she never wished to be a part of.
Strips of crimson ribbons ran along wires, interlocking the jagged sandstone houses spreading from the mountainside, in which the palace was carved into, to the surrounding twenty-foot wall.
Drums beat through her as the citizens brought an end to the week-long celebration that would culminate to the marriage of ladies of the palace.
To the kingdom, it was a celebration of wealth and kingdoms uniting.
To Leela, it was the perfect diversion.
“Time to get dressed, Leela,” Sita, her main maid, said. “We have a dinner to get to.”
Tearing her gaze from the streets, she focused on the red blouse and skirt lying rumpled on her bed.
Her wedding garments lay like a beacon, staring at her across the moonlit room as the twin moons continued to rise.
The color wasn’t her choice—not that she had a choice in her six long, arduous years of entrapment.
Red. It was meant to be the color of new beginnings. Love. Power.
Once Leela put that garment on, it was over. She would marry and be trapped under a different master.
“They want you to wear this before the ceremony tonight,” Sita said. She held up another crimson gown with golden embroidery around the long arms and curved neckline.
“How delightful,” Leela quipped.
In a few minutes, she would venture down to the dining hall one last time and have a final dinner with her palace sisters.
People she had no blood ties with but had been forced to engage with over the last six years, each one orphaned after the monsters tore their world apart and later poached by the palace to be wed off to powerful and rich investors.
Women she barely recognized and refused to understand, other than knowing they all wanted one thing—to escape.
Besides, she already had a sister.
And she’d already lost her.
Realizing she had to get this part of the night over with first, she left the windowsill and took one final look at her wedding garments.
The twin moons sparkled against the tiny beads, igniting the golden embroidery hand-stitched into endless circles and lines along the skirt’s edge to represent the divine Flames above.
Each bead was meticulously placed. Each embroidered swirl sewn to perfection.
As beautiful as the garments were, Leela didn’t plan to wear them. She planned to burn them.
She narrowed her gaze, pushing back the warmth threatening to spill from behind her eyes. With all her might, she pushed it back and hoped that her plan tonight would go without any mistakes and she’d find her weapon.
Leela snatched the gown from Sita and quickly undressed, throwing her drab, gray gown on the sandstone floor and replacing it with the silken dress.
Sita spun around, averting her gaze.
Leela flattened the material over the curves and edges of her hips, letting the gown fall at her ankles. She reworked the loose braids of her thick, wavy hair that had nearly come undone from sitting by the window.
Sita took over, and Leela let her, a silent shadow of sadness dropping over them.
To Sita, this was the last time she’d plait Leela’s hair.
To Leela, this would be one of the last times they’d be standing together in the same room.
Sita had been the first person to engage with Leela when she first arrived, encouraging her to come out of her bedroom and venture through the halls.
But the palace would never be the home Leela grew up in.
She could still see the giant walls encasing her village of tiny huts scattered over bulging dunes.
The river she used to run alongside with her sister, Anika, wishing to climb the wall keeping the dreaded monsters away from them to visit the ocean.
The days she labored through the heat in the wheat fields to ensure she kept it alive in the cooler months.
Until the wall couldn’t keep them safe. Until it shattered and Leela was left without her village, family, and Rajesh, her fiancé.
Sita grabbed Leela by the shoulders, jolting her out of the painful memories. “Don’t you look beautiful?”
Leela gazed at herself in the dresser mirror. Her simple looks were appealing, her brown skin smooth to the touch. She had soft cheeks and round eyes that would mesmerize anyone with their depth. But she didn’t care to please any man or woman.
Not when her heart yearned for someone she’d never get to see again.
“Should we go?” Leela said.
Sita nodded and led Leela from her room.
The grand sandstone walls of the palace had overwhelmed Leela at first, with their carved ridges curling into beautiful ripples of decorative arches.
The high ceilings made her feel as small as an ant as she walked across the polished floors and between beaming columns.
Even if she were to stay another ten years, she was sure she’d never have time to explore every room within the Crimson Palace.
