They Stole My Twin's Crown

My twin sister and I were born with the same face and nothing else in common. Elara was gentle enough to step around an ant. I was vicious. Cross me and I'd take your skin off and never lose a night's sleep over it. The year we came of age, the Crown Prince chose Elara. But the old court held that royal twins brought ruin. If Elara was to be Crown Princess, I had to die. So our parents wept and begged me to drink a death-simulating draught and disappear forever. Before I left, I made three demands. First, my Shadow Guard would pass to Elara. Second, she'd have a dowry worthy of a princess and a wedding no one could sneer at. Third, if the Crown Prince ever wronged her, they'd bring her home. They swore to all three. They told me that once I was gone, Elara could take the throne beside him without a whisper against her, and never want for anything again. I drank the draught and rode north to the frontier. I thought one life of mine was a fair price for a lifetime of hers. Three years later, pain tore me out of sleep. Twins share what the other feels. Something had happened to Elara. I rode for the capital through the night, and my sister was gone. A woman I'd never seen was being crowned Empress in her place. And our parents sat below the dais, smiling. Three years, and they'd forgotten one thing. Elara was the only one who ever kept me on a leash. And she wasn't there anymore. Chapter 1 By the time I reached the royal palace, the coronation was already underway. Rosalind Vale sat beside Emperor Lucien Arden wearing the imperial phoenix crown. My parents sat below the dais, smiling as though the woman being crowned were their own daughter. I watched through the crowd for one long moment, and I didn't move. Strangling them where they sat would be letting them off cheap. First, I needed to find Elara. I avoided the Imperial Guard and came in through the old passage beneath Ardenhall, into the palace where my sister had lived. Moonrest Palace had once belonged to her. Before Elara married into the royal household, I'd prepared a hundred slabs of alabaster for the floors and twenty pear trees for the courtyard. Every piece was written into her dowry inventory. Now the alabaster had been pried out. The pear trees were gone, cut down to the roots. Even the carved MOONREST PALACE plaque had been ripped from the gate and thrown into the mud. A palace maid stood on it, scraping dirt off her shoes. She looked up when I approached. For one second, confusion crossed her face. Then she sneered. "Lady Elara. You've got nerve, crawling out of the Winter Wing." She thought I was my sister. I looked at the white-opal bracelet on her wrist. I'd given that bracelet to Elara the day she came of age. "Where did you get that?" The maid lifted her wrist so the stone caught the light. "Her Majesty gave it to me. Your old jewelry, your dresses, everything you owned—it's all hers now. "She could let one trinket slip through her fingers and it'd still be more than you'll see again in your life." "I see." I nodded. "Take it off." The maid stared at me as if I'd told a joke. Then she shoved my shoulder. "Today's Her Majesty's coronation. Get back to the Winter Wing. "If His Majesty catches sight of that wretched face, you'll earn yourself another whipping." I let myself take half a step back. "Another?" The maid's smile widened. "Last month you offended Her Majesty, so the Emperor ordered thirty lashes himself. Those wounds still haven't closed, have they?" Last month, on the northern frontier, I'd hurt for an entire night. Now I knew why. Elara had taken thirty lashes. The maid mistook my silence for fear. She raised her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist. I still didn't strike back. "Why was she sent to the Winter Wing?" The maid struggled. "Because she was jealous of the Empress and killed the child in Her Majesty's womb. His Majesty didn't even send her poisoned wine. That was mercy." Footsteps thundered through the gate. Several guards rushed into the courtyard. Their captain drew his sword. "Lady Elara, release her and kneel for punishment." The maid was brave again in an instant. With her free hand, she grabbed my hair. "A deposed consort, laying hands on me? I'll ruin that face for Her Majesty myself." She tore a hairpin loose and drove it at my eye. That was when I smiled. I tilted my head aside, took the pin out of her hand, and put her face-first into the mud. "You like stepping on things?" I planted my boot between her shoulder blades. "Then stay down a while." I took Elara's bracelet off her wrist. Then I caught her by the chin and turned her toward the fallen plaque. "Clean it with your tongue." Her eyes widened. "Leave one patch of mud and I take a tooth." She shook her head violently. I kicked a front tooth loose. "I don't like saying things twice." The captain charged. I stepped aside, broke his sword wrist, then drove the hilt into the back of his knee. He dropped. I forced him down beside the maid. "She cleans it with her tongue." I pressed his face to the stone. "You use your face." He cursed at me. "His Majesty will never forgive this!" I leaned slowly into my boot until the rough stone scraped his cheek raw. Only then did he go quiet. I crouched beside him. "Good." Then I smiled. "Now tell me where my sister is." Chapter 2 "The Winter Wing," the captain said through clenched teeth. I ground his face against the stone again. "A liar doesn't have much use for a tongue." His courage collapsed. "She disappeared three days ago." His voice shook. "His Majesty ordered the matter sealed so it wouldn't disrupt the