I should have introduced myself before. Maybe Brother Dime would have spoken for me, stood up to the High Priest, if I’d bothered to learn his name. “Mae is to be the Turan queen,” Father said. “It cannot be Odessa. She is not capable.” Ouch. Okay, so I wasn’t the chosen daughter, but was the idea of me as a queen really so inconceivable? Not that I wanted to be queen. At. All. “Oh, gods.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples, rubbing at the ache blooming in my skull. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. Brother Dime walked toward me, his nearness making the throb in my head worse. My
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