“What do you mean you just let her take our daughter?” the King bellowed, rising from his chair across the long dining table. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard seemed to be competing now-a-days for who could grow the longest. I had thought it an admirably rugged look, but with any angry gesture, it only added to make him look more wild and unhinged.

  I flinched and instinctively lowered my head which caused a deep, stabbing pain in my still war torn womb. I hoped that he would not resort to anything physical as I would not be able to fend off the worst of his attacks. Generally his strikes were nothing that left too obvious a mark, though I had never had to deliver such unpleasant news to him before. His violent spells were generally infrequent and always later met with apologies, but I felt particularly vulnerable in my current state.

  I had anticipated that the birth would be difficult. The whole pregnancy had been a nightmare as I had been forced to focus on what little powers I could command to overcome my family’s curse for the entire duration. However, despite anticipating how unpleasant the birth might be, I did not fathom just how painful and harrowing of an experience it had turned out to be. The fact I was still alive was a bit shocking. There were several times during the birth that I was certain my heart would give out and I would have to give the ultimate sacrifice to bring forth a son.

  “You had the whole royal guard at your disposal!” He clenched his fist and raised it slightly. “A whole army ready and willing to defend the royal line and yet you let some woman walk out with our daughter without you lifting a finger to stop her!” A low growl escaped from his lips and he used his raised fist to pound on the table “You could have called for any guard and simply pointed and it would have been dealt with!”

  “You do not understand,” I pleaded, “when Aunt Mari wants something, nothing and no one will stand in her way. She is an evil and cunning woman who stops at nothing to get what she wants. Anyone would rather face the fires of hell than face her fury. Only fools would dare defy her.”

  He had to know the stories and myths about my family. The Yser name was rarely uttered without a shudder from a cold chill creeping up the spine. My family was dark, dangerous, and terrifying and my mother and aunt were cold hearted and as evil as they came. Surely he would have not been the only person in the kingdom to be ignorant of their reputation and dark desires.

  “Bah, that's all a bunch of rubbish made up to make your House look powerful,” he spat, but sat down once more. “All talk and stories meant to make a weak bloodline look impressive. That House has never participated in trade, nor have I ever heard of their army marching in my lifetime. They are weak and depend on silly stories to keep fear in the family name. I should have known that you would be foolish enough to fall for it yourself.” A belittling scoff escaped his nose. “I thought that perhaps you weren’t so simple as to believe such ridiculous claims.”

  “I assure you, I have seen and experienced enough in my childhood to tell you that many of the stories are indeed true,” I tried to explain with a long sigh.

  Growing up in the House Yser had not exactly been what many would consider child-friendly. I still suffered nightmares from time to time that centered around the things I had seen and heard at the hands of my family. My mother and aunt were cold and uncaring about anything or anyone that did not benefit them. The stories told about the horrific things they had done were sometimes misconstrued or made up, but the ones that were untold were even worse than what gossip made its way to the peasants’ lips.

  “They are evil and dangerous people who have no regard for spilling the blood of anyone that crosses their path,” I continued, pleading with him for some sort of understanding. “I would have done anything to keep our dear daughter if I thought it could have ended in anything other than my death. I was certain that she was willing to spill my blood and maybe the blood of our newborn son to get what she wanted.”

  “Enough of that talk, you will not convince me,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand, “besides, I have my rightful heir. I suppose this just rids me of the hassle of trying to find her a suitable marriage.” He began to eat his meal of stew again, chewing thoughtfully. “Now that I think a bit more on it, perhaps it has been a blessing. We both know that girl is too stubborn to have been easily made happy with any suitor. She would have found one reason or another to keep herself unwed and that would have made the matchmaking difficult.”

  “That girl...” I began, voice cracking a bit from the boldness of what I was about to say, “happened to be the heir up until yesterday. I feel there must be at least a little understanding that it stung her to have that taken from her, even if it was to be expected with a new male heir.”

  The King gave a great shrug of his wide shoulders and a half-smile crept onto his face. “It is the way of things, it is no longer her right with a boy child to take the rightful place. She would have grown used to the idea with time. I believe you have said so yourself and you were quite happy at the idea of finally providing me a son.”

  We continued our dinner in silence, though I more pushed food around my plate and pretended to be interested. Suddenly the rich broth and hearty vegetables tasted bland and unappealing despite how badly my weakened body cried out for sustenance. The logical and wise choice would have been to push aside my feelings and force myself to eat, but there was a small voice in the back of my mind that told me I deserved to feel weak and suffer for just a bit longer.

  I had indeed said that I wanted to bear a son for the King and at the time I had fully believed that it was the only correct course of action and an important part of my duties as his Queen. However, now I wondered why I would have done so with so little consideration for what huge changes it would mean for my daughter. It had felt like the most important mission to ensure that my husband received his much desired male heir, but now with my daughter in the clutches of my foul mother and her sister, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been truly worth it. Had I simply allowed the child to be born as another girl, the King would have been disappointed, but I could have had both of my children still with me and this nightmare would not have happened.

