Daughters of Ruin by K. D. Castner Page B

might have been more so.
    â€œShe talks of going home,” said Rhea, “and seems distant, heartsick.”
    Her father seemed genuinely grieved by the notion. “Very well,” he said. “I know this . . . arrangement is difficult.”
    Rhea wished she could dash across the room and hug her father.
    â€œWise, my lord,” said Hiram. “We don’t want Suki to end like her sister.”
    Declan acknowledged with a joyless smirk. “Anything else, my blood daughter?”
    Rhea shook her head, no. “Thank you.”
    â€œHave you prepared this time for the Revels?”
    Rhea was not defending for such a stab.
    She knew he referred to her surrendered loss to Cadis.
    Perhaps it was the reference to Suki’s ignoble sister, Tola, that sent him edge-ward. Tola the soldier who had attempted to murder Declan during peace talks. Tola, who singlehandedly forced Declan’s hand into the Battle of Crimson Fog. Tola, who had inadvertently given Declan his greatest victory at such great cost of lives.
    â€œYes, Father,” said Rhea. “I’ve trained.”
    â€œI’ve heard you train as one who wants only to survive,” he said, still testing her.
    â€œI meet such silly rumors with quiet, Father, as I was taught. I train only for victory.”
    Her father nodded. “Very well. Let the cadets and the servants dance. If they mean us treachery, then I can always throw Hiram at their feet and run away.”
    Rhea was thankful and ashamed, as she often felt around her father. At once swaggering as heir of the house of Declan and horrified to be its weakest in generations.
    She took the downward stairs in leaps, hoping her sisters would credit her for the news. Knowing them, they would see it as yet another show of favoritism.
    Even though she risked her father’s safety for it, Suki would likely act suspicious and look to Iren and Cadis for some reaction to parrot. Iren, of course, would remain conveniently silent and Cadis, annoyingly pleasant.
    No matter. Endrit would be at the ball.
    She didn’t need sisters of such disloyal quality. She didn’t know if the rumor her father had mentioned had been spoken by one of them, but she knew the sentiment was theirs.
    And she knew what to do.
    Meet rumor with quiet, treason with cunning, and vicious with vicious.

CHAPTER TWO
Cadis
    Next came the Fin who dealt everyone false
    Smiled at the others as she plotted their deaths
    Hasty and brutish were just some of her faults
    Broken nose . . . hideous . . . mackerel breath.
    â€”Children’s nursery rhyme
    T he Royal Coliseum roared, like a great beast—hungry for more spectacle. Cadis knew the story by heart.
    The people of Meridan wanted blood. They lived for it. They reveled in it. But they did not want to see themselves wanting blood. Not they who were so just.
    So they told themselves the little story of a festival—a celebration of martial talents—when really, in their hearts, all they truly wanted was to see an accident, a slip and stab in the gut, a cloven hoof and upturned chariot.
    They cheered for sport, but Cadis had stood before an audience since her name-day, and she could see it in their eyes. They wanted death and waste and violence.
    Back in Findain, their celebrations revolved around the grand delivery of histories and the debate of philosophy. Masters each stood on the bows of ships at port—each their own stage—and bellowed into the harbor. Bad bargain comedies, tragic lovelorn tales of the sea, orations on the dignity of man, mummery, puppetry, even shadow plays projected on the unfurled sails of the ships—art, the true human art of stories and performances and song.
    But here in the Revels, Cadis would be lucky to hear a mealymouthed official mumble a few words for the opening ceremony and a few blaring trumpets to announce the next contest.
    And that was all right. Cadis wouldn’t crash