I lied. Even if I knew what happened, I wouldn’t share it with anyone. It wasn’t a matter of trust - though I didn’t trust her - it was a matter of greed.

A distant memory sparked, a woman with cruel eyes and a metal-tipped cane—the words of my husband's grandmother on my wedding day.

Bring that thing off that mongrel's neck.

“Ralford.” I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until I heard a strangled wail.

The old woman started rocking in place, muttering to herself.

It was a name everyone knew. Three generations ago, the head of the Ralford Family was a sell-sword who got a Baronet Title for his service to the Crown. Now they were the undisputed rulers of the South. That was all because of one woman.

Clarissa Ralford. The current Empress Dowager of Sargos and the former Queen.

It was a legendary story of love and sacrifice. Clarissa, whose birth wasn’t high enough to become Empress, met the Crown Prince while studying in the capital and blocked an assassin’s attack for him. She refused to become his lover, and in an effort not to wrong the brave and strong girl who captivated him, he made her his only Queen when he became the Emperor.

It was a position that was better than being Empress since she had the love and favor of the man who mattered most in the country. Clarissa’s expert pillow talk landed her son on the throne after her husband died, squeezing out the two male heirs of the Empress.

Both princes died a few years after their father, and The Empress, grieving the loss of her sons, committed suicide.

It was a tidy, picture-perfect story.

The problems started with the current emperor, who, while an excellent ruler, wasn’t a romantic like his father. He had an Empress and five Queens as allotted. However, that didn’t satisfy him, and he had many mistresses.

That many women led to even more children.

Marcus was the son of the Empress and the only grandchild Empress Dowager Clarissa acknowledged, but he was also a sadistic, incompetent cockroach.

Yes.

The civil war was inevitable.

“What else?” I asked.

Those faded red eyes focused on me. “Curious. Curious little kitty. Strange fate. Broken fate.” She sighed.

I noticed that she wasn’t all there all the time, teetering on clarity and intensity. It was almost like the woman who spoke coherently a moment ago was an illusion.

“What is this?” I held up my necklace, relieved to see the fog clearing from her eyes.

“Anything taken must have a way to get from one place to the next. That-” she said, pointing to the stone. “-acts as a conduit exchanging your fate with the fate of the person who wears its pair. The only conditions are that they must be blood-related to the person they exchange with, and that person must be female.”

“Exchange?”

“Yes. That person takes your magic and fate, and you get hers.”

“My magic?” My voice was high, my hand moved to my heart, and I struggled to sit up.

She gave me a pitying glance. “What else? Could something so abstract as fate be transferred to someone else? Our Mana Source is the essence of who we are. After the transfer, your half-sister becomes you. Any magical contracts signed would change the person bound by those contracts. Ending up swapped. They block your magic because it’s easier to do if you are unaware. If you’re over fifteen, the magic has finished transferring, and it will take a year to settle in the new hosts.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

An image of the swirling silver light shining in the orb as the magic teacher proudly declared Selena had a single Ice Mana Source. How proud she was.

Did she know she was stealing someone's fate?

Would she care?

My hands formed claws dragging along the muddy, rotten wooden floors. I felt them cracking and breaking.

The hefty price the Duke paid for me made sense. Upgrading his daughter to the famed single Ice Mana Source the Amber Lineage is known for.

I frowned. “Why go through all that trouble-”

She cackled, cutting me off. I could see the blacks of her gums and rotted teeth. “It was never about them. All of this is a punishment for you-” she pointed at me and then herself “-and me. The Tribe can’t forgive heretics born outside of the grace of the Goddess Avea. Be grateful you have a fate worth selling, the daughters without that are killed. Or maybe it would be better to die early? Those girls drink a painless poison. Their sin was lighter since they didn’t defile their bodies with the blessings of another god. The Tribe will never allow you to live a decent life. Every time you find contentment or happiness, they will do something to destroy it. That hollowness you’ll feel after you turn sixteen is a death mark on your soul. Well, it should. That won’t happen to you, will it? No. Fate is unraveling. When that last bit is lost, you will be free. I have never seen anything like it.”

“How can you see it now?” I asked, shoving everything else in the corner of my mind to examine later.

She opened her mouth, a gaping maw, but no sound came out. I felt an unease and a creeping cold settling into the room. “Necromancer,” I said, the words exhaled on a breath that misted as it left my mouth. “I thought-” they were a myth, hunted and destroyed centuries ago.

“Hehe. None know what I am, and I can’t say, but it easily slips off your tongue. How interesting. Oh, how interesting. Yes. I am that. You found your way to escape fate's control, and I found mine.”

“I didn’t find it. I just woke up like this. I didn’t know any of this.” Yet, it explained so much. I didn’t have Avea’s blessing, so I could marry and give birth to a son without dying.

“There is no need to question it or think too deeply. Should we call it luck? I was also lucky. The death mark resonated with something buried deep in the South. Without this mark, I wouldn’t have gotten my inheritance.”

It was good she could think of it that way, but I couldn’t. Maybe it was because she had more time to accept it.

“Do you want something from me?”

“Do you have anything I could want?” If looks could kill, I would be a distant memory. “Not everyone is kind, but not everyone is out to get you. I was curious, so I did. You are afraid of being abandoned or trapped, so much so that you deprive yourself of opportunities in a spectacular example of self-sabotage. Buck up and try to find a little joy, or else what’s the point of living?”

I weighed my options and did something reckless or pointless. I couldn’t tell which. “Leave the North within the year. In the next three, you must leave Sargos. After that, flee the continent if possible.” I didn’t know what the Holy Nation would do to a necromancer. It wouldn’t be good since they worshiped the God of Life, Jyvantia.

Her features looking shaken, she pushed to her feet. Her head tipped back, and her mouth opened, black gas billowing out. It was a different language and voice, but I could still understand. “Lankas declares a life debt owed to Jal for her words of truth. Lankas clears a debt of chaos from Amera, her fate of death broken. One foot in the grave only to be taken out, Lankas laughs. Death is fair and unbiased, but the god is not. Lankas declares a boon owed to Jal. Seek out a temple of the Silenced, but know gifts from death may be a blessing or a curse.” She slumped a puppet whose strings were cut.

Fingers ghosted over the nape of my neck. There was a pressure in my mind, and my back naturally hunched forward. For a second, I could hear wails that echoed through me, leaving me miserable and craving the peace of death.

I thought I’d had enough for one day, but the old woman started to shimmer, her body blurring and her features becoming defined.

In seconds she looked young but gave the feeling that something was wrong about her.

She was twice as shocked as me. Her hands roved over her face and skin. I cataloged the things that were the same and those that were different. Her hair no longer had streaks of gray, but the pink was closer to blood red. Her eyes were black and pupil-less.

[XXX revenge points awarded]

[X strands of Divine Qi collected]

I ignored the system that, at any other point, I would have rejoiced to hear from.

Two red gazes collided over the rotten floor of a dilapidated shack. I saw fear in Amera’s eyes and wondered if mine mirrored hers.

That was the presence of a god.