The Ruined by Renée Ahdieh

Author:Renée Ahdieh [Ahdieh, Renée]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2023-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

The Ruined Son

Arjun Desai was twelve years old when he decided he’d had enough of love.

Following the events of a particularly trying afternoon, he’d announced to his mother and the two peris attending their evening meal that he would never pursue the affection of another girl again. Nor would he foster any meaningful relationships with his peers in school. For too long, he’d tried to become one of them. To learn and act and live as if he were a member of the fey gentry.

No more, he’d vowed that day. Loving any fey meant existing in a perpetual state of fear.

When General Riya had asked him what happened to bring about this realization, Arjun had refused to disclose any details. The last thing he needed was for his mother to accost or threaten anyone on his account.

Arjun was already enough of a target. He was the only remaining ethereal in their year. There had been another girl when they were younger, but one day, she’d stopped attending class. When he’d asked after her, the teacher and his schoolmates had ignored him, as if they had no idea about whom he was speaking.

Arjun had spent two weeks imagining all the terrible things that might have happened to this poor girl.

He had not thought about her—or the girl who’d broken his heart that afternoon by the lake—for many years.

But it was true. Philippa Montrose was not Arjun Desai’s first love. She was the first girl he’d ever fallen in love with, of course. But not the first girl he’d ever loved.

The first girl he’d ever loved was fey. Lord Vyr’s youngest cousin. Her name was Antiope. Arjun had fallen in love with her dark hair, rich mahogany eyes, and lovely brown skin, physical attributes that were rare among the Summer Court, where many of the gentry were lighter skinned. Many of the influential families in the gentry possessed eyes and features reminiscent of mortals from East Asia or Eastern Europe. Very few of them reminded Arjun of home. Antiope did. As a lost, lonely boy longing for India, Antiope’s beauty had brought to mind his father’s people. The world he’d left behind.

Both Arjun and Antiope were young when they met. It was in school, when children of the gentry were not yet old enough to declare their interests. All those in their year studied everything together. Painting, sculpture, musical instruments, dance, song, alchemy, sea dragon riding, fencing, garden cultivating . . . they learned them all, until they were of a mind to pursue a particular skill to a higher level of proficiency.

Arjun had just reached his twelfth mortal year. Antiope appeared to be around the same age as he did. Fey children matured at a similar rate to mortal children, though fey stopped aging once they reached adulthood. In this way, a member of the gentry could appear to possess no more than twenty human years and still have lived for centuries.

That particular class on that terrible afternoon was taught by a satyr.

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