All the bedrooms, lush gardens, and balconies were too grand.
Too many sights to see. Not enough time to see the palace carved from the mountainside.
How unfortunate.
Leela kept her gaze down as they passed guards in the Nihikian emerald suits, with godsblades hanging at their hips.
The blue glow had always stunned Leela. The metal was made from the Flames’ bones after they fell from saving the mortal realm from the Netherworld monsters.
For centuries, they’d fought, only to lose as they were outnumbered by the monsters spat by the storms.
The mortals did the only thing they could to save themselves as the final Flame died and built walls around every city and village. Her grandparents used to tell tales of the first few walls and the Flames’ courage and bravery and how mortals forged weapons from their corpses.
Leela shuddered at the thought.
Her slippers echoed as they entered the last hall.
From the other direction, women dressed in an assortment of plain colors were led by their maids into the dining hall.
Each one filed in with their hands clasped at their waists and heads bowed.
Leela recognized a few and realized the only sisters here were the ones about to marry.
“Head high,” Sita ordered.
Leela ground her teeth but obeyed. She strode into the room with her chin up, not wanting to let the lord of this Crimson Palace see her as weak. She would sit and struggle through dinner, knowing it was her last meal here before she set off to make her dreams come true.
Sita led her to one of twelve seats before a long table.
Candles hung in brass cages, lining the table and walls, casting swells of shadow on the red stone.
Soldiers were stationed with their hands on their godsblades, backs straight and eyes forward.
A gentle breeze wafted in from three giant arches overlooking the city.
Drums beat as the twin moons rose and the stars popped against the navy and purple sky.
As soon as the ladies of the palace were seated, servants strode into the room with giant silver trays full of an assortment of meats, vegetables, and fruits. It was too much food for Leela to soak in all at once as they continued to pile dish after dish onto the table.
Silence settled.
Leela peered at the others. A short-haired woman sitting across from Leela stared at her plate, and the one beside her had tears sliding down her face.
Further down the table, someone whimpered.
Every face tugged at her heartstrings. A part of her wished she could ask them to escape with her.
They didn’t deserve this. None of them had asked to be brought to the palace and sold off.
It was also why Leela had never interacted with them.
Because she knew what would happen when she cared.
She would want to protect them all.
A set of double doors boomed from behind her, jolting every head toward the man striding in.
Leela had only ever laid eyes on the lord twice: once, when she came to the palace on a sandship after he saved her from her ruined village—at least, that was the tale he told her—and again, when she tried to escape a year into her capture.
The Lord had thrown her into a rat-infested cell for several days and warned her that if she tried again, she’d spend the rest of her time in there.
Heat ran up her spine, her fingers curling underneath the table and her eyes narrowing.
She hated him. Because of him, every woman at this table was about to be led to a worse fate—and Leela, if she was caught.
“Evening, ladies of the palace,” the lord said, stretching his arms.
No one spoke.
“Please, enjoy your final meal with me,” he continued.
“This feast is for you. I can assure you the wedding ceremonies will be brief, and by tomorrow, you’ll be swept off to different corners of our world.
I hear some of you are going as far as Viviga, the deepest forest on the other side of the world.
Others have been lucky enough to travel continents. ”
The woman beside Leela whimpered.
The lord shifted his focus to Leela. “And one of you is deemed worthy enough to marry a Lord of Jhuna Rin.”
Eyes turned to Leela, and she fidgeted in her chair. She met the lord’s twinkling gaze.
“Yes, Leela, how wonderful,” he said, lips pursed. “I ensured a hefty investment from you.”
The look on the lord’s face was enough to make her want to barf. She was thankful she hadn’t taken a bite yet.
Leela nodded and forced a smile. “I am sure you did, my lord.”
“Well, it helps when one has specifically asked for you too.”
Leela’s smile slipped. What did he mean? How could a lord know about her…? A simple village girl, turned orphan, into a future bride?
The lord clapped, jolting everyone once more. “Now, please, eat! We have a long night ahead of ourselves.”