Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
The next kiss was for me. “I wouldn’t be so certain they’re getting work done.”
Curious, I handed the baby over to Alisdair, then followed Dearla outside. My brows shot up when she threw it directly at her sister, who then caught it with her magic and lifted it onto the top of their hay tower.
I planted my hands on my hips. “And what exactly is going on here, young ladies?”
The eight-year-olds jumped up and down clapping. They were adorable. Mirrors of each other, but also of their father, with their long, dark hair; sun-kissed skin; and twin mischievous smiles.
It was baby Rikdash who looked like me, sharing my hair, eyes, and plump cheeks.
“Mama, mama! We’re making a castle just like yours and Papa’s! Help us, Mama.”
As if I was going to say no. Laughing, I ran back inside, magically lifted five more bales without breaking a sweat, and tossed them all out to my husband’s shouted, “At least leave me one for the horses.”
Teasing, tickling, and playing with my girls, together we built the second-finest castle in the land beneath the shadow of the first.
Castle Riagin.
Yes, on that fateful day fifty years ago, Constance returned and destroyed it.
And on that very same day, we rebuilt.
It turned out that when Constance turned the castle’s inhabitants into inanimate objects, she inadvertently saved their lives. Of course she did, because you can do a lot of things to a candlestick, but you can’t kill one. How can anyone kill something that isn’t alive?
With the power of the Moon Mother humming in my blood, and Alisdair’s guidance, we unearthed all of our friends from the rubble, and then cast the spell to turn them back.
With that done, together—we all of us—combined our strengths and our magic to return our home to its proper glory. And when that was done, we turned our attention to Elva.
I paused in the midst of securing the hay roof, my gaze spreading out over the verdant, rolling green hills of Lumenfell.
The road to peace and equality in Elva was not an easy one. Constance was right about that single thing—that there would be war, and death, and pain.
With the lifting of the curse, scores of women all across the land rose up and slaughtered their oppressors. Wives slaughtered their husbands. Queens beheaded their kings. Sisters stabbed their brothers. There was chaos, riots, murder, and destruction everywhere you looked, and everywhere you tried to hide.
The lifting of the beast curse freed their minds from the animal savagery, but the memory of the last several centuries, and the fight of the men to preserve them—didn’t.
And that, it seemed, was why I was born. The moon-kissed child—knitted together in the womb by Mother Meya herself, to ensure her will would be done in Elva. And her will was that Constance, the binding curse, and all the evil it and she brought upon our land would finally be rid for good.
Yes, it was true. The whole time, the true meaning of my white-haired affliction was that it wasn’t one. It was a blessing. A gift from Mother Meya herself—telling me and the world that whenever moonlight touched my skin, I had the ability to channel the power of the goddess.
And channel her power I did.
For decades, Alisdair and I swept across the lands, freeing every woman put under the binding spell, stamping out the lingering resistance, installing new—female rulers—in the kingdoms, and creating a new and central government to unite us all under one banner and one nation. A central government led by the new High Empress of Elva, Queen Callidora Cursebreaker.
Of course, quite a few people from the old regime didn’t like the power shifts, the new law demanding the execution of anyone who casts the binding spell, the new central government, or its high empress. Those few tried more than once to assassinate me—first by attacking any time they saw an opportunity, and then after they wised up, they attacked during the day when I couldn’t connect to Meya’s power.
All such attempts were harshly and brutally put down. If not by my husband, Foalan, Bradach, Treasa, Treasa’s daughter, or my many guards, then they were crushed underfoot by me.
Even without Mother Meya’s power, I was a strong magic-wielder in my own right. It was the continued arrogance of those misogynistic fools that refused to let them understand that women were not, and never were, weak. Having your power stolen didn’t mean you never had any in the first place.
That said, the war was long and seemingly endless—lasting nearly forty years. More than once, I thought of Alisdair’s plan to unleash the siren’s song on the lands, and let all the faemen just kill themselves.
But then, I would look at my friend and brother-in-arms, Riordan, and remember that love and acceptance can still grow in even the most hateful and toxic environments. I wouldn’t be like our enemies—lumping us all into one, so they can hate us all without the need for pesky critical thinking.