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“The wasting sickness,” I rasped.
She nodded. “The wasting sickness. Our magic is within us. It sustains us like the breath of life. It didn’t happen all at once. Some women lived to fifty. Some eighty. Others one hundred. But eventually one by one, losing their connection to magic made them slowly waste away—vomiting, insomnia, fevers, dementia. Illness after illness struck them down until they all died before their time.
“It didn’t take long for physicians to realize these deaths were all connected to their bound magic, but was the law repealed? Did they lift our death sentences?”
“No,” we said at the same time.
Princess Emiana didn’t need to tell me this story. I knew it well.
“Five hundred years,” she whispered. “Half a millennium of dying, having our rights stripped away, and being reduced to nothing but breeding mares. In half a millennium, a nation that boasted righteous queens and powerful female warriors of legend, has become a place where a princess and a whore peasant sit as equals.”
“The term is war wife, not whore,” I sliced in, “and I’m neither.”
She went on like I hadn’t spoken. “Here it is.” Turning the book around, she tapped the page. “The binding spell. It’s right there written down in the book of forbidden arts. No one ever bothered to remove it. I— Oh, I didn’t ask. Can you read?”
“Yes, I can read. What I’m not capable of doing is understanding why you’re showing me this.”
“I thought it was obvious. I want you to understand the ever-present and casual contempt they have for us all. They boldly and proudly commit forbidden magic against us, knowing there’s nothing we can do about it.
“In the same way my father’s pet told me I was to be traded to a cruel and violent brute to spare the lives of a few peasant faemen on the battlefield. He believed there was nothing I could do about it. That would have been true,” she said, tapping the book. “If the means to defy him weren’t held in the same tome that mocks us.”
The soft whisper of pages filled the room, as loud as my echoing confusion. What was this play-acting? She speaks impossible nonsense about me marrying King Alisdair, thengoes on about a book that will defy the king of Lyrica. If she had that, why was I here?
“There are spells in here the likes of you could never comprehend. Spells to force someone to fall in love with you. Spells that set fire to cities, cause plagues, set unstoppable fires, and allows you to trade bodies.”
The final word pierced my mind. “No!”
“I will become you and you will become me.”
“No,” I roared, wrenching my body to the side. My legs did not come with me.
“The book doesn’t say how to perform the incantation naturally.” I was a fly in her presence. My buzzing did not stir her. “Since the day I was told, Kaelan and I have been working to recreate the spell. An entire year, with countless failures in our path. The first several servants died outright,” Emiana dropped, devoid of compassion.
“I will not do this.”
“The others lived long enough to show us our mistakes. The person I trade with must be as close to my body type as possible, or the agony of my bones breaking to reach or shrink to a new height would stop my heart.”
“Are you listening to me? I will not do this!”
“We waited a long time for you. It truly is Meya’s will that my life be spared, but what we do is not without consequence—”
I smacked the book and sent it skidding away. “I’m not doing anything. How dare you talk about the right to live and be free while speaking of all the lives you’ve taken without a thought.”
She gazed at me flatly. “Those lives were a necessary sacrifice. I took no pleasure in it.”
“I’m sure that’s what your father said when he bartered you like land and cattle. A necessary sacrifice.”
Eyes flashing, Emiana smacked me soundly across the face.
“The difference is,” she said over my ringing ears, “that I am your true heir and sovereign. It is your duty and privilege to lay down your lives for me.”
I clutched my cheek, grimacing. “I reject the duty and deny the privilege. I have a family depending on me. My mother is being taken by the sickness. My faywens don’t know from one day to the next if they will have food in their bellies.”
“A bunch of poor, wailing brats forever clinging to your skirts? How tiresome. I’m doing you a favor.” She snapped her fingers at Kaelan. “I’m freeing you of their burden.”
I rocked back, her words a worse blow than her hand could ever deal me. “How could you say something so horrible? They aren’t a burden. They’re my family! The last thing I want is to be free of them.”
She looked me in the eyes. “Then I won’t be doing you a favor by putting them to death if you don’t cease your squawking? Good. It wouldn’t be an effective threat otherwise.”
