LIANA'S POV
Useless. Pathetic. Bastard.
That was what I was. That was all I knew.
I pressed my back against the rough stone wall of the servants' quarters, listening to my half-brothers' laughter echo from the great hall. They were celebrating something again. There was always something to celebrate when you were legitimate.
"Liana." My mother's voice was barely a whisper. "Come here, child."
I turned to find her hunched over her workbench, grinding herbs with shaking hands. The silver chains around her ankles had worn grooves into her skin over eighteen years, the metal stained with old blood. Even after all this time, they still kept her chained like a rabid animal.
"What is it, Mama?"
She looked up at me with those strange blue eyes that marked her as other. Witch eyes, the pack called them. The same eyes I'd inherited along with her curse—and her gift.
"Your father is meeting with his advisors," she said quietly. "Something's wrong. I can taste the fear in their sweat."
