Read Online Daughters of Ruin by K. D. Castner - Free Book Online Page A

frenzy.
    Cadis watched the cart drivers take away the scout.
    She mouthed the calming words and breathed the steady rhythm.
    Her bow was ready to sing.

    As the attendants set up three billboards at the center of the coliseum, Cadis stepped out of the dark trench and into the sunlight. When the crowd saw her, there was a mixture of halfhearted claps, a few hisses and curses, and an entire orchestra of full-throated cheers from the oblivious children who had no sense of politics and knew her only as the warrior queen.
    Cadis waved as she walked to her opening position. She thought she heard someone shout, “Rebel!” from the grandstands, but she wasn’t flustered. Cadis was born on a stage—so they said—or rather, a ship deck at a captain’s side, which was nearly the same thing.
    Marta stood at the horse gate. She nodded when Cadis caught her eye, and shifted her stance to cover the magister’s box sitting at her feet, which was filled with bandages, poultices, and various other emergency materials, in case of a horrible accident. Cadis needed no such coddling of insecurities.
    She smiled at her mentor and made the gestures of an arrow hitting her chest. She dangled her tongue from the side of her mouth, as if it were a kill shot. Marta’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to scowl. She made a motion indicating the crowd, who probably thought the gesture was some code to her fellow rebels.
    â€œDon’t worry so much,” shouted Cadis to her lifelong tutor.
    â€œPay attention,” said Marta. “You’ll be great.”
    â€œI know!” said Cadis. “Tell me something else.”
    Marta laughed. They were the most alike, it seemed. When Marta would tell little stories of her military service—never much, but short anecdotes or aphorisms she remembered—everyone agreed they sounded like the cocksure bravado that Cadis, more than the others, exhibited. Cadis—who had not known her own mother nearly long enough—was most proud of the comparison.
    Cadis breathed the rhythm, spoke the calming words, and marched across the stadium as a captain would march across her deck.
    Cadis turned to the king’s balcony, where Declan sat on the throne, with Hiram standing beside him. Cadis bowed, then bowed to the people. The crowd went silent.
    Several attendants trotted from the auxiliary gate with iron, grated buckets filled with arrows. They placed three in the dirt, situated a hundred yards from each of the wooden billboards. They placed a fourth bucket farther back, unassociated with a billboard.
    â€œPeople of Meridan,” shouted Cadis in a booming voice. She held her bow out to the side theatrically, to present herself dressed conspicuously in crimson and gold. “You have taken me into your home. Today I am one of you.”
    Cadis bowed again to the people. They cheered, but only after Declan accepted the offering with a nod. When she rose again, Cadis could see Marta rolling her eyes, amused by the melodrama. At former Revels, Marta would have admonished her for grandstanding, but now, Cadis had noticed, her speeches were built into the schedule.
    Enough pomp.
    Cadis approached the first station and pulled an arrow from the metal quiver staked into the ground. The fletching was bloodred, the color of the Tasanese flag. Cadis nocked the arrow, squinted at the billboard all the way across the arena, whispered the calming words, breathed the steady rhythm, pulled back the bowstring, and let go. . . .
    It flew.
    It was the truest thing in all of Meridan.
    Not a crook or a bend.
    Not a turn or a flinch.
    Tok!
    It stuck the board at center mast and dug the entire arrowhead into the grain with a satisfying stocky sound.
    Behind it flew a dozen more arrows, all perfectly spaced, each driving into the board until the fletchings formed the perfect replica of the Tasanese crest, the bituin tree.
    Cadis didn’t pause once the performance began. She