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CHAPTER ONE

Today was the day a thousand dreale dream would be born

The wind knew It was the first of June, but cold gusts bit at the hilltop citadelle as fiercely as deepest winter, shaking the ith curses and winding through drafty halls arning whispers There was no escaping as to come

For good or bad, the hours were closing in I closedthat soon the day would cleave in two, forever creating the before and after of my life, and it would happen in one swift act that I could no more alter than the color of my eyes

I pushed away froed with han to their oorries It was time for me to meet my day

The prescribed liturgies passed as they were ordained, the rituals and rites as each had been precisely laid out, all a testahan and the Remnant from which it was born I didn’t protest By this point, numbness had overtaken ain as I faced the last of the steps that kept here from there

I lay naked, facedown on a stone-hard table, ers scraped my back with dull knives I re my skin were held with cautious hands The bearers ell aware that their lives depended on their skill Perfect stillness helped e hands touched me

Pauline sat nearby watching, probably orried eyes I couldn’t see her, only the slate floor beneathdown aroundblack tunnel that blocked the world out—except for the rhythmic rasp of the blades

The last knife reached lower, scraping the tender hollow of ht the instinct to pull away, but I finally flinched A collective gasp spread through the room

“Be still!” my aunt Cloris admonished

I feltmy hair “A few more lines, Arabella That’s all”

Even though this was offered as comfort, I bristled at the for, the hand-ed to so many before han, she’d cast formality aside and use the one I favored, the pet na one of my many names to its last three letters Lia A simple name that felt truer to who I was

The scraping ended “It is finished,” the First Artisan declared The other artisans reement

I heard the clatter of a tray being set on the table next toscent of rose oil Feet shuffled around to form a circle—my aunts, mother, Pauline, others who’d been su I watched the black robe of the priest brush past me, and his voice rose above the others as he drizzled the hot oil on ers sealing in the countless traditions of the House of Morrighan, deepening the pro the co all their tomorrows

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p; They can hope, I thought bitterly asto keep order to the tasks still before me, the ones written only on my heart and not a piece of paper I barely heard the utterances of the priest, a droning chant that spoke to all of their needs and none of my own

I was only seventeen Wasn’t I entitled to my own dreams for the future?

“And for Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, the fruits of her sacrifice and the blessings of…”

He prattled on and on, the endless required blessings and sacra the rooht I could stand nooff my airways, he stopped, and for a ain, and then the final benediction was given