  My life had been torn between two entirely different worlds, one that anyone in this kingdom would never be able to understand without my experiences. To them, life was mundane and mortal, but I knew that there was much more than the birth, toil, and death that everyone around me accepted. It astounded me that somehow I had even come to accept it. In that acceptance, I had pushed my past far from the front of my mind and therefore, let my guard down from the possibility of my family tightening the grip around my life once more. Now Toria would pay the price and I wasn’t sure how I would ever be able to forgive myself.

  I was born as the final child to Evonia Yser, the powerful ruler of the House of Yser. It was not a kingdom, per se, more of a ritualistic society shut off from much everywhere else, though that would be a statement vehemently denied by my mother. There had been rumors that the original members of the family had made deals with demons in order to gain the land, wealth, and status. I would not be surprised to discover that the rumors were indeed true, though I had never been privy to learning the true history of the family bloodline.

  Evonia had been a cold woman, someone who only seemed to have children to further her power and influence. Every child she birthed was carefully calculated and the fathers selected for some end she desired. I vaguely knew that I had siblings before me, though they had left before I was born or while I was young enough to not have any clear memories of them. I suspected that I had been a final attempt at an heir to her line as the others had been shunned.

  My mother believed that women were inherently superior and had long ago declared that anyone sharing her bloodline shall only bear female heirs. Being born female was not enough to satisfy her requirements to eventually take over her seat. There was a long list of personality traits and magical prowess she was determined to find and she had pushed me hard throughout my upbringing to try to mold me into the perfect replacement.

  I was not raised in harsh conditions with physical punishment, but rather treated as a sort of warrior in training for the kingdom, honing my magical skills. I don't think I would have even minded the endless hours each day sat straining and begging for my magical ability to grow if my floundering progress hadn’t been treated as such a personal failing that degraded my worth. It was like magic and the quest for superiority left no room for affection or familial love and it certainly did not leave room for any grace that perhaps I was just not as talented.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  There was nothing but training, dinner around a cold and loveless table filled with personal snipes and jabs at my failures, then straight back to my room to contemplate my life. There were no hugs and playtime, no encouragement and warm smiles, just high expectations and disappointment and mocking when I failed to reach them. I was told daily how my siblings were always better at their training and easily met the milestones set for them without even half the struggle I encountered. I always wondered if it were true, since if they were so much better than me then surely I would have not been so pressured to rise to the expectations to become the heir. I often could not tell if what was being told to me was true or was subterfuge to try to elicit the response from me that they desired.

  My father, I was told, had been a powerful baron from a fairly close-by kingdom. I had never met him, despite my request when I grew older as it was deemed unnecessary and irrelevant, perhaps even detrimental to my development. All I had ever been told about him was that he was a very traditional, typical baron who was about as wide as he was tall. I couldn’t recall a time where I had ever even heard his name, he was often just referred to as the “fat baron” often followed by a mocking laugh.

  Mari often told me that she had never understood why Evonia had chosen him as a sire, she would never have touched him with a gloved hand, let alone wanted to know what he looked like undressed. My conception was treated like a business transaction with his seed in exchange for a couple of Evonia's prized horses from the royal stables. That's what I was worth to her, a couple stallions. I had a feeling that she didn't think the trade had been a fair one as whatever benefits she thought his genetic line would bring had not manifested as what she had desired in a daughter.

  I was trained by the best magic tutor my mother could find with the most skill and passion for his craft, but my own powers seemed to languish. Try and try again, my spells never seemed to get any stronger or clearer, the outcome always vague or muddled. Magic always seemed like this wonderful sunset that everyone could see and experience, but my view was always obscured by thick thunder-clouds. I could sense what was possible, but barriers beyond my control hindered me from my potential.

  Despite my best efforts and tireless work to try to keep up with expectations, I was treated like a failure and a pariah, not worthy of the Yser name. Aunt Mari used to say that it was my father's inferior blood that had tainted my lineage and prevented me from ever becoming a powerful sorceress. I had believed that until Toria was born. In her, I saw power that I had never been able to possess. Though my blood flowed through her veins, I knew that the potential resided in her. She could see the sunset and manipulate it if she wanted to.

  On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, Evonia summoned me to her bed chambers. I had to avert my eyes from the several scandalously clad men and women that draped themselves around her bed. She was sitting in the middle with a look that seemed to be a laugh that was tickling her lips, her sharp, nearly black eyes assessing my every movement as I walked into the room. Even though I had been told that she was nearing her sixties, she certainly did not look much older than thirty.

  “Daughter, I have been told your magic is not progressing,” she said with a lilting tone. It was not a question, nor did she want me to speak. “How can this be? How can a daughter of Evonia Yser not be a powerful sorceress? I have given you everything. The best trainer, the time and space to develop your powers. Yet, you have left me wanting with your failures.”

