PRINCESS’S ROYAL CHAMBER, ROYAL PALACE, ORDAITHAHN SUMMER, 578 CE
For at least two hours, Keirah spent every bit of her energy coming up with more reasons to get cold feet, despite her resolve to do the unthinkable to end the war. It was a perfect plan and would be an impressive show of power to the other kingdoms. She wrung her hands and bit her pink-painted lip as her chambermaid wove flowers through her curly hair.
Excuses, it was all a series of excuses piled up on one another, she reasoned. It wouldn’t be a marriage of joy or love, but there was nothing to say those things couldn’t develop with time. Unifying the two kingdoms was for the best. Her life was a small sacrifice for all the lives lost on the battlefield before she was ever born. They were her people. She had to lead them by example. There was nothing too great or small to sacrifice for the good of the people she loved. Keirah nodded to herself—the people she loved were all that truly mattered—the people of Ordaithahn, and soon those of Edithir.
“He has a terrible reputation,” she said over her shoulder to her chambermaid.
“So I’ve heard,” Mira said passively, as she knitted another pin through the tightly spiraled locks.
“No, you don’t understand. He’s always had his problems, ever since we were kids, but it’s so much worse now.” Keirah reached up and stilled her servant’s busy hands. “It’s a terrible reputation. I know him, and whatever you’ve heard, it’s ten times worse, I promise!”
“I believe you, Princess. You’ve known him your whole life.” Her voice was small as she lowered her hands and folded them over her skirt. Taking a step around Keirah, the only living heir to the Ordaithahn throne, she sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed the wrinkles from her plain dress. “Rumors are only rumors, though. A man can have a thousand lovers, but only one love. And that one love is what he truly needs, what his soul calls out for above all else. I know with the laws, it’s a risk, but I could put together something to help with courtship, or marriage, if it would ease your nerves.”
“You could do that for me?” Keirah’s jaw fell open in awe. Both Ordaithahn and Edithir forbid the use of manipulative magic, and the latter would be less forgiving of her as a guest in their lands if anyone discovered her involvement. It was one thing to use magic for healing and frivolous entertainment like carnival and parlor tricks, those were acceptable, but anything influencing or altering the will or perception of anyone for the sake of someone else to gain advantage, or of power, was an act of treason. Most of the Northern Kingdoms went so far as to forbid interpersonal magic of all kinds, even healing. The irony was that it was the one thing in the history of the Nine Kingdoms that they all agreed on. Magic was dangerous.
Unfortunately, their agreement on the matter led them on a warpath. The Styxin were masters of manipulative and interpersonal magic. They were witches and warlocks, magicians and priestess, by birth who claimed their innocence through tales of simply exposing the threads of a quilt with their spells and potions. Though it was a good story, it was far from convincing and war came for them. When the Styxin empire fell, the Nine Kingdoms made a point of eradicating them from history, from their books to their people. No one survived the purge of magic if they could help it. Mixed blood escaped, though. They didn’t have the same magic, and they were able to hide. The few practitioners, privileged with purer Styxin blood than most, who outlasted the war, became nomadic fortune-tellers, herbalists, and healers, and a handful turned into the private care for royal lines. Keirah was lucky to have Mira by her side, all due to her mother. Though she wasn’t the most skilled chambermaid, she was talented at reading leaves and teas and crafting powerful tinctures and remedies at a moment’s notice without question. And above all, she was the closest friend Keirah had ever had—a sister she could confide in about anything.
It was because of Mira that Keirah had learned of her father’s intention to arrange a marriage for her with the only son of Tallus as a peace offering to the southern kingdom. She’d met Shamine only once and hated him twice as much as he hated her. They had nothing in common. He was coarse, brusque, and self-absorbed. The sort of person who would climb to the top not caring who’s head was beneath his feet as he rose to a height he most certainly didn’t deserve. Keirah begged her father for anything else, and then an idea came to mind. Edithir was their nearest neighbor and abundantly wealthy in ways they were not. Haros was the only heir to the Edithir throne, and marriage to him would strengthen their alliance. The downside, though, was that he was a man she was sure could never love her, even if she loved him, but even that was better than the alternative of marrying Shamine, a practical stranger whose greatest ambition was swooping in and tearing his enemies to unrecognizable shreds for the sake of satisfying his innate power lust. Besides, it wasn’t as though she and Haros were strangers. They grew up together for the better part of their childhood. Then, one day, Haros stopped coming around. She’d not seen him since they were teenagers, but she’d heard plenty. Everyone heard plenty.
“There are a number of things I could prepare, but I need time and materials,” Mira sighed, not wanting to admit to the specifics. When it came to magic, nothing worth having was cheap and could only be found in the Dark Market sector.
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“Anything you need! Please,” Keirah gathered up her hands desperately, “anything you can do to make this easier. A thousand, two thousand potions and tinctures and… damn it, if you must do spells as well, I swear I won’t tell anyone. Just like when you healed me up from—”
“I know you won’t, but these are considerable. They require time.” Mira’s dark gaze met Keirah’s and searched her anxious face for the slightest hint of understanding. “A full moon works well for a simple spell, but a blood moon is better for a powerful one. By the year’s end, there will be a fifth flowering blood moon and if ever there was one opportunity worth taking, it would be on that night. I can make a potion for then, and it will be very powerful. It’s a call to the heart to speak for the soul. Whoever drinks it becomes bound to satiate the need of their soul through their heart. Nothing else will do.
