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“You should know by now that I can’t convince our sister to do anything, and neither can you,” Joy answered, not bothering to open her eyes.

To an outsider, it would be impossible to tell the three of them apart. Joy’s blonde wavy hair was hidden under her cowl, her face covered. Only the shade of their skin and the color of their eyes set the three of them apart. Joy’s bright blue and full of laughter. Lilith’s dark and brooding. And Fey’s emerald green and flecked with brown.

With their names and even their abilities hidden from most in the realm, the Queen’s Blades were faceless killers. The masks served not only to protect their identities but also made them more specter than Witch. They were a nightmare brought to life, something whispered to children to make them behave.

Go to sleep, or the Queen’s Blades will find you.

Be good, or the Queen’s Blades will get you.

Follow the edicts of the Goddess, or the Queen’s Blades will hunt you.

Will hurt you.

Will kill you.

In their masks and their black leather uniforms, their arms covered in identical sigils, they were a match set. Three perfect assassins, virtually indistinguishable from one another.

Three, when there should have been four.

Fey took another deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of the training yard. Joy opened a single eye to watch her.

“You miss it here, don’t you?” she asked. No judgment, no scorn, just simple observation and curiosity.

“Sometimes,” Fey answered truthfully. There were no lies between them, not now, not ever. “When I was here, I felt…” She struggled to put the feelings into words. “I felt like I was finally home. Accepted.”

Joy’s mask twitched slightly, and Fey knew she was smiling. Joy had a kind smile, one she gave to the world often and without artifice.

“Didn’t you like it here?” Fey asked.

“No,” Joy answered, without hesitation. “I didn’t, not like you. It was…” Joy made a face, wrinkling her nose. “It was empty. Barren. There’s no kindness here, no pleasure. Just…” She shrugged. “Just violence and pain.”

Lilith snorted. “Sister, you kill for a living. All you know is violence and pain.”

“It’s different,” Joy insisted. “What we do serves a purpose. It’s necessary for the realm. But here? The infighting, the scrabbling for top marks. It was all so… empty. Pointless.”

Fey could understand that, at least. The training grounds were full of raw power and emotion. Anger, pain, frustration. It was a brutal place. For Joy, who found pleasure and happiness in everything around her, who reached for the good in the world like a plant reaching for the sun, it would have been a dark place indeed.

By the time Fey had enlisted in the army, Joy was already a Blade, and their paths had never crossed during her time at Solare. None of their paths had crossed before they had become Blades. Before they became sisters.

“What about you? What did you think of your time here?” Fey asked Lilith.

Lilith paused to assess her knife’s edge, twisting the blade in her hand to catch the light. Then, satisfied, she slipped it back into the sheath on her thigh and pulled its twin from the identical sheath on her other leg to begin the process all over again.

“What does it matter? Liked it, hated it, it’s in the past.” The blade purred against the whetstone while she worked. “I am a Queen’s Blade. Who I was before? That person is dead and gone. This is what I am now, and that’s all that matters.”

Joy rolled her eyes in Lilith’s direction and pushed herself from the wall. Her shoulder bumped against Fey’s as she joined her at the window.

“Can you see him down there?” she asked eagerly.

Fey sighed. “Not yet.”

There were whispers among the Queen’s Guard that Dameon would be inspecting the soldiers in Solare today. While it was part of his duties as the Queen’s right hand and something he deigned to do every few months, this visit would be different. On this visit, he would be looking for a new Witch to join their ranks.

A new sister to be inducted into the Queen’s Blades.

Joy’s eyes danced across the training yard, bouncing between groups, and stopped. “There.” She pointed, extending her hand out the window.

The training yard was divided into groups. Soldiers of different skills and different elements, clustered together under the watchful eyes of the Queen’s generals. Though the vast majority of those below were Witches, there were groups of men scattered among them. They may lack power over any of the elements, but force was force, and the Queen rarely turned away a willing soldier, regardless of sex.