coronation." Three days ago, pain had ripped me out of sleep. Elara hadn't simply walked out of the palace on her own feet. I picked up the fallen sword and touched its edge to the maid's cheek. "Who saw her last?" "Harriet Greaves." The maid started sobbing. "She took people down to the Winter Wing to question her." Harriet Greaves arrived before I had to go looking. She came through the courtyard gate with servants and guards behind her, a long barbed whip in one hand. Three years ago, that woman had knelt in front of me and sworn she'd protect Elara with her life. Now she wore Elara's pearl hairpin and a robe cut from silk out of my sister's dowry. The moment she saw me, she swung the whip. "Lady Elara! You dare touch the Empress's people?" I moved aside. The lash shattered a flowerpot behind me. Greaves laughed. "Kneel. Hold out your hands. Today I'll teach you the manners Her Majesty should've beaten into you long ago." My eyes stayed on the pearl pin. "Rosalind gave you that?" She touched it proudly. "Not just the jewelry. His Majesty took your dowry vault too. It all belongs to the Empress now." "And the Shadow Guard?" Her satisfaction deepened. "Lord and Lady Ashbourne got the command seal off you and handed it straight to the Emperor. The traitors who wouldn't submit were killed. The rest scattered." So that was why Elara had been left with nothing and no one. I lowered my eyes. Greaves thought I was frightened. She stepped closer and reached for my hair. "Her Majesty is Lady Ashbourne's own niece. She was lost as a child and suffered for years. Your parents took her in because they owe her. "You wouldn't step aside. Whatever's happened to you since, you brought on yourself." Rosalind was my mother's niece. That explained why my parents had started treating a stranger like blood. It didn't explain why the debt had to be settled with my sister's life. Greaves lifted her boot toward the back of my knee. I looked up. Caught her ankle. And threw her to the ground. Before she could scream, I took the barbed whip from her and looped it around her neck. I dragged her across the courtyard to the stumps where Elara's pear trees had stood. Her expensive silk tore against the stone. "You're insane!" "Am I?" I tied her to a stump, pulled the pearl pin out of her hair, and drove it through her sleeve into the wood so she couldn't move. "You wear Elara's clothes." I lifted the whip. "You wear her jewelry. "And you use the same punishment that was used on her." I smiled. "You must be very pleased with yourself." The first lash landed. Greaves screamed. Then came the second. "How many lashes did she take?" She refused to answer. I set the whip handle against her knee and forced the joint sideways. Her scream tore across the courtyard. She nearly fainted. I had water thrown in her face. "Don't pass out." My voice stayed gentle. "Miscount by one lash and I'll have a bone broken and set again before we go on." That finished her. "A hundred and twenty-seven!" She sobbed so hard she could barely get the words out. "His Majesty and the Empress ordered it. I only did what I was told." I smiled. "A hundred and twenty-seven." I let the number settle. "I'll remember it." Then I raised the whip again. "Ten of them come back to you today. The rest we'll settle slowly." A palace herald shouted from beyond the gate. "His Imperial Majesty arrives!" Chapter 3 Lucien came through the gate of Moonrest Palace and stopped when he saw Harriet Greaves tied to the stump. His expression darkened. "Elara. Who gave you permission to touch the Empress's servant?" I struck Greaves again while he watched. She screamed. "Your Majesty, save me!" Lucien stepped between us and reached for the whip. "Let go." I looked at him. "Elara's been missing for three days. "Instead of looking for her, you're busy crowning another woman?" Impatience flashed across his face. "What are you playing at now? "Three days ago you hurt your guards and got out of the Winter Wing. Now you come back pretending you were missing, so I'll pity you?" I almost laughed. He still hadn't realized I wasn't Elara. My sister and I had identical faces. Everything else about us was different. He said he loved her. And another woman could stand in front of him wearing her face, and he saw nothing. Lucien mistook my silence for guilt. His voice softened. "Go back to the Winter Wing. Leave Rosalind alone and I'll forgive what happened here today." "She took Elara's place." I tilted my head. "And you're telling me not to hurt her?" His expression chilled. "Rosalind never took anything from you. She saved my life once. She carried my child." His voice sharpened. "You were jealous enough to push her off a terrace and kill it." The moment the words left his mouth, pain stabbed through my right arm. White-hot. Deep enough that it felt like heated iron being driven into the bone. Last night it had been both legs. Now the right arm. Elara and I had shared pain since birth. My sister was alive. And someone was working on her right now. I turned toward the depths of the palace. The closer I'd come to the palace, the clearer the pain had grown. She was still here. Lucien noticed the movement. His mouth twisted. "Pretending to hurt again? "You cut your wrists once to make me come back to you. You think that still works?" I turned my head slowly. "She cut her wrists because of you?" Before he could answer, a woman's voice came through the gate. "Your Majesty. "Please don't say any more." Rosalind Vale walked in wearing the Empress's ceremonial robes. The nine-plume phoenix pin in her hair had been Elara's on her wedding day. The instant Rosalind