Prologue
I once had a family: a father, a mother, and a younger sister. That all changed when I was eight years old, the day they stabbed my father in the chest before my naïve eyes. I didn’t understand why they did it, these men riding in on horseback wearing hooded black cloaks. All I knew was that my father was dead, and when they came for me, something stopped them. Instead of killing me, one of them took me by the wrist and looked me in the eyes.
“You’d be worth a ton…” he told me, snake-like gaze glowing in awe. I couldn’t figure out what he meant by that. The next day, I was with him in a horse carriage as he took me away from my home, leaving my mother and sister with the other men. We rode for days, it seemed, and I was soon joined by three other girls my age. He told them they’d be worth small change, but I was still worth a ton. After another few days of traveling, I was dropped off at Miss Fiore’s house for girls in the southern kingdom.
From here, my life would change forever.
This is my story.
