Queen Rising by Danielle Paige

1
    In the beginning there were two of them. A sister and a brother who did not always like each other but would die for one another if it came down to it. They lived in Algid, in a home with parents who did not want them or care about them. They were a burden, a place for their parents to lay their anger—and sometimes their hands. The girl’s name was Margot. The boy’s was Goddard. Margot called him Go. She tried to shield Go because he was smaller, because he was younger, because he somehow always managed to find the creak in the floor or the exact thing to say to set off the powder keg that was their father or the battalion that was their mother.
    But one day, the powder keg disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving them alone with her. And the mother made a decision. She woke them up and took them outside. At first the girl believed that perhaps this was some kind of lesson. Some kind of punishment that was really her mother’s way of dealing with her father’s absence. But when they arrived at the palace, the girl knew this wasn’t a punishment. This was a chance at freedom.
    Margot had tried to talk Go out of loving their mother. But Go was so very young—Margot thought there was a world of difference between being four and being seven—and it was like trying to teach the North Lights not to glow in the sky. Part of her was almost grateful for today because today he would stop wanting to be their mother’s son. Today their mother would finally do something unforgivable. Today she was selling them—her own children—to the palace.
    It was the monthly Havening, a day when families could trade their young for coins. It wasn’t as harsh as it sounded; there had been too many abandoned children left to the streets or the woods in Algid. This was better. The children could find a place in the palace. To live and work, and their families could get back on their feet. Very few families returned for their children. Margot was quite certain her mother would never come back for them.
    If they were lucky they would wind up apprenticed to the house servants. But they had never been lucky, and they were not the most attractive of children. They would probably end up in the fields. It was still better than what they were leaving behind. Margot would rather give up her freedom and live under the King’s rule than be her mother’s daughter for one more day. And she believed that in time her brother would feel the same . . . just maybe not right away.
    Go’s face was lit up by the Lights but also with the excitement of seeing the palace. Children were lined up with their parents in the courtyard. There was a balcony above, where the King and his son sat watching the action, as if it were some kind of sporting match instead of the buying and selling of children. Little Prince Lazar looked to be about Go’s age, only he was stuffed into a stiff, royal suit. The heavily embroidered blue silk suit was so closely tailored that he had little room to move his arms. He managed to raise one and point it in Go’s direction.
    An older man, a soldier apparently in charge of the proceedings, followed the Prince’s finger. He nodded at Go, and looked at their mother. “We’ll take the boy. Leave with the girl.”
    Margot’s brother clutched her hand, oblivious, as her insides swirled and sank.
    â€œLucky boy. He’s going to be a companion for the King’s son, so I will give you double,” the man said.
    Margot had heard rumors about the Prince who never left the castle and never went to school. But she did not know what to make of him. She also didn’t know that the King was in the habit of buying him companions.
    It had never occurred to her that she and Go could be separated. She knew her mother was cruel and her father was gone. But she did not know that the world had another blow ready for her. She had never imagined this.
    She looked at