saw me, alarm flashed across her face. Then it turned into practiced grief. "Elara, I know you hate me. "But feeling can't be forced. Why won't you let me alone?" I looked at her. "The wound in my sister's right arm. "Did you do that?" Rosalind's face changed for half a heartbeat. Then her eyes filled. "I don't know what you're talking about." She lifted one wrist so I couldn't miss it. A gold locket hung from the bracelet. Our grandmother had commissioned two matching lockets when Elara and I were born. I held out my hand. "Take it off." Rosalind slipped behind Lucien. "Aunt Cordelia gave it to me." She sounded wounded. "She said I'd suffered enough growing up, and half of what House Ashbourne owns should be mine too." I smiled. "So she split Elara's husband with you as well?" Rosalind cried harder. "I lost a child because of you. "And now you want even the little things your mother gives me?" Lucien stepped in front of her. "Mara, touch the Empress again and I'll have the tendons in your hands cut." Rosalind, with him standing over her, stopped pretending. "The deposed woman has insulted me." She pointed at me. "Twenty across the mouth. Then put her on her knees and make her carry my crown back to Aurelia Palace." Two maids caught my shoulders. Rosalind walked over and slapped me herself. I let the first one land. Confidence filled her face. Then she leaned close to my ear. "Elara, your sister is dead. Even your parents belong to me now." Her whisper was almost delighted. "Who exactly do you think is coming for you?" I turned my face slowly back toward hers. "Finished?" She blinked. I drove my forehead into her nose. While she screamed and stumbled back, I caught her wrist and pinned the locket and its chain to the table with the broken hairpin. Blood ran down her arm. I kicked the maids away. Then I took Rosalind by the hair and pushed her face into a copper tray of rouge. "You like Elara's things?" I forced the phoenix crown onto her head. "Then wear it properly." I stepped on her skirt and put her down on her knees in the broken porcelain. "Let it fall once and I take a fingernail." Rosalind screamed for Lucien. I put my boot on the Emperor's hand and dragged his palm back and forth across the barbed whip. "Don't rush." I looked at the Emperor and his new Empress. "Nobody here is being left out." A furious voice erupted at the palace gate. "Stop! "Who gave you leave to touch Rosalind?" Chapter 4 My mother rushed into the courtyard. She pulled Rosalind off the broken porcelain and held her like a wounded child. "Rosalind. Where are you hurt?" Rosalind threw herself into her arms. "Aunt Cordelia, she was going to cripple my hand." My mother turned and slapped me. Hard. "Rosalind spent her whole childhood lost from us and suffered more than you can imagine. We took her in because we owe her. What's wrong with giving her a little more?" I tasted blood at the corner of my mouth and licked it away. "That one was on her account?" Mother's expression stayed cold. "And if it was?" I nodded. "Noted." My father stepped toward me. "Release His Majesty. Kneel and beg the Empress's pardon." "And if I don't?" His voice turned hard. "Then House Ashbourne casts you out. From this moment, whether you live or die is nothing to us." I laughed. "When you took the Shadow Guard seal, it wasn't nothing to you. "When you emptied her dowry vault, it wasn't nothing to you either." Father's eyes shifted. Then he forced the anger back into his face. "The Shadow Guard were Mara's rebels. She was cruel and dangerous. She deserved what she got." Mother pointed at me. "If your sister were alive, even she'd be ashamed to see you attacking the Empress." My smile grew. So I'd deserved it. They'd cried very differently three years ago, on their knees, begging me to disappear. Rosalind, with both of them beside her, found her nerve again. "If you kneel and admit what you've done, I'll ask His Majesty to spare your life." She sniffed delicately. "I'll even have the Winter Wing repaired so you don't freeze or starve." I looked at her bleeding knees. "Didn't kneeling suit you the first time?" Her face went white. She ducked behind my mother. Mother snatched up the whip and struck at me. This time I caught it. One pull sent her stumbling forward. I wound the whip around her wrists and tied her to the leg of the table. Father charged. I kicked a heavy stool over onto his foot and leaned down slowly with my boot. His face went gray. I smiled at him. "Before you throw me out of the family, Father, you should settle what you owe." Lucien shouted to the guards. "Cut the tendons in her hands." More than a dozen soldiers drew their swords. I let go of the whip. Then I bent and picked up a long blade. Rosalind smirked from behind my mother. "Without House Ashbourne behind you, you're nothing." I ignored her. I turned the sword once in my palm. A second time. On the third turn, I ran my thumb slowly along the flat of the blade. It was a habit. A very old one. When Elara and I were children, someone pushed her into an iced-over lake on purpose. I'd turned a blade three times exactly like this, and then broken that person's arms and legs one at a time while our parents watched. My mother's anger went out like a candle. The color drained from her face. Father forgot the pain in his foot and stumbled backward. I walked toward them with the sword hanging loose at my side. "Father. "Mother." My voice was almost affectionate. "Three years is a long time." I stopped in front of them. "Did you miss me?" Neither of them answered. I smiled. "Then maybe one of you can finally tell me—where is my sister?"