Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

Her first brother called them bastards.

Her stepfather called them nothing, preferring to forget they existed.

Her second brother called them tricky. He played long games of seek and find with them in the hayloft and hog pens where the girl and boy worked from sunup to sundown.

When night faded and stars brightened, it was in the hayloft the second brother would tuck them away to dream of new days and new games.

With a simple candleflame to brighten the eaves, the girl would tell the boy tales of the North, the South, to the far reaches of the West.

″You’ll keep my secret?” she whispered.

″If you keep mine,” he said.

“Promise.” She held out her little finger, crooked like a fishing hook, until the boy locked it with his, and they giggled beneath the hay.

Those were the nights when a poor boy and a forgotten girl dreamed aloud of the new lives they’d live far across the sea. Of good kings and gods’ magic. Tales where they were not hunted, where they were not afraid.

The sort of tales where heroes never died, and pain did not exist.

Those were nights when the girl told the boy he was valiant and steady like a raven, and he said she looked as pretty as a rose. The boy whittled them, a raven and rose, then tied the raven to her neck, the rose to his, and told her he’d always keep her secrets. Always.

In the loft, under the stars, littles could be little, and first loves could be safe and kind and wanted.

But those tales were fables. In those grand adventures, love stories, and far-reaching kingdoms, no one ever told the boy and girl how the stories ended.

No one ever said the kind brother would be lost to them.

No one mentioned how brave little boys would grow to become killers.

Or how sweet little girls would someday be the trickiest of thieves.