A Rule of Queens by Morgan Rice

Author:Morgan Rice [Rice, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: kickass.to, ScreamQueen
ISBN: 9781939416919
Google: ZbBuAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Morgan Rice
Published: 2014-04-29T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Loti’s heart swirled with mixed emotions as she labored in the fields with the others, using her long wooden rake to break up rocks and soil, preparing the Empire fields for planting. It was a monotonous and tedious exercise, one she had done nearly every day of her life, hoisting the long wooden rake high, the shackles around her wrists preventing her from using it as a weapon, and scraping the endless waste of the desert. As she brought it down low, the metal cut into her wrists, scarring them, as they had for years. She had learned to ignore the pain.

But that was not what pained her on this day; as she dragged her rake along the earth, she thought not of her shackles, her scars—but of Darius. She felt awful for having brushed him off the way she had, for not having been more grateful to him for saving her life. An entire moon cycle had passed and finally the shock of it over, she’d had time to process it all. She still could not believe what had happened with the taskmasters, how Darius had saved her from a life of certain hell and slavery and possibly even death. She owed him her life—more than her life. And she had responded with cold indifference.

Yet at the same time, she had been overwhelmed, unsure how to react. She had never seen anyone use a magic power before, and it stunned her to see Darius use it. Her entire life she had been taught by her parents and elders to view magic as witchery, something to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, the only real taboo in their village. It was magic, she had been told, that had led to doom for her people to begin with. And to see Darius use it—well, she did not know how to react. She had reacted impulsively, in a way her parents would have wanted her to.

But now, as she brought the wooden rake down again and again, dragging it into the dirt, she felt terrible for what she had done. She wanted to run to Darius, to apologize to him, to be with him, this boy who had overtaken her heart more than she could have imagined. She had always suspected there was something different about him, though she wasn’t sure what it was. He was indeed different from all the others, with his great ability. But even more so, with his big heart. His fearlessness.

Now she had thrown it all away. All because she was afraid, afraid of the condemnation she would receive from her parents and the elders if she were caught with him, if they discovered his power. She was afraid they would not understand; she was not sure she understood herself.

She had also been afraid during this last moon cycle that any day the Empire would arrive and round her and Darius up for having killed those men; each day she expected the bodies to be discovered.

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