OPHELIA

AT SOME POINT, I must fall asleep, because I awake again to the sound of my father's stern voice. "Ophelia."

His face is hard, painfully so, no trace of his pride left to soften the harsh lines that separate him from a man that perhaps I could love.
My sisters, on the other hand, have not slept, I doubt they even managed a few moments of rest last night. And though their faces are painted into two perfect portraits of femininity, I can see the momentary lapses in their concentration, allowing insomnia to seep through. I see it in their sorry shoulders, in the way Ascella's eyes can't quite seem to focus on what's in front of her.

This time when I push past my sisters to look out the window the sight has transformed. Previously the ground so dry it cracked and squat, pale sandstone houses left a sour taste in my mouth, as if the heat had stolen what little soften the land had once owned. A land so far removed from that I had once called home.
This landscape, however, is lush; boundless. Palms, cypress, and evergreen. Though the sudden influx of new life seemed odd given the context, how had it survived the same heat that had killed the life of the lower land?
Something felt off; unnatural — even the air itself seemed sickly sweet, though with a distinct undertone of something metallic, something sharp; cutting.
— Something like blood.

"Do you smell that?" I ask, addressing nobody in particular, and to my surprise, Andromeda is the one to answer, "It's Reaping week, there are tales that the rivers run red by the crows' feast during this time. Shepards cull their prized lambs, farmers their best cows." She says dryly. "I thought that's all they were... Tales."

"But why? It makes no sense," I say, "Surely their stock is worth more to the King alive?  — That way he may gather milk and breed from it. Dead meat lasts a moon, a good cow may bear many calves for years to come."

"The Spartan King cares little for what you give him," My father's voice comes unexpectedly, " — Only what he can take from you."

Andromeda's face is grim as if the horrible realisation of just what befalls us has finally hit her. This will not be the fairytale life of love and joy that she dreamed it to be.

Her horror should satisfy me, but it doesn't. Instead, I feel just as sick as she looks. Despite being the eldest, Andromeda is still the most naive, foolish even. She believes her father, trusts him with her life, maybe even believes that he would never put his pride before the happiness of his daughters — and that is exactly what makes her a fool.

She may scold me for my callousness at times, but at least I am no one's fool. I know my father, which is why I could never love him, not truly.
Though I do love him in some small, insignificant way, for he is my blood, but that is it.

It is not the kind of love poets write sonnets about. Nor is it the same love men war for. I would not die for any man's love, ever. Least of all my father's.

I love few things in this world, and only three I am certain of.
I love Ascella — for who could not.
I love Andromeda, almost as much as I hate her. She's still my sister, my blood, and unlike my father, I know she would not go out of her way to feed me to the wolves.
And lastly, I love the fruit born from the tree that was once my mother's joy. I love the scarlet, I love the stains, I love the bitter taste. I love that it reminds me of the woman I never met.

Suddenly, as if the sun has been plucked from the sky, the world plunges into blackness. "What happened?" I ask, trying to hide my panic.

Father answers, striking a flint from his pocket which sparks a small flame and using it to light an oil lamp that hangs from the ceiling between us. "We are in the belly of the palace."

The carriage stops and Ascella clasps my hand as if I am the last thing anchoring her to this mortal realm. The door is forced open, and for a few moments, my father exchanges words with men that I cannot see. Their voices are hushed so that I cannot make out the words, yet I can still feel the low bass of them. These men speak with a thick accent, curling their letters as if they were weapons, and forcing them through my chest as I realise with a stabbing pain — that I've never felt so far from home.

***
Sorry for the short chapter, the next is coming ASAP — and after that, TLOA updates should become more frequent as the main story begins!