Ultimately, Alisander’s ambition of winning the love of the common folk served Malin well enough. The King had handed the elder princesses such heavy political expectations that they were bound to rub the nobility the wrong way, and when the realm at last looked for something familiar and safe, it would find it in the golden-haired daughter Malin had raised.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Gela was born a year after Anasha, and the birth, which came a moon and a half before its time, brought Malin to the very door of death.

“About one in five women possesses a womb that points backward toward the spine, which most often rights itself on its own as the babe grows. In rare instances, however, the womb becomes trapped beneath the pelvic bone, raising the passage of birth far too high. The baby’s instinct to descend for birth is thus thwarted, forced in the wrong direction because the true passage lies above the obstruction." Lady Tawnhook explained gently to Malin, a little beyond the halfway mark of her pregnancy.

"What does this mean for me?" she asked, her voice thin with raw dread.

"For a common woman, this would mean a slow, agonizing death. For you, my Queen, we will do our best. But I cannot overstate the pain it will bring, and lasting injury is inevitable. It will require very precise cutting from me and Lord Cledwyn,”

As Lady Tawnhook had promised, to save the Queen, Archanatomist Cledwyn and Lady Tawnhook had to reach deep into the birth canal, past the crushing shelf of the pelvis, to locate the displaced mouth of the womb high within the belly. They had to manually force the infant upward first, fighting the violent spasms of the contractions to clear the bone before the child could be turned and delivered down.

Though Malin survived, the horrific internal tearing and hemorrhage left her womb permanently ruined, ensuring she would never bear another child for the Crown. And all this, just to have another daughter.

The crushing physical and mental blow left the Queen bedridden, seeking isolation in her shame for weeks, leaving the newborn in the arms of wet nurses.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

“Priyal, you cannot just nurse them on one side, then this one will be gorged with milk, while the other one will shrink,” chided Lady Valiya, overseeing the little princess’s feeding.

“Truly, my lady? Can one breast grow bigger while the other one shrinks?” exclaimed the young wet-nurse without thinking.

“Mind your tongue, Priyal, and do not forget your place,” responded an exasperated Lady Valiya. The wet-nurse herself was an untrained girl of no more than sixteen winters, but owing to the premature birth, they had been forced to gather nursing women in great haste. She was the only one among half a dozen whom the little princess would accept, and so it fell upon Lady Valiya to school her in the ways of the keep. 

“Yes, indeed. The more she suckles, the more milk your bosom will yield, and if you nurse her on only one side, that side alone will see the growth. Drink your water, and if you require warm milk, you have only to speak and it shall be fetched from the kitchens. Ensure the princess takes her fill; she is such a wee thing.”

She was barely longer than an outstretched palm, Lady Valiya thought. Her uneven scalp was covered in dark brown hair—the same shade as Alisander’s, and entirely unlike Malin’s golden locks. She inherited her father’s vibrant green eyes, but for such a small creature, she possessed a fierce wail, keeping the entire South Wing awake with her persistent din.

The older two sisters were delighted by the new babe’s arrival, and even one-winter-old Anasha was eager to get her hands on the newborn. Lady Valiya was ever vigilant to avoid rough play as the princesses drifted in and out of the nursery.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

King Alisander, meanwhile, visited the infant and sought out his queen to offer what consolation he could. Yet Malin would not speak aloud the true source of her despair; a son would have allowed her to finally match the ghost of Naya, if not surpass her entirely. But it was not to be. 

It was this bitter birth that severed whatever maternal warmth she held for Gela. Her daughters must now achieve whatever was necessary to elevate her—that was the debt they owed for her agonizing labor. Alisander, failing to grasp the gravity of the matter as Malin saw it, attributed her lingering grief to the common afterbirth melancholy. 

Yet as the months passed, the Queen only grew more reticent, her gaze turning increasingly contemptuous toward her stepdaughters, and her tone growing ever more impatient with her own blood.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Gela only ever heard disappointment in her mother’s voice and could not bear to be around her. Instead, she sought warmth elsewhere. King Alisander had insisted early on that the nursery for his children be situated in the South Wing; thus, Gela lived in close quarters with her sisters—and unwitting rivals. 

She was always delighted by the older girls and longed to emulate them in every way. As a child, she would sneak into Katarina’s chambers to rummage through her wardrobe, trying on whatever finery she could grasp. Kat, ever perceptive, would sometimes leave small trinkets or ribbons upon her bed, anticipating Gela’s clandestine visits.

She would go into Celesta’s room and paint all over Celesta’s paintings. Celesta always kept spare sheets of parchment and sticks of charcoal ready for Gela to use. As young children are wont to do, Gela questioned everything, and Celesta proved the ideal tutor. They chattered away for hours each day, playing pretend in Celesta’s solar or hunting the hare through the corridors of their wing.

Sometimes, Anasha joined these games. When Gela and Anasha grew older, they advanced to “Witchhunt,” a more elaborate game of pretend where they sought out hidden magical entities disguised among the trees of the castle grounds.

“I found some branches to use as brooms! Here is mine, and you may have this one,” Gela said enthusiastically, thrusting a crooked bough into Anasha’s hands.

“Well, how can I use this as a broom? Yours is much longer, while mine is so short!” Anasha exclaimed.

“But yours is thicker,” said Gela.

“Now, now, it is not a good idea to be measuring sticks,” said a seventeen-year-old Kat, straight-faced, while Celia sniggered and Celesta threw Kat a cautionary look, biting back a smile.

Witchhunt was Gela’s favorite game, because even by the age of eight, the realization was dawning on her that she was lagging behind her sisters. Queen Malin wanted her to master all the things Kat and Celesta had mastered, and unlike her older sisters, she did not have the opportunity to decide what to pursue.

Anasha had the calm mind to do what their mother asked, but Gela’s mind was loud, and even her mother’s glares could not make her sit still. 

Instead of harp and embroidery, whatever little time Gela had, she immersed herself in tales of lore and magic, imagining herself a sorceress of immense power—a gift unlike anything any of her sisters possessed, placing her far above the reach of the cutting words of her mother. She began to weave into her own dress small touches borrowed from the witches she read of in the old texts.

It was within the shadowed tiers of the castle lexicon that Gela discovered a weathered grimoire, spiriting it away to her private quarters in the dead of night. In the weeks that followed, she began chronicling the fleeting architecture of her dreams upon parchment that she hid away. 

It was her longing to master the strings that finally drove her to active craft. To command the gift of flawless music, Gela enacted a precise rite of sounding. She awoke long before dawn to collect pristine dewdrops from her stone balcony, pooling the pure, unblemished liquid inside a heavy silver chalice. 

Setting the vessel upon the floor, she struck a single, sustained chord, letting the rich vibration fill the quiet chamber until the water’s surface began to dance into perfect, even rings. Holding the note steady with her breath, she dropped a fine silver needle directly into the heart of the ringed ripples, snapping the pattern shut and trapping the flawless note within the metal.

When the time came to play, she had only to press the cold iron point against her fingertips to snap her muscles back into perfect harmony.

Whether by virtue of the spell or newfound confidence, her subsequent lessons went perfectly. She even performed upon the harp for her mother and father one evening, and her royal father exclaimed how well her lessons were coming along, while her mother gave her a look of pride. 

Emboldened, she resolved to try the spell for dancing.