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War for an Absent Throne by @HopeofFaith

Excerpt from War for an Absent Throne by HopeOfFaith

Genre: Fantasy

Why being discovered is important:

I want to be a discovered author because I want to be loved, to make my name go down in history as a great person. I want to breathe new life into genres, to surprise people by taking the ordinary and then twisting the ending unexpectedly. That is why this is important to me. Plus, I like all the attention.

Excerpt from War for an Absent Throne:

I knock on the door, and I can hear Arena, Bryn and Develia arguing about who gets to answer the door in the background. I hear Meralia say that maybe all three of them could answer the door at separate times, and I think she's taking this whole "equality" thing too far.

These gals are naturals at deliberating-I'll give them that.

Finally, someone opens the door. It's Murea.

"Hey, Jurine," Murea greets me, smiling. She looks at Croth behind me, and I can see she's a bit suspicious of him.

"Arena!" she shouts. "There's a man outside the door!"

"Kick him out," I hear Arena say.

"He is out!"

Arena sighs. "Well, then don't let him in!" She walks over to Croth and I go inside. "Sorry, but you'll have to wait here. We're the Ìræ, and it's girls only."

And with that, Arena slams the door on Croth's face.

"Jurine!" Bryn and Meralia shout. They wave from on the couch, and I notice something horrifying about them both.

The last time I saw Bryn, her wavy hair was as long as mine, which is very long-now it's really short, just like Nira's-a telltale sign that Bryn lost her virginity recently. Meralia's chestnut curls, once as bouncy and in her face as possible, now are pulled back in a small bun.

Although Murea's supposed to do this, not me, I can't help but chew them out. We are Father's favourite daughters, and in order to keep us pure, he instructed all of us to be chaste, to be perpetually celibate and to never smell of men. Although virtually every child in Ernalda has been raised on the belief that to be a virgin is to be tortured by everyone and that sex can relieve you of said tortures, we weren't.

To ensure our celibacy, Father sent us away to here to be educated and taken care of by an all-female household. He asked us to never let men in the house, no matter what.

"How dare you disobey Father!" I shout.

"Oh, relax, Jurine," Bryn says. "He was just a man. No big deal."

"How did a man get in the house?!?!"

"He disguised himself as a woman," Arena replies gloomily. "How the Dervet did I not see through his lie?"

"Who was he?" I ask them.

"He called himself Vitar," Meralia replies. "Yesterday, he told me and Bryn about our mother in the middle of the night, when everybody else was sleeping. The two of us wept, and he told us that he could take away the emotional pain via sex. We let him. Bryn slept with him first, then me. After that, we seemed to be drunk with mirth."

"You failed your mission!" I bellow. "Father told us to retain our purity! And now I can smell the scent of men on you both. You should be ashamed!"

"Oh, don't be such a drama queen," Bryn scoffs.

"You are Develia, Bryn," I exclaim. "I repeat, you are DEVELIA!!!"

And at that moment, Develia accidentally knocks over a glass of water. "Sorry!" she says to it.

"No, I'm not," Bryn says. "That is Develia."

"Fine. For those of you who can't speak Ætani, you are guilty, Bryn. I repeat, you are GUILTY!!!"
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Check out this author's profile: HopeOfFaith