Kingdom From Ashes (Kingdom Saga #1)

Chapter One

Chapter One

Ashes. The entire world is ashes and I am a fire, an ember slowly burning and burning until it can burn no longer and it goes out. I long to spread my wings and fly, to fly far away from here and never return, even though the palace and its comforts are all I've ever known in my seventeen years. I am a trapped bird in a cage, but I doubt even if my jailers would open my door I would be brave enough to set myself free. If there was an inferno engulfing my cell, I still wouldn't have the courage to take flight and leave my iron bars behind.

I wish a fire would spring up and consume me now, so I wouldn't have to go through with this horrible arrangement.

"Bennua! You lazy girl, stand up straight!" my mother snaps at me as the dressmaker sticks me with more and more pins. "You move too much! Do you want to look like an ugly cow on your wedding day?"

"You couldn't do much with her to begin with, Mother," my eldest sister Pottina says. The oldest out of seven sisters, including me, she always has to put her word in. "Even with the dress I doubt Quasim will be pleased."

All of Sahrahn's deserts, thieves, and sandstorms wouldn't be able to harden my sister anymore than what she already is. She could suck the hardiest camel dry of its water. "Quasim will be pleased," I shoot back at her. "You'll see it on his face the moment I walk out to greet him."

"He will be, for you better not shame us, Bennua," Mother warns. "Quasim is the greatest prince in all of Sahrahn. He's the finest husband your father could ever find."

"Thirty years old. I wonder what his palace will be like," I say fairly. Quasimar, the country that'll be my new home, is named after the conqueror himself. I can't even think about it without getting a bad taste in my mouth.

"Be grateful," Istilah says. "At seventeen, you're practically an old maid. I'm surprised Quasim even considered you."

"Your sisters were all married long before your age. Quit pouting," Mother says, sticking my dress with another pin.

"I don't see what you're complaining about," Du'a says quietly, looking down at her hands. "Father chose the best for you."

My sisters and I share glances with each other and then look at the floor again quickly. I guess she's right. Our father never made good choices when it came to picking our husbands. Pottina was married off to a desert nomad, and is always traveling. Jabirah was wedded to a royal official from another country who pays more attention to his money than he does her, and Du'a's husband beats her regularly. The rest are all stuck in equally horrible matches, save for Husna, who was simply married to an idiot. She wasn't exactly happy, but at least nobody expected much out of you, being married to a fool.

Not like how everyone would soon expect everything out of me, being married to the most powerful warlord in the world.

"The traditional wedding colors look awful on her," Pottina complains. "The pink veil, the green skirt, she looks like a trashy harem dancer!"

"We can't change it now," Mother says. "Quasim is due to arrive tonight. Unless you would like to sew another gown in that short of a time, Pottina."

That keeps her quiet. Within my room, standing on my pedestal and looking out into the openness of the balcony my father has built just for me, I feel a small gust of dry desert air. It's hotter than usual out today, so hot that if you didn't stay inside the sun would fry your skin quicker than if placed in a broiling cooking pot.

"Pay attention! Always daydreaming," my mother hisses, shaking her head at me. She's been acting grumpier than usual...it's the stress of planning the wedding, and the feast that's meant to last for days after. Quasim is bound to bring a whole party even though there's no need. I haven't yet met the man, and I have to wonder...what is he like? I've heard many rumors that he's strong, tall and handsome. A woman's daydream, I've heard. He's won more battles than I can count, and is so rich he could buy my tiny country, Haya-Maa, ten times over. I keep telling myself that maybe he won't be as bad as I've thought.