RED SPADE

excerpt.

The first three were fairer than ice, with towheads and red cheeks, bundled in layers of fabric, that was never warm enough for even a hint of color. They named them the Girls Of Diamonds. All belonging to one mother, with high status and an even higher air.

Like their mother and their aunts and the mothers and aunts that came before them, the Girls Of Diamonds were triplets. The Court Of Diamonds always gave birth to triplets. The Girls Of Diamonds had luminous hair and bitter black eyes. They smiled a freezing smile, hands outstretched in an unwelcoming air.

 They wore a different dress every single day, each one made of pure ice and crystal, crafted to never melt. 

The next two were broad shouldered, dark browed, and they came from the Court Of Clubs.

They were the Girls Of Clubs. They had a mane of dark hair and dressed as if it was mourning day every day. They talked in mostly grunts, and the maids and butlers always kept out of their way. They only ate chicken with pure iron filling, it was a mystery how they didn't break their teeth.

The Girls Of Spades were the Court's favourite contestants for the throne. 

Perhaps it was because they were the only ones that were born of the noblewomen in the court of spades, and the talk of malicious intentions of the other courts would never die down.

 They had inky hair that reached to their hips, braided into huge heaving plaits. High cheekbones and sharp jaws. They wore a short gown of frivolous feathers, and black silk stockings. They were stupid, much to the public's disdain, but looked acceptable. There was five Spade girls, two of them twins, and the other three from multiple different court ladies. The baroness and countess, the daughters of earls and lords.

The king's unfaithful heart would flutter at the sight of a handsome woman, so a wife never lasted long.

At last, the barbaric Daughters of Hearts. Two of them, from different mothers and the same father. Dark ginger hair and loud mouths. Fair skin that reddened easily, and wide set almond eyes. 

However, the court did not know that the king had a scandalous secret, a daughter, an ineligible heir, raised just under their noses.

Afraid of too much of a commotion, he buried the secret deep into the depths of his heart, and forgot all about it. He wanted them to think he was responsible of course, even if nobody knew, so he gave her a better rank than all the other girls, helping to pave the first bit of dirt on her path.

She looked very much like a spade girl, very much like her sisters.

She grew up knowingly of her past, but instead of the bedroom with eleven beds, a little cot in the servants quarters.

Instead of a pink cocktail dress for her birth celebration, with beaded slippers and a velvet bow, she found the cleanest sash and shoes to wear.

Now, the king had this all sorted out quite comfortably already, and he had thought he'd done his best, but fate had other ideas. For then was he unbothered, flirting shamelessly with the wives and mistresses of his court.

Until the day all eleven princesses disappeared.

Underneath their beds, a pair of delicately crafted dancing shoes. Bows and jewels, gold lining and lacework, studded diamonds and rubies, covered in a layer of dust, the frames so worn out it seemed as if their wearer had been dancing all night. 

"Scandalous!" The Court whispered, in the dining rooms, the balls, the King himself's own polo events.

Out of fright, the king panicked, revealing his last secret.

The little girl, that had lived in the palace all along.

DANICA OF SPADES

Six of Spades