  The men and women around her tittered and licked their lips as they snuck glances at me. It was no secret that I had become a joke for everyone in the hall. They were just servants and should have ranked below me, but I was certain that she felt more affection for any one of them than she ever had for me.

  “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” she demanded, the knowing half-smile never faltering.

  “I don't know,” I said barely above a whisper, “I study and work very hard at it, but it feels like there is something preventing me from becoming proficient.”

  She cocked her head to the side slightly at me and seemed to study my face. Looking for any hint of deception. “I suppose you know that I simply cannot have an heir who is not a sorceress.” She paused to see if I had a reaction. I did not, it wasn't like I was surprised to hear her say it. “Since your trainer feels your outcome will be dismal, you are no longer required to study magic, however, you must find a suitable marriage within the next year.”

  The command for me to be married meant that I was truly no longer a welcomed member of the House Yser. She wasn’t outright casting me from the castle, but she would if I didn’t find somewhere else to go.

  “How will I do that?” I questioned. “I have never gone beyond these walls before.”

  “How would I know?” she laughed, “I have never had any interest in being a man's slave.” The men around her gave salacious glances to which she giggled and waved their implications to the contrary away. “I suppose you will have to attend some balls or something, it's not like you're ugly. As long as you are willing to comply with them, you can have any man of your choosing.”

  She was correct, I certainly was not a homely young lady. I had my mother's smooth, unmarred skin, shapely features, and alluring, thick eyelashes. The only feature I possessed that had come from my father was my curly, red hair that stuck out like a sore thumb among the sea of straight, black locks of the Yser line. I had been secretly elated when Toria had been born with a thick head of dark hair. I had always hated mine and did not wish for any child of mine to have the same experience of feeling out of place.

  Mari had extended a helping hand to me for the first time in my life to help me find events and socials to attend in nearby kingdoms to help secure a marriage. It was not done out of the goodness of her heart, if such a heart could ever contain goodness, Mari was all too thrilled to have me gone. If she had been able to have her way, I would have been removed from the family at a much younger age. Mari was not the type to suffer any signs of what she decided was failure or weakness. While my mother was a cold and distant woman, Mari could be downright harsh and frigid. She had very set ideas and when people did not agree or match up with what she decided, they were dead to her. Literally or figuratively.

  Not wanting to find out what would happen if I did not find a man to marry within her timeline, I accepted the very first proposal I could get after only a few minor festivals in nearby kingdoms. King Leon had been taken by my beauty immediately and pursued me swiftly, promising me a wonderful and comfortable life if I married him and took the place of the late queen. Though ten years older than me, he was kind and affectionate. It seemed no big task to go away with him and devote my life to being his new queen. It certainly had to be easier than rigorous, unrelenting magic trainers constantly tutting at my under-performance.

  “Rela,” the King said gruffly, “will the girl be okay?”

  His question snapped me out of the walk through my memories. It had been as if the world had melted from around me and I had actually been there. Through the potential of magic, I wouldn't have been shocked if it had actually somewhat happened that way.

  “She will not be physically harmed and they will welcome her as family,” I replied, still trying to orient myself. “It is not necessarily a warm and inviting place, but she looks like the rest of the family so I expect they will accept her just fine.”

  He gave a short nod and returned to his meal. I wondered if perhaps his seemingly non-nonchalance about her leaving was partially an act to seem like he should not be too alarmed. It had always appeared to me that he had a soft spot for his daughter. In fact, it had been his kind nature with Toria that had inspired me to give him the male heir he so deeply desired.

  After dinner and nursing the young heir, I found myself hesitating outside of Toria's room. Many of her things had already been removed and were ready to be delivered to her, but I felt that as long as I did not actually open the door, that perhaps she was still inside fast asleep. I knew it was a fantasy, but I wasn't yet ready to accept that she was truly gone.

  I knew what she must have thought of me. I could not deny that I was in some way a traitor to her. My choice had been made long ago and I had managed to delude myself into thinking that since Toria had been raised thus far in this world that she would understand. Everyone around her, including myself, talked at length about how lines of successions worked and how the first born son always was first in line for the throne. I knew that she was going to be a bit upset when I saw her distress at my announcement of being with child and tried to give her some temporary soothing, but I had gravely underestimated the pull her ancient blood would have on her. It was always doomed to end like this, she did not belong in this kind of place.

  Without breaking the fantasy that perhaps she was still safely within her room, I hobbled onward to my own room. The pain within my womb seemed to be blossoming as time passed, though with Toria's birth, I had seemed to recover quickly. The magic was still trying to punish me, it would not so easily loosen its grip on me and allow me to heal peacefully. It wanted me to suffer for what I had done. I could not let it win, I had to be there for my newborn son, but a part of me considered just succumbing to it so I would never have to see how my daughter would turn out being under the evil thumb of my family.