“It won’t make you soulmates, not that such a thing has ever existed beyond the old stories of the gods, but you will see the need of his soul because he won’t be able to hide it or deny it. Provide for that, and he’ll never leave you. Perhaps he may even love you for it. Still, something as powerful as this should never get used if you’re even slightly uncertain. One drop, and one drop alone, is more than enough to activate the spell under a blood moon. A flowering blood moon is more powerful than any other. There can't be any mistakes with it, do you understand?”
Keirah nodded slowly, turning away to stare at the floor. She ran her fingers through her long curls, stroking her hair as if it were a comfort blanket as she tried to assuage her indecision and uncertainty. She bobbed her head and gulped down a breath. “Yes. Alright, yes. Please, make it. I can do a lot of things, but living the rest of my life in misery with a man who can easily love everyone else is impossible. If I can give him nothing else but comfort, then I can say my life wasn’t meaningless. I didn’t live selfishly.”
“Selfishly?” Mira huffed. “You are marrying for the sake of—”
“Myself.”
“I thought it was for your people.”
“It is,” Keirah stood from the bed and steadily paced across the room and back as she twisted her fingers. “Well, it’s mostly for them, I think. I’ve known Haros a very long time and I don’t have many friends, and I haven’t had a single suitor to come to court. And there’s no way I’d let my father force me to marry Shamine. Plus, with the war and what we did almost two decades ago, we haven’t exactly been favorable for anyone since. There’s been so much tension between our kingdoms, the south has been emboldened and the war has worsened. And unless something turns the tide and unifies us, the south will never see the north as strong enough to negotiate peace talks with, and nothing will ever change.
“It’s not exactly a perfect plan, but it’s perfect enough. Marrying Haros and unifying Edithir and Ordaithahn could be the change we need. Besides, if there were anyone in this world, I’m sure I could marry and find a bit of happiness in the misery of it, then I think it could be Haros. He has his reputation, but he’s the only friend I’ve ever had to see me as I am. I doubt he remembers me, though. It’s been such a long time. And when his brother…well, you know the history.”
“It had to be done,” Mira said softly. “They had too much power.”
“It’s still awful. I’m glad you weren’t around for all of that. It was dark time.” Keirah stopped at the window and stared out into the gardens below. “My father should have never made that deal with Tallus. Ordaithahn is always bending to them. I can’t stand it.” She paused and released a tense sigh. “I can’t imagine what it was like for him to lose his only brother. They were always really close, not like me and my brothers. They never wanted a sister.
“Every day I wish it didn’t have to happen the way it did. But with Edithir being the last kingdom with a Dragon, they should have known better. His father shouldn’t have passed on the Legacy to Laz at such a young age. Didn’t they know how dangerous it is to pass that kind of power to a kid? I guess they didn’t care. They did it anyway.”
“They had no choice, your Highness. It’s the order of things. The firstborn takes the Dragon of their family when they’re strong enough to wield it. The opportunity came to end the Legacy in Edithir, and your father took it. There’s no shame in what he did for the sake of trying to protect his people. It was just another act of war.” Mira’s voice lowered. It was an act of war, indeed. It was the same act that killed her people, born of fear and desperation. If it weren’t for Keirah’s gentle nature, Mira would have suspected the entire marriage was a rouse for a deadly coup.
Her family had hidden their ties to Tallus so well, it was never sussed out that they were involved. Paid for the assassination, they were living comfortably following their dirty deeds. However, Tallus wanted more for their money. They wanted a spot on the Ordaithahn throne and their best bet was through Prince Shamine. He was the youngest and otherwise heir to nothing, and changing his fate for better had led to their conversation with King Mardios about the future of their children. But the idea of marrying him was repulsive. Keirah had tried to scrub the memory of meeting him from her head, and the disastrous dinner that followed.
A shiver rocked up her spine and her skin prickled at the thought of the dribble sliding from the corner of his mouth as she shoveled food in like a farmer baling hay. Even worse, he talked with his mouth full and had nothing to say worth listening to, and rambled on about his vapid friends and the mundane, uninspiring sports they played the year before when they graduated from the royal academy. Keirah cringed at the thought of how insistent her father was about the arrangement and how excited Shamine’s family was about the would-be deal. It was a truly wonder her father has backed down and accepted her counteroffer of Haros. He hated him and called him a bad influence, an addict, and a failed prince. And he wasn’t wrong.
“I wonder what sort of man Haros has become underneath that reputation.” Keirah mused, mostly to herself as her fingers traced over the windowsill. They weren’t children anymore and soon they would be betrothed if all went according to plan during the upcoming Chambers meeting. It was on her shoulders to be presenting, enticing, and diplomatic. A powerful alliance could change everything. The end of the war depended on it.